DJay Pro Track Drifting (Overview and In-depth Look)

After taking a deeper look into the drifting issues between tracks mentioned in a previous thread, I’ve been able to break down the cause and explanation of the issue below @Guillermo:

Drifting Issue Overview

  • When looping different sections of the same track, or two different tracks, the tracks will not stay beatmatched when manually assigning or matching tempo / BPM (not using sync)

Cause / Explanation

  • Despite not being too knowledgeable on how DJay Pro assigns tempos or grids, it is very clear that different sections of songs are assigned different tempos / BPMs

  • What this means, is that if you loop two different sections of the same song together and beat match manually, they will not stay in sync, as one section of the song will have a slight variance in BPM / tempo

  • The same is true for looping and beatmatching different songs, which will be equally present regardless of the controller you use, as it appears to be how DJay Pro deals with BPMs / Tempos

Temporary Solutions / Alternatives

  • If you would like to loop different sections of the same track or simply two different tracks, you will have to manually adjust the tempo fader for the variance the entire time

  • Or, you must use the sync function to lock the tracks together (which is also less than ideal, especially if you scratch or beat match manually)

Detailed Video Explanation

Want to thank @Guillermo @Emily and the rest of the Algoriddim team for being on top of this, I hope this is helpful in diagnosing the issue and coming up with a more permanent, long-term solution!

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Excellent description of one of the issues with Djay Pro…
This also must be related to the issue when you have two tracks Synced and when you release the Sync from the track you have just mixed out of, the track that is still playing has a slight Tempo drift, and activating/deactivating Sync shows the movement within the beatgrids as well…

This issue never happened with the old Djay 2 app…
That app worked perfectly albeit it didn’t have as many features as Djay Pro but the beat gridding detection and BPM analysing worked better…
I do like the fact that you are able to Shift the Grid as well as Set the Downbeat in the Beatgrid settings.

Hopefully we can get a resolution sooner rather than later…

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Thanks for the in depth explanation of this issue. I have been experiencing very similar problems since February 2021 and have tried to explain it to Algoriddim tech support with videos as well. They assured me that they are working on a fix. Hopefully this explanation helps them to solve it.

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Hey guys,

Thanks for reporting this to us.

As @Slak_Jaw already mentioned, this has been reported to us previously. Some users have compared the behaviour of legacy apps with the latest versions and found exactly this you’ve reported here. Thank you @Juan-Tenorio_Benites for your detailed description. I believe, however, this will occur to you guys with and without a controller. This issue does not depend on your RANE device.

We’re aware of this misalignment issue and we are currently investigating this. We kindly ask for your patience while we work on this. Thanks for your understanding.

Cheers, G

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As always, I’ll keep you guys posted with any info about the resolution in this thread!

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@Juan-Tenorio_Benites fantastic description :+1:t2: Look forward to a fix for this.

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@maurizio_T Thanks, and yes–I think you’re right, as this is likely the root cause of the tempo drift when deactivating sync as well.

@Slak_Jaw No problem, and great to hear you’ve been proactive about addressing the issue!

@Guillermo Sure thing G, thank you for getting back to us–and yes, this issue exists regardless of the controller. Looking forward to fix from the team, as this is DJay Pro’s only major setback at the moment (at least from my end). Will really help solidify the platform!

@Private_Repress Thank you :+1: Hope this helped shed some light on the issue for the team and looking forward to continue making progress with everyone on the forum!

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Thank you for your post, I’ve been saying this for years!! IT has always been an issue with this software from the beginning! I’ve used it since the beginning too! I wish the songs would stay tight like the Traktor dj 1 iOS app. Djay has sooooo much potential but this main reason alone is why I cannot fully adopt it.

When this issue is resolved Djay will be the best DJ app hands down!

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Can we get progress on this??? Literally breaks the program, thanks.

We kindly ask for your patience guys. Our team is on this. Thanks for your understanding.

Cheers, G

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Keep us updated so I can switch back to Djay Pro, thanks.

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This is still happening for me. The tempo is right in both sections of a demo I’m working on, but the downbeat is off in the second half of the track. It’s like there’s one bar somewhere that’s squashed into 3.5 beats.

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Any updates on this?

Im Not that clued up on this issue but what I can say is that this software’s algorithm that constantly tracks the songs waveform and adjusts its duration ( by time stretch/compression) is at play for the majority of operations.

You can literally see this in action the moment you jump from other platforms like Serato / VDJ etc.

As you can tell its so easy for DJAY to “lock onto” the hardest of live drummers in the oldest of 1970s tracks. So…yes its in action constantly id guess and the parameter you set on of off (sync etc) prob doesn’t disable this core Algorithm and processing but more so “sets its operation multi-plier or something of that nature to a low value or 0” which in theory should not allow that T/S operation to take place but …again I don’t know exactly as I didn’t code it.

Its a corking bit of software though with a stunning audio analysis and adjustment algorithm. :slight_smile:

Can someone from Algoriddm confirm this? I’ve noticed this too when using sync. Sometimes the beat grids will drift apart slightly, and then make it back together. Is this DJay “beatmatching” by analyzing the waveform in real time? (like you’d do manually with your ears) If so, that’s wicked cool and should be a feature that’s made more prominent in the marketing material, and we should be able to switch it off.

Problem is still here. Had it right now combining a mix with a vocal-sound-file from a friend: the last bar of his voice I am looping but the mix gets out of sync. Unusable in front of an(y) audience.

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I’ve experienced the same thing with straight acapellas. DJay seems to be able to follow the beat if there are drums under it, and you’re using Neural Mix to separate the vocals. Maybe until they get a fix you could add a 4 on the floor kick drum in the 100hz range under the vocals and then solo the vocals on Neural Mix to see if the track still drifts. Neural Mix isn’t perfect but I bet it would be able to isolate vocals from such a low frequency pretty cleanly.

Has anyone tried settong manual loop in and out points? This may be the answer.

It’s been acknowledged as a bug. Manual looping is not the answer.

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