Problem with syncing acapella track

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Your question:

No matter how I try to sync an existing professional recording that I’ve muted the lead on, attempting to sync it with an acapella audio recorded by me on ZOOM track on the other turntable just doesn’t work.

The issue arose yesterday before I reinstalled the app, thinking it might solve something, which it hasn’t.

For some inexplicable reason, the professional recording on one turntable works great, while the Acapella (recorded on ZOOM for the same recording and should be in sync) fluctuates in tempo and lives its own life.

I don’t understand which setting I might have missed. Sometimes it speeds up, sometimes it slows down, and it simply refuses to sync with the track on the other turntable.

There seem to be some kind of automatisation which I never experienced before. The thing is that the acapella-track I’m referring to, is recorded without a “click” so it can not be automatised.

I’ve never encountered this issue with the DJ app before. What could be the problem, and which settings cold solve it?

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Hi @Hertigen_Raitl,

  1. First, I recommend that you change the BPM of the recorded acapella from Dynamic BPM to Straight BPM
  2. Second, you should confirm that the auto analyzed BPM matches the expected BPM of the song. If not, you should manually edit this to match.
  3. Next, you should make sure you have a proper beatgrid set for the recorded acapella. This can be tricky to do with acapellas so you should watch some YouTube how-to guides for this.
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Here’s a good guide for beatgridding acapellas:

Acapella’s BPM is set to “straight.”

How do I confirm that Acapella’s BPM matches the BPM of the other track, which is 103.3? Even when I manually set Acapella’s BPM to 103.3, there’s no improvement. You mentioned something about “auto-analyzed BPM.” A follow-up question: is this a new feature introduced with an update? As I mentioned, I’ve never had the same issue until yesterday, despite repeating this routine for ages. Since I manually sync when Acapella should start—and have become quite adept at triggering it at the right moment—the two tracks used to “blend” seamlessly without complications. As I mentioned, I recorded the Acapella on a ZOOM for the same existing track I’m trying to sync it with. The goal, as you may understand, is to test new expressions and gradually improve the vocal performance. I assume that the fact one of the tracks has been lowered by half a tone shouldn’t affect anything. If I recall correctly, the Acapella’s BPM has never been “fixed” but rather “fluctuating,” yet it sounded stable and as natural as recorded all the way through. The feeling I get now is that some kind of automation or “Automatic BPM detection” is hindering or complicating something that felt incredibly easy as recently as yesterday, just before reinstalling the app.

I might need to explore the “Beatgrid,” but it feels a bit odd that something so simple has become so challenging. In any case, thank you very much for your quick and helpful response.

You’re welcome @Hertigen_Raitl,

  1. Auto BPM analysis is nothing new. This has been a part of djay for many years. Basically when djay first loads a song, it runs a complete analysis to determine what BPM the song is. However, this analysis is very challenging with acapellas because there are no consistent kick drums available to look at. So this analysis can sometimes be off. Hence why it’s good to know what the BPM should be and edit it as needed.
  2. It’s also possible that djay is putting the beatgrids in a different place for your recorded track that the other one, so checking to see if these are in the same location could help.
  3. I suspect there could be a problem with your ZOOM recording of that acapella. To do a deeper analysis can you please try to capture a full screen video of what you are describing?
  4. I would also like to look at both of the acapellas for myself.
  5. Please upload your video and both acapellas to your Dropbox/Google Drive, enable sharing permissions, and share links to these files here. Thanks!

Also, one thing that has changed in djay 5 is the beatgridding system. Please refer to the attached FAQ regarding how this powerful new system works.

Hello Slak_Jaw, and once again thanx för your kindness and time🙏🏾

I just learned that “new-commers only can send 2 links in a message so I send you 2

Below you’ll find everything you asked for. I hope

Ok! Here we go.

1,
The version I managed to do before the app started to give me this headache.

It’s a successful result where I combined the instrumental track with the acapella from my ZOOM

2,
The original recording of Julios track bought on iTunes and uploaded from Dropbox to the DJ-app.

(I discovered also that it’s not possible to mute lead vocals in the same fashion using the same song from Apple Music):scream:

Message 2

3,
“My” instrumental track that I made by muting Julios lead vocals in the app and recorded like that.
Of course the quality gets worse, but still ok for this purpose.

It’s 1/2 lower and put in to the Db key from the original D. The BPm is unchanged (103,3).

4,
Finally the acapella lead recorded on ZOOM in Db.

Actually I made 2. On the version above I managed to do it right I used the ZOOM006 version. Than, when I wanted to make another version using ZOOM004, the problems begun.

Message 3 just the last (reserv) acapella.

The problem is that I seem to be not able to send some more messages or links? On the other hand, maybe it’s perfectly alright with the 1 acapella u got?

Get back to u with the video, but don’t know if I’ll be able to send it to you ….

The video! Just to make it clear, even if I set both tracks on the same bpm (103,3( it doesn’t make it better. The question is how and why I could do this routine without any problems at all. From the point I started the acapella on the right spot it fited 100% perfectly all the way through the song

Sorry, I’m sort of knew to this forum and seem to not able to post any more links at the moment so if there isn’t another way to send you the video, it’ll have to wait

Hi @Hertigen_Raitl, none of your links are working. I cannot play or download any of the tracks. What service did you upload these to? Dropbox or Google Drive?

Also, I noticed that you didn’t fill out any of the required information in the first post template. Please always provide these details when making new topics:

Device model (ex. 2020 iPad Air 4th Gen):
Device model (ex. 2020 iPad Air 4th Gen):
Version of operating system (ex. iOS 17.3.1):
Version of djay (ex. 5.1.3):
Hardware/controllers used (Reloop Ready):

Thanks!

Thats very strange. The links were to my Dropbox . Is there nu a chance possible to Communicate outside this forum, like Massenger or Insta?

One more try below:

1,
The version I managed to do before the app started to give me this headache.

It’s a successful result where I combined the instrumental track with the acapella from my ZOOM

2,
The original recording of Julios track bought on iTunes and uploaded from Dropbox to the DJ-app.

(I discovered also that it’s not possible to mute lead vocals in the same fashion using the same song from Apple Music):scream:

The links are still not working. I’ve changed your community status from “new user” to “basic user”. So sharing links should not be an issue. Perhaps you need to enable sharing permissions within Dropbox? Maybe Google Drive will work better? We have other users sharing files via Dropbox and Google Drive all the time. You could also try sharing them in a DM to me on this forum, but I can’t accept links or communication outside this forum.

Thats very kind of you! I try to resend the whole thing first:

Ok! Here we go.

1,
The version I managed to do before the app started to give me this headache.

It’s a successful result where I combined the instrumental track with the acapella from my ZOOM

2,
The original recording of Julios track bought on iTunes and uploaded from Dropbox to the DJ-app.

(I discovered also that it’s not possible to mute lead vocals in the same fashion using the same song from Apple Music):scream:

3,
“My” instrumental track that I made by muting Julios lead vocals in the app and recorded like that.
Of course the quality gets worse, but still ok for this purpose.

It’s 1/2 lower and put in to the Db key from the original D. The BPm is unchanged (103,3).

4,
Finally the acapella lead recorded on ZOOM in Db.

Actually I made 2. On the version above I managed to do it right I used the ZOOM006 version. Than, when I wanted to make another version using ZOOM004, the problems begun.

I noticed that it still doesn’t work and uploaded the whole package to Google Drive! Fingers crossed😉

Ok! Here we go.

2,
The original recording of Julios track bought on iTunes and uploaded from Dropbox to the DJ-app.

(I discovered also that it’s not possible to mute lead vocals in the same fashion using the same song from Apple Music):scream:

3,
“My” instrumental track that I made by muting Julios lead vocals in the app and recorded like that.
Of course the quality gets worse, but still ok for this purpose.

It’s 1/2 lower and put in to the Db key from the original D. The BPm is unchanged (103,3).

It’s this one that I’ve earlier managed to sync with my acapella, and which I simply can’t any longer.

4,
Finally the acapella lead recorded on ZOOM in Db.

Actually I made 2. On the version above I managed to do it right I used the ZOOM006 version. Than, when I wanted to make another version using ZOOM004, the problems begun.

Oops! I’ve just noticed that the files, perhaps we’re not open for everyone so I resent the whole thing once again. Okay thank you for your patience and have a nice weekend:

Ok! Here we go.

2,
The original recording of Julios track bought on iTunes and uploaded from Dropbox to the DJ-app.

(I discovered also that it’s not possible to mute lead vocals in the same fashion using the same song from Apple Music):scream:

3,
“My” instrumental track that I made by muting Julios lead vocals in the app and recorded like that.
Of course the quality gets worse, but still ok for this purpose.

It’s 1/2 lower and put in to the Db key from the original D. The BPm is unchanged (103,3).

It’s this one that I’ve earlier managed to sync with my acapella, and which I simply can’t any longer.

4,
Finally the acapella lead recorded on ZOOM in Db.

Actually I made 2. On the version above I managed to do it right I used the ZOOM006 version. Than, when I wanted to make another version using ZOOM004, the problems begun.

1 Like

Hi @Hertigen_Raitl, I was able to successfully download the files via Google Drive. Can you now please use the same method to share a full screen video of the issue so that I can fully understand what’s happening? Thanks!

1 Like

Also, please thoroughly review the link I shared earlier about properly beatgridding acapellas as this will likely be the next step that we need to perform and I want to make sure you understand this fully.

  1. My preliminary analysis shows that, as I suspected, djay isn’t calculating the acapella BPM correctly. It should be 103 or 103.3, but it thinks it’s around 98.2. This is pretty common with acapellas. So, this needs to be corrected first as I described earlier.
  2. Then the beatgrid needs to be properly set to match the beatgrid of the original song (see link below).
  3. Once we have this part sorted out, we should be able to confirm if there is something else going on or not. Thanks!

I understand! The question is whether this “Beatgrid” is a new element that has been added, as I have never had any problems syncing my acapellas before. Here is the video, however I don’t know if it help us. Let’s hope for the best