This problem is really starting to annoy me, I own a pair of CDJ-900 and a CDJ-400.
First things first, I already put my tunes through rekordbox for the CDJ-900 USB, I had to, mainly because it gives me a retarded BPM reading when its not gone through rekordbox.
Right, so this is the issue here, my bpm pitch is �10, that means it goes 1 BPM up when a tune reaches 0.40% increase. But the problem with some tunes regardless of BPM, some go up by 1 when it reaches 0.35%
One thing I realized today was tunes that are below 130 BPM go up 2 BPM up at 1.20%, 130-136 go up 2 BPM up at 1.15% and 138+ go up 2 BPM at 1.10%. At least thats how it is on my CDJ-400.
Does anyone ever have inaccurate BPM readings when using USB's? This never happens with CD's
Posted by EddieZilker on Sep-18-2011 18:41:
Re: BPM issues when mixing with USB's
quote:
Originally posted by Amir_9
One thing I realized today was tunes that are below 130 BPM go up 2 BPM up at 1.20%, 130-136 go up 2 BPM up at 1.15% and 138+ go up 2 BPM at 1.10%. At least thats how it is on my CDJ-400.
Clearly, you're through the looking glass, so there's no point in keeping this problem relating to shoddy craftsmanship much of a secret, any more. For years, songs written in one tempo have been subject to this clearly arbitrary "pitch" adjustment "scheme". Using the pitch fader, in order to increase or decrease the speed of music playing, has relied on relatively little, if any, correlation to the actual tempo of the music. Now that you've blown the lid off of this scandal, maybe these insinuations that the fader is related to the BPM of the song instead of how fast the platter is spinning will finally come to a rest.
The reason they've fooled you into thinking that the pitch relates directly to the tempo is because it affects how quickly the song plays! This is something all the major manufacturers have tried to keep covered up! WHY?!?! Because, if Pioneer made a product where pitch was a static value proportionally related to the tempo of the music their products were playing, no one would ever buy it. Therefore, what Pioneer and numerous other manufacturers have done is to make a product where pitch is a variable proportionally related to the BPM of the music their products are playing!
WHAT ALLOWS THEM TO GET AWAY WITH SUCH PATENTLY FALSE ADVERTISING?
They claim that changing the Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) changes the Beats Per Minute (BPM) of the music playing on their faulty, bad, evil, vile, dangerous products!
It comes down to this disingenuous equation:
CAUTION: Discontinue
trying to figure
this out if you
feel dizzy, light-
headed, nauseous,
or if you develop
a head-ache, and
call your doctor or
poison control
center, immediately.
Tell them you have
been exposed to
beginner's algebra.
You SEE?!? It would have been impossible for them to have made a product where the pitch was a static value because it would never, in a million years, sell! Therefore, they made the BPM a static value while making RPM variable. In so doing, they could use this mathematical mumbo-jumbo to formulate an entirely theoretical new value for the BPM in the readout of these supposedly "accurate" machines.
THE MP3/FLAC SCANDAL!
Back in the old days, DJ's were relegated to how quickly a platter spun in order to change the speed of a record. Tempo was arbitrarily decided by musicians and producers. In order for a DJ to change the speed of the record, he'd have to change the speed of the record player spinning, normally, at 33.5 or 45 revolutions per minute. One would have thought that the advent of portable digital media formats would have released DJ's from using this draconian system of tempo control.
Unfortunately, musicians and producers, to this day are allowed to make completely arbitrary decisions about how quickly their musical events occur in relation to one another. While the platter, spinning at up to 10,350 RPM, on the cd player has been replaced with complex algorithms which track a frame-rate synchronized with a "word-clock" - whatever that means - the DJ is still relegated to controlling a pitch value, intrinsically related to the original tempo of the song. The worst part about frame rate and word-clock is that THEY ARE COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE ORIGINAL TEMPO THE MUSIC WAS RECORDED IN!
SELL THE HOUSE, SELL THE CAR, SELL THE CDJ's, FIND SOMEONE ELSE. FORGET IT. I'M NEVER COMING BACK. FORGET IT.
The end result is that there's no possible way to be sure, unless you play music which is either sixty or even one-hundred twenty beats per minute. With so much music being written in tempos well outside those two values, you'd have to have successfully completed the seventh grade with honors classes or have a tremendously good sense of rhythm to be able to consistently beat-match. It's practically impossible!
Posted by Looney4Clooney on Sep-18-2011 19:08:
the only thing i know about BPM involves my fist and my girlfriend's face.
Posted by Stu Cox on Sep-18-2011 19:28:
Re: Re: BPM issues when mixing with USB's
quote:
Originally posted by EddieZilker
Blah
What the hell are you talking about? Was that actually the biggest dose of sarcasm that anyone's ever laid in a single post, or are you actually off your rocker?
If a tune is 130 bpm... to go up 2 bpm to 132 is 132/130 = 1.015, i.e. +1.5%
If a tune is 140 bpm... to go up 2 bpm to 142 is 142/140 = 1.014, i.e. +1.4%
Simple as that.
Although when using the readouts, there will be a bit of variation, as a tune which says 130 bpm when at 0% could actually be anywhere between 129.5 and 130.5 bpm. Also, the readout will actually tick up to 132 at 131.5 (because it rounds it), so actually a track at '130' could tick up to '132' anywhere between +0.77% and +1.54%.
Similarly, a track at '140' on 0% could tick up to '142' anywhere between +0.71% and +1.43%.
So the numbers you've quoted are well within those bands.
The way it's implemented doesn't make any difference. And the revolution speed of a CD varies between 200 and 500 RPM, no idea where you got 10,350 RPM from.
Posted by EddieZilker on Sep-18-2011 19:36:
Re: Re: Re: BPM issues when mixing with USB's
quote:
Originally posted by Stu Cox
What the hell are you talking about? Was that actually the biggest dose of sarcasm that anyone's ever laid in a single post, or are you actually off your rocker?
If a tune is 130 bpm... to go up 2 bpm to 132 is 132/130 = 1.015, i.e. +1.5%
If a tune is 140 bpm... to go up 2 bpm to 142 is 142/140 = 1.014, i.e. +1.4%
Simple as that.
Although when using the readouts, there will be a bit of variation, as a tune which says 130 bpm when at 0% could actually be anywhere between 129.5 and 130.5 bpm. Also, the readout will actually tick up to 132 at 131.5 (because it rounds it), so actually a track at '130' could tick up to '132' anywhere between +0.77% and +1.54%.
Similarly, a track at '140' on 0% could tick up to '142' anywhere between +0.71% and +1.43%.
So the numbers you've quoted are well within those bands.
The way it's implemented doesn't make any difference. And the revolution speed of a CD varies between 200 and 500 RPM, no idea where you got 10,350 RPM from.
Me, sarcastic?
Posted by Amir_9 on Sep-18-2011 19:44:
Re: Re: Re: BPM issues when mixing with USB's
quote:
Originally posted by Stu Cox
Although when using the readouts, there will be a bit of variation, as a tune which says 130 bpm when at 0% could actually be anywhere between 129.5 and 130.5 bpm. Also, the readout will actually tick up to 132 at 131.5 (because it rounds it), so actually a track at '130' could tick up to '132' anywhere between +0.77% and +1.54%.
Similarly, a track at '140' on 0% could tick up to '142' anywhere between +0.71% and +1.43%.
So the numbers you've quoted are well within those bands.
The way it's implemented doesn't make any difference. And the revolution speed of a CD varies between 200 and 500 RPM, no idea where you got 10,350 RPM from.
The rounding off bit I'm aware of already, same goes with tracks that are 129.5 or 130.5 as you mentioned, as I already get the exact BPM of a track when I look for its key as well.
One thing is, I've never had problems with wrong BPM readings when using CD's. While the mistakes with USB's are minimal, they effect me either way, the two tracks will start off beatmatched just fine before they start to drift off.
At �10 anyway, a 128 BPM track will get to 130 at 1.20% on the CDJ-400, but on my CDJ-900 that same track will end up at 130 on 1.10% or 1.15% sometimes, oddly enough the CDJ-400 gives the right BPM reading, when the rekordbox sync'd tunes on a newer product gives me the wrong reading.
Posted by Stu Cox on Sep-18-2011 19:58:
Alright, you can have that one Posted by EddieZilker on Sep-18-2011 20:08:
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BPM issues when mixing with USB's
quote:
Originally posted by Stu Cox
Alright, you can have that one
I can already see the headlines as the DJ and a few onlookers are injured when an optical drive shatters at a warehouse party, but you can see for yourself how dangerous these products really are.
Posted by idoru on Sep-18-2011 20:31:
Solution:
Posted by Amir_9 on Sep-18-2011 20:47:
Took this video before I found out about rekordbox.
It looks like a difference in calculation related to the pitch-range of the fader. If you have one fader which raises the pitch � one octave but the other raises pitch � two octaves, you're going to see a difference in the percentage the faders related to the effect of their range.
CDJ 400 Tempo Control: Four tempo modes, �6%, �10%, �16% and WIDE, provide additional speed control with a resolution of 0.02% in the 6% range.
The CDJ 900's web-material doesn't talk about tempo control or even what range the pitch control sits in. If it's � one octave and the percentage you're seeing is a calculation off of a change you're making within that range, you may always see a difference in the percent change from one unit to another.
Posted by SYSTEM-J on Sep-20-2011 14:42:
Re: BPM issues when mixing with USB's
quote:
Originally posted by Amir_9
Right, so this is the issue here, my bpm pitch is �10, that means it goes 1 BPM up when a tune reaches 0.40% increase. But the problem with some tunes regardless of BPM, some go up by 1 when it reaches 0.35%
Erm... the 10 in �10 is 10%, not 10bpm. I've no idea why you're getting a discrepency between decks, because your calculations should always be equally wrong. I can only think that one of the decks has inferior pitch resolution.
Posted by Stu Cox on Sep-20-2011 21:09:
The 400 might just have less accurate BPM calculation of course... if they round the number too much during the calculation, its readout could actually be way out. It's only displayed to 1 bpm anyway which isn't exactly accurate.
I'm not sure why you keep stating that specifically on the +/-10% range it should go up 1 bpm at +0.4% - the relationship between tempo and % change shouldn't (theoretically) have anything to do with the pitch range. 130 bpm +0.4% should always be about 130.5 bpm, on 6% range, 8% range, 10% range, 50% range or 100% range... but larger ranges may suffer from greater inaccuracies.
Posted by Amir_9 on Sep-20-2011 21:57:
I never get this problem with CD's, get accurate readings on both players, tracks that are the same BPM, change together at the same rate on both players.
I'm ticked off because even when tracks have gone through rekordbox, two versions of the same track that are exactly 128 BPM (only an example here) NOT 128.75, NOT 128.50, 128, on the CDJ-400 the BPM goes up by one (estimate, I know its only 128.5 at 0.40%) but on the CDJ-900 that same track, that is exactly 128 BPM goes changes at 0.35%, so I have to put it on 0.40% for the tracks to stay beatmatched.
Posted by EddieZilker on Sep-20-2011 22:08:
quote:
Originally posted by Amir_9
I never get this problem with CD's, get accurate readings on both players, tracks that are the same BPM, change together at the same rate on both players.
I'm ticked off because even when tracks have gone through rekordbox, two versions of the same track that are exactly 128 BPM (only an example here) NOT 128.75, NOT 128.50, 128, on the CDJ-400 the BPM goes up by one (estimate, I know its only 128.5 at 0.40%) but on the CDJ-900 that same track, that is exactly 128 BPM goes changes at 0.35%, so I have to put it on 0.40% for the tracks to stay beatmatched.
What are your pitch range settings for each unit? If one is set to � 6 and the other is set to �10/16/100, you're going to see some discrepancies.
Pitch resolutions are 0.02 at 6%, 0.05 for 10%/16% and 0.5% for 100%, as on the CDJ-1000 and CDJ-2000.
Originally posted by EddieZilker
What are your pitch range settings for each unit? If one is set to � 6 and the other is set to �10/16/100, you're going to see some discrepancies.
Pitch resolutions are 0.02 at 6%, 0.05 for 10%/16% and 0.5% for 100%, as on the CDJ-1000 and CDJ-2000.
They are both are �10. And I know its 0.05 for 10%/16%. Thats fine.
With that out of the way. Anything that is under 130 BPM will get the reader on CDJ-900 to show it increased by 1 (as an estimate I know) at 0.40% Increased by 2 at 1.15% (on the CDJ-400 this happens at 1.20%)
If its 130-142 the reader shows its gone 1 up (as an estimate I know)at 0.35%.
I know theres calculations to it and what not, I should depend on my ear and not what the reader says, but its unreliable with USB's.
Posted by EddieZilker on Sep-20-2011 22:37:
I can't find anything that accounts for that discrepancy, anywhere. It seems like the difference should be related to a setting on one of the units or the type of file you're using for playback - something - but if you're playing two songs off of two different CD's that are at the same tempo, and still getting the same weird results, I don't know what to tell you.
Posted by Amir_9 on Sep-20-2011 22:41:
I can't get any help from Pioneer either.
Heres an example, a 129 BPM tune, just did this few minutes ago, at �10 it went to 130 on the counter at 0.35%. (CDJ-900)
On the CDJ-400 it went to 130 on the reader at 0.40%.
This means if I actually want them to stay beatmatched, I have to have both of them on 0.35% or 0.40%. does not sound like a problem right?
But this gets tedious when I want to mix tunes that have 2-3 BPM difference give or take. But thats not the bbiggest problem either, small difference, easy to pitch bend for the transition period.
But when mixing the likes of house or any music that has long breaks without kickdrums in its intro then a kickdrum suddenly, THEN this is a problem.
Posted by Zyklon_Jay on Sep-21-2011 00:04:
use ears not counters.
put tape on the display to hide it.
practice.
profit.
Posted by Amir_9 on Sep-21-2011 01:05:
quote:
Originally posted by Zyklon_Jay
use ears not counters.
put tape on the display to hide it.
practice.
profit.
I know how to beatmatch two tunes, when they are both the same BPM it takes a matter of seconds for me to mix them. As I already said, even if its not accurate or there a slight difference as the situation is now, I can pitch bend the faster tunes and its all fine. But this is a huge issue with tunes that have no kickdrum after their break.
When I have the technology there for me that I've paid for, I should expect no less.
Posted by Zyklon_Jay on Sep-21-2011 01:18:
you could buy some skill
I can't imagine what you would do if you started learning 15 years ago.
no offense man, but you just sound like you need to practice more...or use autosync
Posted by SYSTEM-J on Sep-21-2011 06:00:
quote:
Originally posted by Amir_9
I can't get any help from Pioneer either.
Heres an example, a 129 BPM tune, just did this few minutes ago, at �10 it went to 130 on the counter at 0.35%. (CDJ-900)
On the CDJ-400 it went to 130 on the reader at 0.40%.
This means if I actually want them to stay beatmatched, I have to have both of them on 0.35% or 0.40%. does not sound like a problem right?
That's wrong. 129 needs to be pitched up by around 0.8% to get to 130bpm. The counter is obviously unreliable, either at detecting the original BPM or calculating any changes. Try downloading Mixmeister's free BPM analyser (http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp) and running your tracks through it. Compare with what your decks are telling you and report back.
Posted by Zyklon_Jay on Sep-21-2011 06:34:
or you could just ride the pitch until it sounds right.
DJ = not rocket science.
the more you look at numbers on a display, the less time you have to worry about the music. technology is awesome , but I hate it because it makes hacks that don't want to actually learn how to work on the fly feel special.
pussies!
Posted by Fledz on Sep-21-2011 06:34:
There shouldn't be anything wrong with the 400s. I have two, they work fine in standalone mode and with Serato. If they are faulty, get them fixed.
Jay is right anyway, don't rely heavily on BPM counters. Use your ears and adjust as you go. Ride the pitch.
Posted by Stu Cox on Sep-21-2011 06:55:
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
That's wrong. 129 needs to be pitched up by around 0.8% to get to 130bpm.
It would actually tick over from 129 to 130 at 129.5 (the 400 only shows whole bpm), which is about +0.4%, so it is right.
The only reason I can imagine for there being a difference with USB is if it uses a smaller section of audio to calculate the tempo. Reading from USB is faster than CD and USB isn't susceptible to shocks, skips etc so Pioneer may have decided to make the read buffer a lot smaller for USB... if the BPM is calculated using just this buffer, then it could make the result less accurate. But that would be quite a strange design decision to make!
I've never used Rekordbox, but presumably that calculates the tempo in software in advance? Which the 400 can then use, so could be more accurate.
But no, Pioneer have shipped the product now, they're not going to care unfortunately.
Pitch bending for the length of a mix? It does sound like you're making life harder than it needs to be. Get the pitches as accurate as possible by ear (ignoring BPM readouts) before you bring the track in. With the resolution CDJ400s offer, you should barely have to touch the platter or pitch slider during a mix.
I (and probably most other DJs) only really use BPM readouts to get a feel for how fast I'm going. Or maybe when mixing across massive pitch ranges: slowing a track from 125 down to 80 before mixing it with track at that speed - helps to get it in the right ballpark before quickly lining it up by ear - but that's a pretty rare event.
Particularly if the readout's only accurate to 1 bpm! Just using those to match you could be up to about 0.8% out (~130 bpm), which would go out of time in just a few beats.
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