My Beatport waveform workaround.

zephry

Beatport streaming has a known issue with the analysis and setting a grid.

Even over at Pioneer forum this is a problem.

This is not a Traktor or Windows specific issue.

What happens is the temporary download file is missing a small amount of the transient at the beginning of the track. This causes the grid to have the downbeat (most of the time) 4bars (beats/kicks) in. For people who use phrasing and jumps in tracks, this can cause a bit of a delay in setting up tracks if you don't practice and analyze before your set.

The other less common issue, is it sets the downbeat (gridmarker) at a random spot. This is really bad sometimes, because your track will now (possibly) be offset and sound doubled when it is mixed in.

You can jump back and set another gridmarker, but... do not delete the main one or the grid will be incorrect. And you can't move the grid back any further (when set at the track start) only forward.

Cue points and loops will not work at the track start until the second gridmarker is set. At the beginning.

So, the solution is to set a gridmarker (or leave it.) 4 bars (beats/kicks) in. This is so that your downbeat lines up correctly. And then move back to the beginning and set another marker.

Also, for me, the Automatic settings for analysis in preferences works best. If you find that track has a messed up grid beyond all this...I have found that usually these are tracks that have long or unusual intros, sometimes I skip ahead and set the gridmarker on the first visible drop. After all the various things going on in the beginning.

Or I just find a different track. Some just are not made with a dj in mind sometimes.

Traktor and most analysis finds the kick at the loudest and sets a downbeat style grid for every 4 beats from that point. If for some reason the producer made a track with loud snares or the rumble bass in a techno track is mistaken for the downbeat. The grid might not match other tracks. And of course if it is an older disco or a rock song. Or mostly vocal you will almost always need to set the bpm yourself and do some preparation to line up and practice how to mix that in.

Even if you beatmatch without sync on, the grid is important for fx and visual reference. And the correct bpm.

I apologize for the long explanation, but I hope this helps and brings awareness to questions and confusion over Beatport streaming and grids. Thanks.

zephry

Most of the time, I don't worry about the grid if the marker is 4bars in.

I simply find where I want to mix in and know that the downbeat is correct.

The S4mk3 has a pretty easy grid function, I suggest practicing it, you can set up tracks very quickly once you get used using it.

zephry

Another thing to is uncheck "Store Beatmarker as Hotcue" this will make the beatmarker invisible to your cues.

Most of the beat correction is as I said above. Simply a placing a marker 4 visible beats in. Then beatjump 4 back and add another. If it analyzed and set the marker 4 beats in you should be able to simply add the beatmarker to the start right away with no other issue.

I sometimes jump ahead to a visible area with kicks zoom in and fine adjust the gridmarker to be right at the beginning of the kick transient. Traktor tends to have the grid a bit off. If the transient is off it can cause kicks and loops to sound less sharp. Although this might be more of an audio production issue, Traktor might read or react to the grid differently, things like latency, sync, key correction may have more impact than those small adjustments.

Once the marker is added to the start you can now select and add cues and loops to the track start. And also beatjump from the actual start. Which is very common by 8 16 or 32 bars for quickly mixing at "the good parts".