Vinyl MP3s In Traktor

[Tobias Enstrom]

Hi,

Has anyone found that when you import your vinyl collection in to Traktor (once you've converted them to MP3 before anyone comments) they drift out of time when you beat grid them?

Is this more to do with what deck you use or this is a 'flaw' of vinyl?

If you find they don't, what deck are you using?

[Mephs]

I get minor drift in Serato too all the time, but I'd -think- if you're beat-gridding them (is that Traktor's name for sync?)

It could be the vinyl, does the drift happen on a specific table only? If you switch the vinyl timecodes does the drift happen on the other track? (Use a double of the same song to make this easier to identify)

Is your needle dirty?

Is the vinyl record dirty?

Any of these could possibly cause some drift if you're in a Relative mode of sorts

I've never used Traktor but I imagine it's similar to Serato in those regards.

[Skasja]

Are these digital or analog era recordings? I've noticed it mostly with old disco and reggae vinyls. Another reason to practice beatmatching and not rely on sync :)

Edited to add, if the drift is linear and constant, you can stretch your mp3 to a constant bpm in your DAW. There's also a tutorial on the NI site on how to accomplish this by re-recording the track in Traktor while listening to the metronome tick and tapping/adjusting the speed of your running track to match.

Edit 2: if you intend to stretch the track in a DAW, make sure to re-record it in wav, flac or other non-lossy format before editing. You'll lose some dynamic range and sound quality otherwise.

[Manu]

Wow and flutter, people used to deal with this using their ears and beatmatching skills. Quicker and more efficient than having to "beat grid" everything.

[Tobias Enstrom]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not familiar with the workings of Serato. In Traktor you set the beat grid so when you hit sync (if you so wish), bam! all your tracks stay solid in time. In the picture, the white lines are the beat grid. http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/2200/thrillerh.jpg

Needles are clean, records are clean, admittedly the deck is entry level (but direct drive) and is about 10 years old.

Skasja,

The oldest record I have goes back to '93 so i'm guessing digital.

I started off on Vinyl, added CD later and now use Traktor as well but damn sync can be handy. :)

Can you do that MP3 stretch thing in Logic? I'll have a Google and see what I find.

[Manu]

Can you do that MP3 stretch thing in Logic? I'll have a Google and see what I find.

Yes, but send an mp3 into Logic and it will reconvert to aiff, you'll lose a generation in the process and the sound quality will suffer. As in vinyl to wav to mp3 to aiff back to mp3. Not recommended, try to mess around with original or higher generation lossless files.

Again, beatmatching manually is a lot less hassle, and zero time spent fiddling around.



Needles are clean, records are clean, admittedly the deck is entry level (but direct drive) and is about 10 years old.


That doesn't say much, as an example numarks TT 1625 are entry level direct drives, but the wow and flutter on them is horrendous, they just seem to float about no matter what you do.

[Tobias Enstrom]

I'm using a Gemini PT1000 deck.

Edit: Looking in the manual the wow/flutter is supposedly 0.01% Looking at the top Hanpin one it's 0.1% so I would be worse off buying a £400 deck.

[Skasja]

In your picture, I see a grid marker around 4:00. Another workaround I use is to add grid markers at several points in the track, where I expect my transitions to be (e.g start of chorus, and near the start of the outro - depends on the song) and average the BPM to coincide with the mixable parts. This at least gives me some options to create a usable 8 loop.

[Adzm00]

Re-record it and warp it. Otherwise just don't use sync? Unless you can't, then do the warping thing.

Will probably take ages though.

[DJ Difficult]

And if you orginal records were 45rpm the wow & flutter will be bigger.
This is one reason why playing with real vinyl teaches more than any digital media. You have to constantly focus on those beats. Even if both records are at absolutely same speed, they will eventually start drifting.

[Tobias Enstrom]

I've tried correcting the tempo but as you say its rather labour intensive.

I use CDJ350's as the controller for Traktor and find the pitch control only changes a minimum of 1 to 2%. For example if I set the tempo range to 8% the pitch control will move +/- 1,3,4,5,7,etc. Even when I change the sensitivity and progressivenessnessnesss it's still that % change. Thus not making my mixing very tight when I need to be say at BPM134.62 but can only get 134.68 or 134.50

If I had the choice I would play vinyl or CD only but record companies force me into getting MP3s as that's the only format they release tracks in.:argh: and Traktor makes it a lot easier to organise, view and manipulate than the 350 or Rekordbox.

Rant over :)

[Finnish_Fox]

Ride the pitch.

[DJ Difficult]

Cover those bpm readouts and use your ears.
Practice. ..practice. ...practice.

[Skasja]

For example if I set the tempo range to 8% the pitch control will move +/- 1,3,4,5,7,etc.

Those intervals sound ridiculously high. Are they mapped to analog faders or buttons? If so, I would check my .tsi mapping to see if it can be corrected.

[DJ ATX]

Two possible causes of this.


- Turntable have flutter, can't be helped. Quarts turntable like the Technics 1200 can minimize this subtantially but only if they are properly calibrated.

- Song that were made with real instruments will not have a constant BPM. A person playing drums is not a robot. He could start at 128 BPM at the beginning and be at 125BPM in the middle of the track cause got tired and tried to finish strong in the end at 129BPM. This is where us old DJs when mixing back in the 80's and early 90's would just ride the pitch, and/or nudge the platters.


Both can be easily remedied by not beatgriding your tracks and just beatmatch by ear. Ride the pitch. WAYYYY more fun to mix that way in my opinion. I always break out the old 80's vinyl whenever I want to really MIX.

[Tobias Enstrom]

I'm still a relative newb to Traktor Skasja.
I've gone into control manager and looked for 'tempo fader' as thats what tooltips calls it. It's not listed there so I fiddled around with tempo range selector but it didn't appear to do much if anything.
What should I be looking for?

[Skasja]

The tempo range selector will set the min/max relative change % when moving the fader all the way up or down. I have mine set at 8% - this should give you smaller intervals, but you stated that yor intervals are still 1/3/5/7 etc... To me that's huge.

This is what I was referring to, your MIDI mappings:

1. fader
http://i.imgur.com/ZZiUnEX.png

2. button (there are two mappings for each deck: inc and dec)
http://i.imgur.com/M3lImmU.png


The fader is a direct assignment, meaning that a signal is sent to Traktor that represents the position of the fader (analog)

The button tells Traktor to increase or decrease the (virtual) fader value with a certain increment step. This increment can be set by tweaking the resolution field.

[Tobias Enstrom]

Thanks Skasja! :D

A lot more control over the % range. sort of.

Your pictures show a slightly different names to mine (i'm using mac). I've gone into Tempo Adjust on mine as thats the closest thing to Tempo. When I change to button I can't see 2 rows for deck A and two rows for deck B (inc & dec). I only have 4 rows of Tempo adjust (A,B,C,D).
I have 14 rows of tempo range Selector for all four decks (A,B,C,D).

I've tried creating another tempo adjust for the dec but that doesn't work either as another IN or an OUT.

All I can do at the moment is increase the tempo even if I move the fader down on my 350.

[Skasja]

Ok, pulled up a pic of your CDJ350's to have a better idea of what options you might have...

http://static.bax-shop.nl/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/Pioneer_CDJ_350_tabletop_CD_USB_speler_2.jpg

Looks to me like a regular analog fader on the right - so I would not expect you to have a button assignment mapping at all. I think the 8% setting is just about all that you can do. Because it's a direct control, you only need one mapping for each deck.

Add: What does that tempo range button do?

Add 2 - have you seen this link? http://pioneer.jp/support/download/dj-e/cdj-350/midimap_download.html

[CountElectrfique]

For those, who are bitching about sync: if you're using Traktor, you should beatgrid tracks even if you're not using sync if you want all Traktor features to work properly. Effects, loops, cue points and lots of other things are based on beatgrids

[Tobias Enstrom]

Not a lot when I change the settings. When I highlight the top one, the other 13 are highlighted at the same time. They all show direct.

That link is the file i'm using.

I'm not really any further forward. :( Thanks for all the help and suggestions, I'll see what the NI forum has to offer. I maybe be asking the impossible.

[kick6]

I get minor drift in Serato too all the time, but I'd -think- if you're beat-gridding them (is that Traktor's name for sync?)

a beatgrid is the marking of the track that enables sync. You litereally set a grid that tells traktor where every beat is. ACtually traktor does this autmoatically, but sometimes they need adjsutment.