How to reset measure-start in Traktor Pro 4?

jbatson · 2024-07-19T15:02:45+00:00

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Some songs will omit, or add a beat, establishing a new (down)beat for the start of a measure. See attached image for a song where one measure is in 3/4 time at the end of a breakdown, and the 4-beat measure count needs reset to the location indicated by the arrow. Traktor's automatic beatgrid detection fails to understand this.

In TP3 I could designate a cue as "Grid" and it would reset the 4-beat grid to this beat. I would in the image shown designate this cue as a "Grid" cue, and fix the visual indication of 4-beat measures.

However, TP4 no longer offers that setting for a cue. (I'm guessing the new flexible beat grid capabilities apparently demanded removal of that.)

How, then, do I reset the start of a measure to this new downbeat?

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Accepted answers

jbatson

I finally received a reply from N+I about this. I’m copying it here for two reasons: 1) To show that it isn’t, in fact, something that can be done in Traktor 4, and 2) so that whomever here (@mrcee?) knows how to get community support polled for this can help do so.

—

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the explanation.

I have discussed this issue with the development team and unfortunately this functionality isn't currently possible.

I have posted this as a feature request and hopefully it is something the development team will consider including within an update.

If this feature is implemented it will be available within a Traktor update through Native Access. You can see what's included within each update by looking at the change log for the product.

Best regards,

xxx @ NI

—

(Jay again).

Is there some community-available mechanism to post this as a feature request and get "votes" on it?

-jb

All comments

lord-carlos

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/170851#Comment_170851

Can you name a few examples of songs that need more then one beatmarker per bar?

MrCee

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/170851#Comment_170851

Agreed, another reason why I used Blonde's 'Heart of Glass' as an example. It's not just the downbeat or phase in the 3/4 sections, it's a great test example of what we need to work because it encompasses all of the above including the grid markers where you'll need to adjust temporary moments in 4/4 timing, constantly, again and again

PS… I Feel Love (Patrick Cowley Remix)…. I'm not even going to go there. SPLICING wasn't even in time. Shocking. Have removed it from my collection. Delia Derbyshire world have blitz it.

jbatson

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/170898#Comment_170898

What is the N+I team thinking about this after all this discussion? Have you determined a path / UX / … and is a story in the backlog (at least)? Not asking for a time / commitment to deliver - just an acknowledgment that the product / dev team has this on a "real" radar.

saradis

Well maybe on import/first play of a TP3 tagged file, every old grid marker/cue would be treated like it is now, as well as a meter reset, and for files analysed in TP4 we could just have just a button that optionally makes the active grid marker a reset marker as well, or to keep the UI simple until people get accustomed, this button could just be a mappable control. The downbeat markers could be an entirely separate thing as well but that would get too complicated. Thing is, there are tracks that need dozens of grid markers (sometimes not on the downbeat) with no meter change, and the opposite.

Sûlherokhh

The downbeat markers could be an entirely separate thing as well but that would get too complicated.

Not entirely separate and not too complicated. My preference would be that gridmarkers, just like hotcues, come in different types.

Gridmarker
Downbeatmarker (also a gridmarker)

Sûlherokhh

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/171462#Comment_171462

This is my personal assessment:

They absolutely have it on their radar. It's just too important, breaking one of the main features of the Traktor GUI.

Ray Lions

I just spent an hour trying to figure this out on TP4 after upgrading from TP3. If I can't change/fix the grid/downbeat markers, I'm going to look for software that can. This is such a huge oversight and a step backwards. Has there been any update? Fixed?

lord-carlos

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/179716#Comment_179716

No fix yet.

And just to be sure, you can set the downbeat. But you can't have multiple in one track any more.

DJ Bobby Tables

I like the idea of a down beat marker, especially if the first grid marker is automatically a down beat marker. Existing grid markers from Traktor Pro 3 could automatically act as down beat markers to preserve existing functionality.

It would be good if a down beat marker also dictated the time signature e.g default to 4/4 or common time but also allow say 3/4 for example. Then if you had a song in 3/4 you wouldn't need to reset the grid every bar. I know this is probably only going to be used by very few people but since traktor already has to count to 4 beats in a bar, it makes sense that somewhere in the code it knows that 4 beats are in a bar.

The UI could just allow values other than 4 so you could have 2,3,4,5 etc. Any bar that is marked as 4 beats that has a down beat marker after 3 beats would reset with out having to specify 3 beats in that bar if it was a one off within the song which would satisfy the needs of most DJs with songs that just have non 4 beat bars every now and then but mostly 4 beats to the bar.

Another useful idea for the UI as I was confused by this to start with, is when adjusting the bpm between two grid markers where it snaps to a bpm which is a whole number of beats, is to show the number of beats next to the bpm. That way it would be easy to see on longer tempo zones (the part between two grid markers) exactly what is happening. E.g. it might say 33 beats when you know it should be 32 so it would make it easier to visually confirm when you have it correct.

Finally, I don't know if anyone would use this but, say you had a transition track that went from 100bpm to 130bpm steadily over a number of bars, instead of griding each bar, you could specify start and end bpm. Traktor could just treat that section as having lots of implied grid markers where there position is just calculated automatically.

jbatson

Just checking back in on this. I'm really struggling with TP4 wrt this issue.

@Friedemann_NI another issue I'm fighting is when TP4 detects the "wrong" downbeat at the start of a song. Sometimes there is an audio artifact in the digital music file that causes TP4 to read the downbeat a beat earlier than it actually is. If it sets the downbeat a beat-early - e.g. in the "empty space" before the real downbeat - the measure-markers for the entire track is "off by a beat".

Until there's a Beta version I can test (which I'd love to do), is there a way to "fix" this in the existing TP4 release?

TurnedTables

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/170386#Comment_170386

Any update on this? It would be nice to know something is coming down the line and hopefully soon.

jbatson

This bug (inability to reset measure-start) is causing me no end of problems. I'm REALLY hoping they whack this in the next release. @Friedemann_NI Can you state that at least you guys are working on this actively and that it's not buried in the backlog WAY down? This REALLY needs to be a priority for me (presumably others, too).

jbatson

Oh, and while we're waiting, is there any way to set the measure-start at the beginning of a track? At least 1 track out of 12 (once an hour) Traktor sets the measure off by some number of beats (usually 2). (Often there is some kind of audio artifact at the beginning of a song that isn't actually a beat that causes this.) I can't figure out how to reset the measure marker. It's not like the beat markers are off - it's just the measure marker. Once in a while I go to the Grid panel and click a grid marker there, and - unpredictably - it will reset the measure marker. But that works one time out of 20.

I'm lost. Help?

Sûlherokhh

With tracks like that i always delete the original gridmarker and set one 16 beats into the track to get the correct count.

Mikkaelangelo

They could copy Ableton live: set marker 1/1 here and wrap from here.

This lack of being able to set up my starting point for the beatgrid where I want, drives me insane.

Looks like this issue has been going on for a while, without any visible actions from NI to fix/adjust it.

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