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Sujet Beat analyzer, Beat Grid, Sync,etc? - Page: 1

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124dsHome userMember since 2019
Hello
I am just switched to vdj and I got some issues regarding beat grid, bpm and sync
I fairly often have to rearrange the bpm/beat grid after the vdj engine has analyzed the file (experimentalBeatAnalyzer off - worse when switched on).
When arranged, manually settings are sometimes lost after a restart/reload (mostly beat grid, sometimes bpm).
Layout (window size and position) of the BPM Editor often (not always) is lost after rearranging the window
The sync option needs manual correction with platter/jog wheel often within first 8bars. This might be because of incorrect bpm/grid.
But most annoying is the fact that a loop often does not fit to the beat grid. I found out that this is mostly when the (manual set) bpm changes. But it doesn’t matter if the loop start is set after the tempo change or before - it never end at the next bar (according to loop length) except the loop (start-end) is set manually and smart loop is set to off.

I am pretty sure to do things wrong, because otherwise I would find more related posts in the forum. Has anybody an idea?

Thank you, Regards
 

Posté Tue 12 Jan 21 @ 5:37 pm
What kind of genre/music are you playing?

Usually the BPM & grid automatically analyzed is spot on..
And at most perhaps need set downbeat (first beat) only as correction for some songs

And feel free to upload a few to dropbox, google drive or similar if you want..
So we can take a look also..
 

Posté Tue 12 Jan 21 @ 5:49 pm
124dsHome userMember since 2019
Thank you
I wanted to setup an 80ies R&B/Funk/Disco set. I guess for >80% of the tracks I load the grid is not set well and drifted off more as longer as the song played (what might be because of wrong bpm or of tempo changes/varies). Funnily, this is different for two versions of a song e.g. Grace Jones, Pull Up To The Bumper
- Taken from original Album Nightclubbing: Analyzed BPM (108.43). Fairly the best of the following two. Grid is near(almost hits right) the downbeat of bar 9 (after the in). Drifts of at around 1:21 (tempo change?).
- Taken from compilation The Island Life: Analyzed BPM (109,33). Far away in the begining at around a third to a half off after bar 9. Drifts off fast - after 0:30 1 bar (of four) is at the 2 bar.
- Remixed Version: Analyzed BPM (108,67). 1 downbeat marker is at the second beat after the intro. Continuing in beat (but one off) until ~1:56 (tempo change).

But also pretty straight songs are analyzed not very well e.g. Zapp, More Bounce To The Ounce, George Clinton, Atomic Dog. Even worse is Chic, Burn hard.
This is not different for other genres - at least for spot checks I did. Pop and Rock, etc. It seems that this is a bit better for Hip Hip, but there are also many tracks with inaccurate beat grid/tempo.

All of the files I used for tests are from discs ripped to mp3 (many 320kbits/s - unfortunately most 256kbits/s). What bit rate is used commonly for mp3. What file format is used else?

Thank you, Regards
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 9:29 am
AdionPRO InfinityCTOMember since 2006
I had a look at Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Bumper, version found on iDJPool, which was detected as 109,33

The problem is indeed that the tempo is not stable.
At first half it's 108,64 is more accurate and at the last part 109,62 is pretty accurate.
The first few beats seem to be even slower, perhaps it was digitized from vinyl with some startup speed issue.

Anyway, while there is currently no perfect automatic way to detect this in VirtualDJ, you can get pretty close:
-Open the BPM editor (right-click the BPM value on the deck and click Edit, right-click track in browser and select BPM editor, or click the cover art on the deck and select BPM Editor)
-Click the dot right of the BPM value to open the options menu
-Select re-analyze (multiple bpm)

The result for me was accurate most of the first part (except the first few beats where it's starting up) and accurate at the end.
In the middle it was off a bit since it put the change of bpm a little bit too early, but since start and end are usually more important for mixing in/out that might not be too big of a deal.
With the bpm's itself correct it's also easier to adjust the start of the second beat by moving it manually to the correct location if needed.

Perhaps try this with the other songs as well to see if you get better results.
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 11:57 am
124dsHome userMember since 2019
Hi,

Thank you for investigating. And yes - I already did. Surprisingly the result is sometimes different when you try to reanalyze several times in a row.
Thats one thing but I wonder why the result of analyzing Zapp, More Bounce To The Ounce (and others), I mentioned in my post as well, is even worse, because this is very straight regarding tempo and beat.
But the beat grid set by vdj is far away from good and bpm drifts off too - even after 10 times and more (re)analyze runs.

Anyhow thats (reanalyzing and setting up the anchors manually) what I already did and what then leads to the next problem described in my first post:
>> But most annoying is the fact that a loop often does not fit to the beat grid. I found out that this is mostly when the (manual set) bpm changes.
>> But it doesn’t matter if the loop start is set after the tempo change or before - it never ends at the next bar (according to loop length) except the loop (start-end) is set manually and smart loop is set to off. Autoloop never fits regarding smart loop switch.

Thank You, Regards
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 3:48 pm
Not every track can be mixed or looped. I discovered this probably about 30 years ago.

There are some DJs out there that have to "mix" absolutely everything but it's just not practical.
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 4:26 pm
kradcliffe wrote :
Not every track can be mixed or looped. I discovered this probably about 30 years ago.

There are some DJs out there that have to "mix" absolutely everything but it's just not practical.


True Dat
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 4:28 pm
AdionPRO InfinityCTOMember since 2006
For Zapp - Bounce to the Ounce my result was similar. The tempo speeds up a little bit in the middle, but with the Multiple BPM detection it adds a point in the middle and both the beginning and end of the song are then gridded spot-on.

George Clinton - Atomic Dog: same, it changes tempo a little bit somewhere in the middle, but Multiple BPM detection caught it perfectly.

Chic - Burn Hard: For this one the Multiple BPM detection did indeed not catch up automatically on a second bpm point, so while it was spot on at the beginning, it indeed drifted pretty badly at the end.

About the loops, could you post some screenshots perhaps? The loops matched the grid here, so if the grid is right the loops were too.
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 4:32 pm
124dsHome userMember since 2019
Thank you



This is related to tempo changes - but - if I want to set the beat grid accordingly I have to adapt bpm by adding new anchors. What I am doing wrong?
Thank you, Regards
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 5:08 pm
124dsHome userMember since 2019
kradcliffe wrote :
Not every track can be mixed or looped. I discovered this probably about 30 years ago.
There are some DJs out there that have to "mix" absolutely everything but it's just not practical.


Fair enough - *but*
- we are talking about analyzer, tempo and beat grids and loops - no sentence/word about ‚mixing‘
- I am not sure if you know the songs we talked about. But I wonder what would be wrong to mix two 80ies foot stomping classicx with {107,5 BPM, 08B} one and {105,5 BPM, 08B} the other?
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 5:55 pm
AdionPRO InfinityCTOMember since 2006
Regarding the loops, if I understand correctly you are trying to set a loop at a point where the between the start and end of the loop there's an extra beat-grid marker set?
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 6:18 pm
124dsHome userMember since 2019
Hi, not necessary. It is e.g just behind an anchor - means loop stays within the new tempo. Or just before - tempo switch within the loop as you mentioned. But it doesn't matter - in both cases the loop ends before or behind the relevant bar. No matter if smart loop is set.
Thank you, Regards
 

Posté Wed 13 Jan 21 @ 7:02 pm
Warping and analysis lock comes into play, the answer for this whole topic. warping just corrects the human sway before the use of metronomes and digital recording. Very useful but maybe the djs who would appreciate it is not as large.
 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 1:58 am
Adion wrote :
there is currently no perfect automatic way to detect this in VirtualDJ


This is the most important statement in the thread.

BPM detection and setting of grids on old unsteady tracks is an issue for all DJ software, not just VDJ.

DJ software tends to assume that every track has only one BPM and one key, and is in 4/4 time - which is often not the case.

In my opinion the first DJ software to offer accurate detection of unsteady tempos and the ability to correct it (called warping in Ableton Live) will meet with universal praise and approval.
 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 9:30 am
Pretty much what Groovindj said.

Older tracks which in some cases were recorded with a live drummer etc, can sometimes be impossible to get a perfect beat grid.

In those cases where you are trying to mix, it makes better sense to me as a dj that you avoid trying to beat match in those phases of the track. I try to pick the most stable parts to create loops, beat match etc.
Otherwise stick to djing the old fashioned way by riding the pitch control, but even that can result with it sounding unnatural.

One suggestion is try searching for quantized edits of the tracks you are trying to mix if you absolutely must beat match these songs.

Good Luck
Mel
 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 9:44 am
AdionPRO InfinityCTOMember since 2006
This is not the case with the provided examples though. They have several pieces with stable bpm so they are good to use for mixing after using multi bpm analysis.
It will be improved a bit more to detect these changes in more cases
 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 10:00 am
Surely if people want "perfect" tracks to mix with they should get Ableton and warp them permanently. Problem solved?
 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 10:06 am
124dsHome userMember since 2019
groovindj wrote :
Adion wrote :
there is currently no perfect automatic way to detect this in VirtualDJ

Yes, I do agree. But one could try to optimize existing analyzer - I would do if the effort is fair.

groovindj wrote :
In my opinion the first DJ software to offer accurate detection of unsteady tempos and the ability to correct it (called warping in Ableton Live) will meet with universal praise and approval.

And will probably raise market share …

Mr DJ Mel wrote :
In those cases where you are trying to mix, it makes better sense to me as a dj that you avoid trying to beat match in those phases of the track. I try to pick the most stable parts to create loops, beat match etc.

Yes, that is the goal and that's why we set the grid manually. Doing so the track is divided in parts wherein (not crossing anchors) you can loop and mix. Depending on the number of anchors, you could prepare the complete track for mixing - even if the track was recorded with a drunken drummer (rest of the band was not drunken and aligned with beat of the drunken).
That's the theory *but* we had some issues - that is what this thread is about.

Mr DJ Mel wrote :
One suggestion is try searching for quantized edits of the tracks you are trying to mix if you absolutely must beat match these songs.

Yes, thank you, this would solve the issue probably. But the music might sound more boring and replicable. Some songs were sold because of the drunken drummer…

Adion wrote :
It will be improved a bit more to detect these changes in more cases

That would be dope. Also the handling in the BPM Editor could be increased when jumping to next/prev anchor would be supported by e.g. arrow keys or a list like in POI Editor. A shortcut for setting an anchor would be handy as well - or does it already exist? BTW. Why is the BPM editing not integrated in the POI Editor?
Thank you, Regards
 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 1:55 pm
kradcliffe wrote :
get Ableton and warp them permanently


Well yes, this is the solution if you want stable BPMs now - but it's a PITA having to manually import tracks one by one into a separate software, process then save - for every track that might need it.

It would far easier if VDJ simply had a quantise option that would play the tracks 'straightened' if and when required. A simple on/off choice, like using stems.

 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 2:32 pm
AdionPRO InfinityCTOMember since 2006
You can try with Early Access build 6255 from https://www.virtualdj.com/download/build.html
Enable experimentalBeatAnalyzer in settings, then open bpm editor on the track and select Re-Analyze (Multiple BPM's)
The results should be a bit better than in previous build.
 

Posté Thu 14 Jan 21 @ 3:01 pm
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