I have chosen DJPro over other software and even CDJs as its so great. The effects, video functions, Ableton Link, real time warping, and now AI Neural Mix are unique features. Coldcut love remixing tracks live…a huge result would be the option to Loop BACK instead of forward. Im playing a tune, think wow that was an amazing break, but its too late to loop it. I want to hit loop and set it to loop the LAST x bars that played, ie the bit I just heard.
This could even be a global option so would require no GUI additions beyond that. PLEASE consider this which would IMHO really boost the remixing power and creativity of DJay. I see Brent_Meinema1 also proposed this in 2014 -and it exists in Traktor. Im also lobbying Pioneer to implement it.
Hey that’s acutally a really nice idea for a feature suggestion. Defenitely would support it. Ideally the detailed use case would work like that:
Precondition
Track is loaded and playing in the active deck.
Use Case Flow
A nice part of the track is played (for example a very nice “build up” or “drop” in electronic music genres).
In his mind a (good) DJ knows (or counts) how many bars that part had.
User already selects this loop length.
Shortly after the drop, e.g. within the next bar after the drop the user clicks a special/new button for “back loop”
Implementation
dJay creates a loop that starts n-bars before the drop and ends exactly at the drop.
Playhead jumpes back into the loop in sync & quantized.
The last step would have to options. And I am personally unsure which one would sound better:
a) Immideately jump into the loop when the loop back button is pressed OR
b) Let the current bar (4 beats) finish playing and then jump back exactly to the start of the loop n-bars before the drop.
We are currently playing a nice electronic tune on the main stage of Tomorrowland festival
The beat drops and you think: "Damn that was a nice drop, i would like to play that again right now immideately.
Your loop lenth is already set to 4 bars.
Now you press the “back loop” button.
Where should the back-loop be?
It should have the length set by the current loop length.
It should end at the previous bar. This assumes two things.
First: that the drop was exatly at the end of the previous bar. Not in the middle of a bar at beat 2 or so. This assumption is true for electronic tracks and a correctly set beat grid. Our drops are always at the beginning of a bar at beat one.
Secondly: The DJ presses the “back loop” button still within the next bar after the drop. IMHO this precondition is fine.
Now the question is what SHOULD happen (in the above situation when the playhead already moved some more time)?
Should the playhead immideately jump back to the start of the loop? Maybe, but then your track is out of sync if a second track would be playing.
Should the playhead jump back to the start of the loop at the next beat. Quantized.
Or should the current track keep playing until the end of the current bar, ie the 4 beats after the drop and then jump back to the beginning of the “back loop”
All three alternatives could make sense, depending on your music style. To IMHO this would need to be configurable.
Amazing feature idea and cool to know that Coldcut are using djay! In my mind, it would take the current beat as the last beat of the loop, so it would immediately loop back after the current beat. Would love to see that implemented!
thanks for support and ideas. Must admit I dont use pre made cue points that much, in my mind its more about a tune I dont know well and being able to recapture a good bit. I think Doogies preconditions are spot on. as for which loopback option is best, ie
A* Should the playhead jump back to the start of the loop at the next beat. Quantized.
B* Or should the current track keep playing until the end of the current bar, ie the 4 beats after the drop and then jump back to the beginning of the “back loop”
probably A but would be good to have a switch. A is more how loop forward works , right?
When I regularly set a loop, it is decided by MY selected loop length. Algo adding logic that would find the drop… And decide for me… Ya no thank you.
Plus that logic would probably be exponentially more difficult to program.
They don’t need to add anything to the UI, just let us map it.
I would make it the same button combo that I use in Virtual DJ to trigger that loop backwards feature.
shift + 2x loop/end loop
In fact…
we may be able to (easily) add the feature (albeit in a janky way) ourselves by duplicating the midi action on the button you want to trigger the loop back action.
By duplicating you’d be executing 2 commands at once(actually hopefully sequentially) which would be:
