Apologies in advance if this is an idiotic question. I've found that when both CDJ's have master tempo switched on they will not hold pitch very well. Sometimes I can't get the beats to "lock" on at all

Anyone else ever found this? It's only a problem when BOTH units have the master tempo switched on. I just got into the idea of mixing harmonically so have been using the master tempo quite a bit recently coz of this. Unless I'm missing something obvious it seems odd to me that the master tempo should affect beatmatching so much?

After thinking I was going mad or my units were playing up (2 x CDJ800 mk1), tonight I took my CDJ's round to my buddies & tested everything with identical results (he has 1 x CDJ800 mk1 & 1 x CDJ800 mk2).

Anyone else ever noticed it? Can anyone throw any pointers at me please.

Cheers all

PS One more thing which might be relevant is my mixer is quite unforgiving - very clear sound which seems to highlight anything even the tiniest fraction out (DJM909) but my mate has DJM500 which seems slightly more forgiving.

To speed a track up without changing the pitch, it has to chop little bits of sound out - it tends to do this quite well, but sometimes it'll chop the start of a beat off, or a chunk just before a beat (making the beat sound like it's hitting a bit sooner) which makes it sound like it's not quite in time - but these edits will be balanced, so for every slightly early beat there'll be a slightly late beat, so overall if you've got the tracks at the right pitch they'll stay in time - it just might sound a bit rough along the way.

Unfortunately with the current technology around, this is something we have to live with (the processor power needed to do that kind of processing is phenomenal as it is, to improve that processing it would require even more).

If you're finding it hard getting the tracks matched, try beatmatching with master tempo switched off then turn it on before you mix the track in.

Personally I don't bother with master tempo - I know it takes a bit more thought, but keeping an eye on the tempos of your tracks to make sure it's not pitched too far out (within 3 bpm tends to be a good rule of thumb) to be out of key tends to be the way forward. Ironically, you can only rely on master tempo to sound fine within about 2%, within which your tracks will be near enough to each other to sound in key anyway!

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Stu Cox |

i absolutely abhore master tempo... it just doesn't work smoothly enough... Pitch N' Time is the only software I might consider getting my hands on when it becomes available for Serato... supposevly it is THE best and works seemlessly.

Never, ever, ever use master tempo.

can't you just use the harmonic feature on the djm 800 if you have one?? I thought it worked pretty well last time I put my hands on one.

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quote:

Originally posted by wotyzoid can't you just use the harmonic feature on the djm 800 if you have one?? I thought it worked pretty well last time I put my hands on one.

But he doesn't, does he he's got a DJM909

And you can't really rely on it - more and more clubs are getting them but they're not universally installed by any means.

Personally I take my EFX1000 to all of my gigs for my pitch shifting needs - it's not bad at all for small adjustments

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Stu Cox |

nahh I was just saying because the ways you guys worded it was if master tempo wasn't so great so I was wondering if the harmonic feature is better. How does pitch bending work on the efx 1000 anyway?

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quote:

Originally posted by wotyzoid nahh I was just saying because the ways you guys worded it was if master tempo wasn't so great so I was wondering if the harmonic feature is better. How does pitch bending work on the efx 1000 anyway?

Tbh it's not really designed for harmonic mixing, it's just supposed to be an effect (doing massive pitch ups/pitch downs) - but with the ZIP jog effect you can just turn the pad slightly and it'll pitch it up/down a few % and still sound reasonable

From my brief bit of testing with a DJM800 it did sound like it did pitch bending better than master tempo does it (and probably better than the EFX too), although I didn't really put it through its paces.

I'm surprised no one's come up with a dedicated high-quality pitch shifting unit yet, seeing that theoretically you could make a bit of hardware perform much better than a high-spec PC (if you tailor it for the right kind of multiply operations etc)... might have to have a go myself

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Stu Cox |

quote:

Originally posted by idoru Never, ever, ever use master tempo.

I disagree - if you've got 2 tunes in the same key beatmatched and one's on 0% and the other's on 2%, why not hit the button on the track at 2% to make the tracks perfectly in key?

At that pitch offset the timestretching will sound fine and it'll make the harmonic mix noticably better.


And what if you've got a track on -2% and one on 2% for example (both in the same key)? They're too far away to still be in key, but having one on master tempo won't degrade the sound quality too much and will allow you to do a lovely little harmonic mix with them.

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Stu Cox |

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox I'm surprised no one's come up with a dedicated high-quality pitch shifting unit yet, seeing that theoretically you could make a bit of hardware perform much better than a high-spec PC (if you tailor it for the right kind of multiply operations etc)... might have to have a go myself

Now that you mention it, wow that so true. Hardware like that would sell quick I think.

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with the right track selection you don't need it, i absolutely hate it regardless

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Eyad Allayla - drums cubana - di.fm - tribal house channel - twisted_techy_hooks

I disagree 'cuz I'm a true believer of crazy transitions.

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