Track Moving out of Sync

Hi All

I have been noticing that my prime 4 acting up, when mixing tracks ten to see tracks moving out of sync when they are perfectly in sync(manually not using the sync feature) this i have picked up on Serato last time around but now it seems to be on the Prime OS as well.

Serato seems to be working a bit better after there update .

Does anyone out there have the same problem .

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Hello @DJ-Martin-S, Can You specify how was that mix done? BPM setting, beat grid - correct or not? Does this happen with 2 the same tracks played at 0% Tempo change?

That sounds like normal DJing to me. Two tracks manually beat matched will normally drift after a while. Think of it as one track being 124.001 and the other track being 124.006. Both will show on display as 124.00 bpm but will slowly slide apart

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That’s why I suggested to make a test and mix 2 the same tracks at 0% tempo change - to test is it just dj’ing or is it some software inconsistencies…

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Just instant double a track and see how it goes.

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if it drifts, pitch against it. thats what dj´s have done for years … why should hardware do your job ?!

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@DJDark Ive been djing for about 15 years already digital gear has never crippled my abilty to DJ, what is happing on my prime 4 is sofware related and not skill level, when songs playing its skips forward while the tracks playing ill make a video off what it does that u can see for yourself, please when commenting add value do not just jump to conclusions. Thanks you

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I’ve noticed the last time I was play melodic techno the song would drift apart very quickly. Something isn’t right. Both tracks on 125.00. Vinyl dj for many years and can hold my technics a lot longer.

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Have you prepped the tracks first in Prime? If the grids are out this can happen. The other is if you’ve put your own grid markers in. Especially on older versions of Prime, if you didn’t get the BOM right before setting the markers, the track would speed up and slow down, not maintaining the true BPM.

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They are new tracks and haven’t prepared them.

With technics they originally had only one set small pitch range on the pitch slider. Try dropping the prime pitch range down to its lowest pitch range , like plus minus 4% and try beat matching with that range on both players

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It’ll be the track isn’t an accurate track; I get the odd one that does this if I haven’t prepped in Prime first. Try this, see if it still does it:-

Load track into Prime, find your first downbeat and add a marker there. Now go to the end, and a marker on the last downbeat (similar time Warping using Ableton). At each section of music, find the first and last downbeat and add markers (these shouldn’t be too far out now) Just double check in the middle of each section that the beats are still on point, add one in the middle of you need to. Try this now, this shouldn’t (noticeably) warp while playing (important you do the end beat early in the process). If it does, it’s your deck.

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I’ll try this weekend.

My music are all analyzed, i have 2 songs which is perfectly grids as aligned but is seems to still be doing it, with different tracks, this unite seems to become buggy as hell. If its not the platters thats messing me around then its track skippin out of sync kinda driving me mad :rage:.

Unless you’re using sync and the beat grids are 100% spot-on or mixing the same track at 0%, there are variables that will always cause slight drift. If you’re mixing by ear, there’s a chance you haven’t got it spot on. If you’re using the bpm display, it could be out by anything from 0.001 to 0.099% out, as those values you cant see on the screen. The same applies for using on screen pitch percentage, there are values between each % that you can’t see. The best you can do then is adjust pitch range to ±4% (highest resolution), then nudge & adjust pitch until its near perfect. I have no problems with my mixes drifting, but in honesty I don’t do very long mixes, maybe 30secs to 1min longest.

To check if it’s a unit fail or plain music fail, have you tested this?

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I know this topic is quite old but I have consistently run into the same drifting issue. If i have 2 tracks that are zeroed the same they stay. But if there range adjustment for mismatched bpms they ALWAYS drift. I know this is denon and not pioneer but I know on cdj 1000mk3-cdj 2000 nxs2 ive never had this much drift.

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What are the two tracks? The same track twice, or two different tracks?

When you say “zeroed the same”, what do you mean? Zero on the pitch fader (which had no centre detent and some degree of play in the “light on” position) or by looking at the BPM readouts?

When you’re adjusting pitch to align BPMs, are you using your ears to decide if they’re matched, or the BPM readouts (or both)?

Either way is never going to be 100% accurate. By ear, you will only listen for a limited time before making a decision that they sound matched, so they may drift off after that time has elapsed. By the readouts, it’s only as accurate as the amount of digits displayed, and the positioning of the fader.

When you say it never happened on the CDJs, is that with the same two tracks that drift on the Prime?

Any two tracks that both have the exact same dead nutz zero lol. I dont play 2 of the same tracks at the same time. For wut I do i currently have no use for it. But Like if im playing hard dance at 150, most of my tracks r at 150… So I leave the pitch fader mechanically at 0 (light on), the readout says 150/ 0.00. Any tracks I have like this I just set it and forget it, hit play, beat match it by ear (using two tracks the kicks are centered on beat, not the style where they r produced slightly off beat on purpose). With this there is no drifting and I mix or do wutever.

When I have a track that is say at 149 and one at 150 I’ll move 140 to 150, but before i do that I’ll adjust the 150 track to true zero(the place where 149 changes to 150), example: 150/-0.03. Then I’ll bring 149 up to thr point where it immediately changes to 150. So both tracks arent more than 0.03 bpm apart, very rarely 0.05.

Side note: this is a practice i employed for years on an original cdj 2000 and a cdj900. Their algorithms were off by exactly half a bpm. One day my friend who mixed religiously by paying attention to the percentages asked me about it and the percentages always matched assuming there wasnt a jenkily produced track. Little to no track drift.

I don’t reely know how much else to desctribe things but I know that when I experience a cdj (newer and older) the drift is such that its never stood out to me to make a memory of it. Ive only been playing for 10 years now so I feel like ive got an ok grasp on drift functions on digital players. This prime 4s drift is excessive for wut ive experienced. I’m not necessarily complaining about it, just inquiring more to see or find out more about it since its new to me.

  1. Take the two tracks that you are sure drifts

  2. REANALYSE the 2 tracks in Engine Prime

  3. Export the 2 tracks to USB

  4. Try mixing them again

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