Using the Beatgrid Tools

as you could see in the previous section, croSS DJ performs a Bpm and beat ana-lysis: both values are used to define the initial beatgrid of a track. The beatgrid is initial, because croSS offers several tools that you can use, to change the beatgrid if necessary.

Before we take a close look at the beatgrid tools of croSS DJ, we should start by defining some important terms and have a look at the visual representation of the beatgrid as it is shown on the HuD and on the waveform of the players.

NOTE In order to see the beatgrid, you need to activate the checkbox Show Beat Grids on the Display tab of the Preferences dialog. activating this op-tion makes the grid visible on the HuD and on the waveform. of course, if no beatgrid has been analyzed, croSS DJ cannot show it. In this case use the command Analyze Beatgrid/BPM only as explained in the previous section.

the beatgrid information on the player is shown as vertical lines. a vertical line with the height of the complete waveform represents a downbeat (i.e. the first beat of a 4 beat bar). The first downbeat gridline that you see on the waveform serves as the reference point of the grid and is marked with yellow triangles at both

end-the individual beats, half beats and quarter beats of one bar are symbolized by shorter vertical lines. the number of shorter vertical lines that are visible depends on the current zoom factor of the waveform display on the player and the HuD.

the more zoomed in you are, the more shorter lines are visible. the grid that was analyzed by croSS DJ is called the base grid.

The Beatgrid Toolbar on the Player

the lower right corner of the player a and the lower left corner of player B contains the button Show/Hide Beatgrid editor. If you click the button to make the beatgrid editor visible, a toolbar is displayed in the lower area of the waveform. this toolbar contains all the buttons that you need, to make changes to the beatgrid.

When the Beatgrid toolbar is visible, croSS DJ changes the display of the grid-lines on the player as well. as you can see in the following image, each beat is now represented by a vertical gridline with the same height of the waveform. these longer grid lines make it easier to see, whether the grid fits perfectly to the track or not.

you can use the following buttons of the toolbar to change the active grid:

The first two buttons of the toolbar can be used to expand or to shrink the distance between the gridlines. Shrinking the beat intervals increases the Bpm of the track: the gridlines are now closer to each other and this will lead to an

With these two buttons you can move the first downbeat (the line that is used as the reference point of the grid) to the left or to the right. When this down-beat is sitting at the right position (exactly on the transient) it makes it easier to use the automatic sync features of croSS DJ. It is a good practice to zoom into the waveform before you move the first downbeat/the grid.

use this button to convert the beat closest to the current playback position into a new downbeat. the button Define Downbeat is only active if the track has a beatgrid; otherwise it is disabled. the new downbeat resets the cycle/bar/beat-counter of the track. this is useful if you use the “sync to cycle” feature of croSS DJ. let’s have a look at an example track that shows how this works.

on the track in the following image a beatgrid analysis was performed. croSS DJ has set the downbeat at the very beginning of the track, even though the track starts with 4 beats = 1 bar of silence. If we number the first beats of this track with a Cycle.Bar.Beat schema, the counter for the beats is 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4, 1.2.1.

1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4 1.2.1

Because the track starts with 4 beats of silence, this numbering is wrong and does not reflect the real musical structure of that track. The fifth beat, which is the first audible beat, should be 1.1.1. If you drag the waveform to this beat and click on Define Downbeat, croSS DJ adds a new downbeat marker to the grid (marked with the yellow triangles), and resets the internal beatcounter.

1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4 1.2.1

the internal beatcounter that croSS DJ uses to automatically sync to the cycle/

bar/beat of the track in the other player, now has a correct value to do this syn-chronisation.

If the configured BPM detection range does not fit to the tempo of the gen-re, you often get Bpm values which are twice as large or half as small as the real

Using User Beatgrids

Sometimes tracks do not use a strict 4/4 signature throughout the whole track.

let’s assume you have a track with a beat length that cannot divided by 4 without a remainder, or another track with a tempo change where one part of the track has a different Bpm than the other. for those tracks you can add a user beatgrid. the number of additional user beatgrids that you can add is unlimited.

When you add a user grid you actually set the position of a new downbeat (the first beat of a bar) and this downbeat can be set to any position of the track.

to set a user beatgrid, drag the waveform to the desired position and click the Add Beatgrid button on the Beatgrid editor toolbar. the new user beatgrid serves as the reference point of the grid from the position of the marker towards the end of the track. the waveform before the user beatgrid marker is shown in grey indi-cating that this segment is not affected by the current downbeat marker. the waveform behind the user beatgrid marker is shown in yellow/red (depending on the player), indicating that this segment of the track is affected by the current downbeat marker.

Setting a new user beatgrid also resets the bar and beat counter value to 1. you can change the tempo of a new segment with the shrink/expand buttons only. each user beatgrid can have a different tempo.

If you wish to delete a user beatgrid, drag the waveform and make sure, that the current playback position is behind the user beatgrid downbeat you wish to delete. then click the Delete Beatgrid button on the Beatgrid editor toolbar.

Section „a closer look at the Beat matcher“ auf Seite 82 in this manual will show you, how the beatgrid of the track will help you, to either manually or automatically synchronize the tracks in the two players.