I’m using the latest version of djay Pro (5.6.1) and noticed an issue with beat alignment when starting a track. This was already in previous versions as well.
When a track starts, the beat alignment does not seem to be corrected during the first four beats. The tempo and alignment only snap correctly from the second group of four beats onward. This happens consistently when starting playback, regardless of whether loops are used or not.
You notice this especially with tracks that do not have a 100% steady drum pattern at the very beginning. In my case, this is clearly audible with tracks like Boogie Wonderland and Sign of the Times, but the issue is not limited to these examples.
In some cases the alignment looks only slightly corrected at the start, but in most cases it is clearly off during the first four beats and only stabilises after that. This also occurs when syncing between two decks, in both directions.
My expectation would be that beat alignment and tempo correction are applied immediately from the first beat, especially when sync is enabled.
Could you confirm whether this behaviour is expected, or if this might be a bug?
Is a bug.
Seen it too. My expectation would be that djay should mark that portion with a different tempo change marker if indeed the portion of track has a different tempo, but it doesn’t, meaning it correctly knows there’s no tempo change, yet somehow it proceeds to anchor the beat off
Temporary remedy:
Have to change from dynamic analysis to straight in those cases and somehow gets sorted for that case. But is not a solution.
I don’t think this is related to tempo change markers. Those are meant for larger tempo shifts (for example 15–20% changes), and that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here.
In these cases it’s about small timing fluctuations at the very beginning of the track. djay’s fluid beatgrid seems to analyse this correctly, but sync does not align immediately on playback. It only settles after the first four beats.
Switching from dynamic to straight analysis does help in some cases, so thanks for mentioning that. It’s useful as a workaround, although the underlying behaviour still seems worth investigating.
Hi again @DJ_Big_Blender, sorry for the late response. I heard back from engineering. Yes, it’s currently expected for Sync to take some small amount of time to sync up songs on playback - especially for dynamic BPM songs. We are looking at potential options for improving this in the future. Also, it’s important to only look at the song alignment at the red line (songs with variable BPMs may have misaligned beats before/after the playhead). I hope that helps!
This only happens with some dynamically analysed tracks, not all of them. So it doesn’t seem to be a general dynamic BPM behaviour.
That makes me question whether this is really expected behaviour, or whether there is something specific in how certain locally analysed dynamic tracks are handled during playback start.
Could you confirm:
Did you reproduce this with the exact file I uploaded?
Does engineering observe the same delayed correction on beat 1?
For clarity: I’m not referring to visual grid offset outside the red playhead. The audible alignment on beat 1 is late on certain dynamic tracks, and only stabilises after the first 4 beats.
You’re welcome @DJ_Big_Blender. I appreciate the follow up and additional curiosity. Our engineering team clearly understands your issue based on the information you’ve already shared. I’d like to ask how important is it for you to receive answers to your clarifying questions? As mentioned above, this is not limited to dynamic BPM songs and our engineering team is already looking into options for improving this behaviour in the future. Please understand that they are extremely busy; I would really prefer to let them work on these improvements and not interrupt them with additional questions unless they are really important. So, please confirm if these are critical to answer and I will by all means share them with engineering. Thanks for understanding.
