Hello to everyone here on the forum. I’ve just got my Prime 4 and have had about 4 days on it. I’ve been a Technics 1210 DJ since ‘94, so this jump in tech is a welcome big leap for me. Engine Prime works quite well but I’m yet to do the update to 1.3.2 One problem I’ve noticed is that beat sync is all over the place. It’s fine on a very obvious house beat that starts on the first beat, but if there is a complex intro with not so definitely beat structure at the start of a track then the prime loses its way in terms of matching the 2nd track playing. Will this be fixed when I update as I’ve had to switch to tempo sync in order to feel I can trust the unit again. Any help will be gratefully received. I look forward to exchanging views with everyone over the coming months on here
Have you opened the track within Engine Prime and edited the beat grid so that it starts on the first beat rather than the start of the track itself (with regards to songs that have instrumental intros)? Unless the grid (and tempo) is accurate, the sync/quantize options are useless.
Hi @Machadio, thanks for posting and congrats on your PRIME 4! I agree with @Lostnthesound, you may want to try opening the song in Engine PRIME or PRIME 4 to edit the beat grid. Take a look at our video on Editing Beat Grids to Create Accurate Loops.
Being an old chap, which only plays old school tracks, I don’t mind the beat grid being all over the place in EP analysis, because I always use my ears and have set my system to Tempo sync. But I would like te ability to reset the grids myself on the Prime 4 itself and then sync back to EP when I take the flash drive there to add/edit/remove songs. Also, since the effects rely on a tight grid analysis, I would also like to have better beat grid analysis implemented ASAP.
You can edit your beat grids on PRIME 4, @cesarvog! Check out our Editing Beat Grids to Create Accurate Loops video!
I have not done this, I thought it was user error, and it looks like it is 
Thank you for this tip, @Lostnthesound I will get onto this as my next learning step. 
Glad to help. You’ll find that, more often than not, songs that don’t start with a definitive drum hit won’t have an accurate starting grid point and sometimes the BPM can be off a bit. Once you get use to the GUI of Engine Prime, adjusting your grid will be a snap and you’ll find that your looping/jumping/chopping on Prime 4 will really shine. Cheers.
Have to agree with you, playing by ear certainly has its advantages not having the pushback from platters throws some new found skills with adjusting but that comes with tech.
With me however, having applications that cost 1/4 of this setup and not accurately being able to grid a track its pretty basic. I swapped from a Native/traktor/vinyl setup to Prime 4 mainly for the upcoming streaming but with just about anything but 4 on the floor house the grid is useless. DnB being primary major genre i stick with anything in the 170+ bpm range seems to have disastrous results, assuming it has something to do with the 2/4 count and most jungle fails miserably.
Double timing helps with adjusting the BPM range, but even with keylock tends to be a 50/50 shot on it being speed up beyond comprehension.
Beat grid editing is NOT a solution for completely wrong beat placement, your range of adjustment is limited unless I am missing something and not really a solution for bad analysis and shouldn’t be for equipment in this price range.
I totally agree with you, beat grid analysis should be way better for products in this price range. The EP software, unfortunately, is still the weak link. But it seems there is a light in the horizon, as it seems there is a new 20+ team of developers working on it in New Zealand (I suppose they may have poached a few of Serato developers…). As far as I know the original team was reminiscent of AIR Music Technology, one of the several companies that InMusic bought over the years. Some of them may even have worked on Torq DJ, which was the soft part of the M-Audio Xponent, back in the day.
Only time will tell on further updates software wise.
I’m too early in to criticise the product, after all I’m well used to managing the mixes with just pitch and ear, so don’t want to heavily rely on too many automated features, but they would be handy in a tight spot now and again if you’re running out of track time after a bathroom dash etc. 
If they were part of the Torq team that would give some insight into things, wont lie that was one of the first devices I bought I think its still sitting in a closet somewhere. Absolutely inline with InMusic’s team good ideas bad execution, little to early in the game as well. I am patient and I am without a doubt sure it will get better just a bit disappointed at some of the rudimentary aspects that are weak in EP.
Thanks @Nekoro_DenonDJ. I watched the video you referenced above, but it only applies to modern quantised music. For old school music with human drummers, one have to be able to edit the tempo anchors to adjust the grid to natural tempo variations that occur when playing the drums. Now, I understand that one should be able to do it in the Engine Prime software, by clicking the Move Anchor button in Grid Edit Mode, but I found it to be somewhat non intuitive. What I would like to see is the ability to do such tempo anchor editing in the Prime 4 itself.
Fair point, @cesarvog, thanks for clarifying. I’m not sure if a Feature Request like this exists, but I did see ones like Better BPM Editing on the PRIME 4 that may be ‘up your alley’ and you can like it. Creating a new feature request is an option too of course!
I think a more accurate term for what is being called grid editing, would be grid SHIFTING, coz that is all you are actually able to do on the P4 at the moment (apart from double or halve the bpm).