Vinyl digitisation beatgrid & additional Remote USB Controller

Daf-T

Hi Native Instrumentalists,

I have a couple of question for the community:

1. I have many tracks I've digitised via my indirect-drive Ariston Q-Deck, which subsequently appear to have slightly elastic adherence to any metronomic timing pulse (like Traktor's beatgrid metronome). This means that when Traktor has analysed the track, calculated the BPM and imposed a beatgrid, the beatgrid doesn't stay in-time for the duratuion of the track, often going out after 30+ seconds. Even when I scroll to the very end of the track and stretch the beatgrid to match again, when I look at the middle, the grid is totally off.
   
   Clearly my record deck, although speed-tuned to be as close to the correct RPM as possible (via a strobe platter & vari-speed controller), as it wasn't crystal-locked like a direct-drive, has varied its speed very slightly during the track.
   Now I was under the assumption that Traktor was very clever, and that during its analysis of any track, it would see where the beats were and ensure the beatgrid timing marker was correctly aligned for EVERY beat throughout the entire track length, thus negating any such timing / speed variance.
   
   I'm now thinking Traktor (Pro 3, at any rate) ISN'T as clever as this, and merely gains an average BPM from its analysis, finds the FIRST beat only, then slaps a beatgrid relating the the averaged BPM across the length of the track, irrelevant of where any actual beats may be within it..!
   
   Am I correct in this analysis (pun intended)?
   
   This means that any vinyl digitisation will never be able to conform to a beatgrid, thus rendering Traktor far less capable than I originally thought it would be.
   
   (As an additional thought to this, I have many lengthy tracks where there are 2 or 3 sections with different tempos, which Traktor apparently can't understand.
   My only option being to cut them into short individual sections..?)
   
2. There are MANY functions of Traktor I want to be able to control via a tactile remote controller (in addition to the Kontrol S2 Mk3), which would be FAR better & ergonomic than any QWERTY keyboard or track-pad.
   
   I bought an AKAI APC Mini USB controller for this exact purpose.
   
   But when I came to the Controller Manager page in the Preferences, it only appears to be set up for other DJ controllers or a MIDI controller..!?!
   
   What on Earth is going on here?
   
   Surely in this day & age, there are far more USB interfaces / controllers than there are MIDI remotes!?
   
   Now, I love MIDI, but I've only ever had ONE MIDI remote controller (a Peavey PC-16) which failed many years ago (much to my dismay), so to find that Traktor currently only appears to support MIDI remote controllers is baffling to me.
   
   How do I get Traktor to work with both:
   
   my USB Kontrol S2 Mk3
   AND
   my USB AKAI APC Mini..?

Any thoughts / views / advice would be much appreciated.

(Maybe these issues are dealt with by Traktor Pro 4..?)

Many thanks -

Daf-T

ilove1981

I can answer your Q1: As far I know only Algoriddim Djay Pro actually intelligently analyses tracks and seeks out every transient to create a beatgrid aligned to the actual tempo of a track where timing is loose. Traktor Pro 3 and 4 as well as all other mainstream DJ software (Serato, Rekordbox, VDJ) analyses the entire track and then determines a single BPM for the whole track. Sure, they all allow you to set manual grid markers throughout the track to better track a grid but it's not automatic.

Ripping vinyl is notoriously difficult to do reliably. If you have anything early eighties or before, chances are it was played by a musician without a click track and therefore the BPM wanders all over the place anyway.

Your only real option here is to use a DAW to tidy up your tracks. I use Logic Pro 11 extensively to regrid tracks. Ableton can do this as well. Both have the excellent grid detection you were hoping for in Traktor but even these are not infallible and require manual adjustments to the detected grids.