Engine PRIME v1.6 and Serato Beat Grid import

DJMarcK.de · February 24, 2021, 2:01pm

Finally… Engine PRIME v1.6 and Serato Beat Grid import

When I ordered 3 from the SC6000M, the player was still described everywhere in the music store in such a way that it was compatible with Serato DJ Pro, as well as with SC5000. For me, that was one of the reasons to buy, because I continue to use Pioneer setups or turntables (with control vinyl or phase) in events / clubs. Recently, the description in stores says that Serato compatibility is a future update. I and many others are still waiting for the promised Serato compatibility.

Therefore, the Serato Beat Grid import option in Engine Prime v1.6 is particularly important to me. I’ve been waiting for it since the announcement in September 2020 and was really looking forward to it.

First, I removed all of my tracks and crates from Engine Prime Collection and I turned off auto analysis before I imported from Serato Library.

And now my realization:

Pic. 2) Engine Prime (Serato Library / Crate Preview)

I cannot see the Beat Grid Lock in the Serato Preview. So, I can’t tell which tracks in the Serato Library have an edited-locked Beat Grid.

I would have liked to see the Beat Grid locked Tracks shown as locked in the Field of Grid in the Preview. Importing the Beat Grids of unlocked Tracks makes no sense to me, these should be analyzed by the Engine Prime.

I have no idea how the order numbering is created in the Crate. In the Serato Original (Pic.1) you can see how it should have been. How can a double number arise?

Pic. 3) Engine Prime - Collection, Crate

Pic. 4) Engine Prime - Collection, Playlist

I imported the Crate from Serato Library into the Engine Prime Collection as a Crate and as a Playlist.

The order was numbered correctly in the Playlist, but the wrong Track order from Preview was adopted.

After the import you can now see the Grid Marking, but you cannot see which Tracks have an edited, locked Beat Grid. I’m not sure if the Grids were imported or analyzed.

Pic. 5) Serato Waveform (edited, locked Beat Grid)

Pic. 6) Engine Prime Waveform

The fact is that the Grids do not fit.

I hope that I have a bug somewhere in the settings or in the installation of the software and the new version 1.6 works with this feature …

What’s wrong?

mufasa · February 24, 2021, 2:28pm

Try again but this time delete or rename the Engine Database before you add your Serato library.

You will find this in two places

My Music folder
If your Serato is located on external drive or any other drive, it will be in root directory

Just removing music from Engine Prime does not actually remove the data from the Engine database

In relation to importing the serato padlock that is not possible yet. You may want to start a feature request for this feature.

Workaround will be to create crate in Serato and name it Locked tracks, sort your serato library by the first column, so your locked tracks are grouped together, drag that into the Crate you created in Serato.

When you sync your library to Engine Prime, you will have all your locked Serato tracks in that crate.

Unfortunately there is no way to lock the tracks in bulk in EP…another feature that can be requested

djtrice · February 26, 2021, 1:22pm

Hello,

I also have this issue (no beatgrids on tracks after import from serato crates). I don’t have any locked tracks in my serato library. After having a look on this forum, i have rename my local (on the mac) Engine library folder and then launch Engine Prime, refresh my serato library and then import some crates as crates & Playlists in Engine prime collection (always on my mac). I can tell that there’s no track imported with beatgrid and have to analyse in EP Maybe i miss something’ but i don’t think so.

Is there any tutorial who explain how to ?

Regards, Trice

mufasa · February 26, 2021, 1:43pm

You still have to ANALYSE (not renalyse) after importing to EP.

Only difference now is that Engine Prime 1.6 will use the Serato beatgrid and bpm information to create its own.

Hope this makes a wee bit of sense!

djtrice · February 26, 2021, 1:58pm

Hello Mufasa,

This is clear for me now. So, i just will say that, this is not very fair to write/announce “serato beat grid import” because we all people understand that all SDJ beatgrid will automatically imported in Engine Prime and also understand that all sdj user will not have to analyse entire collection to have beatgrided tracks.

So now that everything is clear i can imagine with this 1.6 that this point below is correct (if you can confirm please):

If i have a track with the wrong bpm in SDJ (for example 98)… i adjust the grid in sdj to have 130 bpm) If i understood, Engine Prime will give me the right bpm (130 when importing in EP) ?

mufasa · February 26, 2021, 2:18pm

Exactly.

But this will only happen to new tracks that have not been previously added to Engine Prime from Serato.

Engine Prime does need to analyze to generate waveform.

You don’t have Analyze if you don’t want to, but when you load the track to a Player Deck, it will still analyze.

There is no escaping the analyses.

djtrice · February 26, 2021, 2:42pm

Thanks Mufasa, i understand now the real way EP works and that’s what i wanted. I will do some additionals tests to organise myself to play correcty with both SDJ & EP because i also need preview on EP to see my labeled hot cues :-).

mufasa · March 5, 2021, 12:19pm

Hey something i noticed which you may find useful

Before you begin

Will only work for new tracks that have not been added to EP yet. If a track is already part of EP collection this wont work. So either remove the track from EP collection first and or rebuild your EP database (Fresh Start - if you don’t mind losing performance data created in EP eg Hotcues, Loops)

To transfer Serato beatgrid to EP

Add your Serato library to EP
Analyse in the Serato Tab of EP before adding to the main EP Collection
Serato beatgrid and bpm are transferred

Other observation

If you add the track to EP with out analysing in the Serato Tab, Analyses will only keep BPM, Reanalyse will redo BPM

djtrice · March 5, 2021, 1:31pm

Hi Mufasa,

Thanks for the tips. I think that it doesn’t mater because (in my 1st post), i thought that serato beatgrid import will avoid us to analyse in EP and have the waveform by the same way. But not, SDJ import or not, we have to analyse in EP. For now, EP imports tracks at the right bpm and make it own beatgrid: that’s ok for me, the most important was to recover my hot cues, saved loops and hot cue names: it’s ok

mufasa · March 5, 2021, 1:34pm

I will continue to investigate lol.

I’m getting mixed result even with what i wrote above. Some tracks have the proper bpm and beatgrid from Serato, whilst some just has BPM only.

Mind bending stuff.

Yes this works as expected.

mufasa · March 5, 2021, 2:37pm

I notice that if I don’t analyse the music at all and just load it to the Engine Prime player from the serato tab, it seems to keep the Beatgrid.

Still testing

mufasa · March 6, 2021, 7:31pm

Further poking around I observed the following

Engine Prime and Engine OS imports Serato Flexigrids (Import Serato, Load track individually or just use ANALYSE)
It does import beat grids for tracks that don’t have flexigrids.

In summary Engine Prime 1.6 does not import regular beatgrids from Serato but imports Serato Flexigrids.

eg Some transition tracks that i have beatgrided manually in Serato, i can see the same grids in EP.

steverippin · July 8, 2021, 7:27pm

Thanks for looking into beatgrids Mufasa. Very interesting what you have written. I’ve been having problems with all my tracks I have imported from Serato into EP as my beatgrids are all slightly off making me having to reset all my cue points I created in Serato.

mufasa · July 8, 2021, 8:09pm

It’s common knowledge that Conversion between softwares may result in a slight shift for compressed files eg mp3

It’s the nature of the beast.

It’s something to do with the encoder and reencoders I understand.