How much do your players drift?

Engine DJ Hardware Media Players
1

6000 owners - if you play two tracks at identical speed (i.e. two tracks both natively 135.00bpm) how long do they take to start to drift apart?

Am I wrong in being a bit frustrated that mine only last 45-60 seconds before it becomes slightly audible, and ~80-90 seconds before they need a nudge to be properly kept tight together? It’s not galloping or anything, there’s no space between beats, but the beat is definitely losing it’s ‘oomph’ and clarity as it slowly drifts. I match it right in the sweet spot but then it drifts slowly.

My understanding is this happens on decks because of a clock feature inside? This is why it didn’t happen on the Prime 4. It’s the same reason you have to tighten up the loops up if you play them over and over. (On mine I feel the need to give them a nudge at the end of every second loop to keep them together, otherwise it starts to feel audibly different. This is an improvement on the last Pioneer gear I used but not quite as good as I was hoping.)

2

There could be a few reasons for the drift IMO.

-Displayed BPM shows you 130.0 but if the slider is slightly uneven from deck 1 to 2, the other one could be 130.09 (it’s never been confirmed by Denon how the decks work with the digits you wouldn’t see)

-possible delay over the ethernet cable since the source drive is on one deck only?

-slightest gap in you pressing play with two different hands on two different players

Have you tried your test with sync on at the start when you hit play and then shut it off? not sure though what happens to the bpm when you turn sync off does it jump back as that would introduce the first point above and if not then I would expect this test to eliminate the delay in you pressing play on both players…

Ensure your quantize is on and both decks set to the same value. I’d imagine in the sync test scenario this might play a factor…not sure.

3

Also do you mean 2 different tracks , both claiming to be 135 BPM or load the same track into both players?

Try the same track into both players and check for drift. If there is drift then you’ve got a problem

If there isn’t any drift with two players playing the same track then the players are fine

3 Likes
4

Tried it with 2 identical or different tracks… if the beatgrid fits, there is - at least in my case - no drift at all (sync on).

What I noticed: the device often don’t get the BPMs and the beatgrid alignment perfectly right. For example I have a lot of tracks which need a manual adjustment to - let’s say - 136.01 BPM or 133.985 (for example) to fit the grid at the same position from start to end. Without this adjustment the grid wanders off very slightly over time and this could seem like a small drift.

Side story: I made mp3s from my vinyls, years ago, using one of my SL-1210. Now, as I analyzed it with Engine Prime, I saw that the old SL-1210 sometimes was very unstable in terms of speed. I have almost never a BPM without fractional digits and often the BPM changes slightly trough the tracks. No idea if it’s the SL-1210 or the track itself - I suppose it’s a mixture. Old techno stuff is really bad but - for example - the older Vandit-vinyls also.