I’m one of those happy guys, who own 2 OG trackers. As I’m working on a live set at the moment, there was popping out a very central question. Initially my plan was to perform song by song alternately on the two trackers, let’s name them tracker A and B. An this is how I would like to perform:
I load up song 1 on tracker A, song 2 on tracker B (which is muted audio-wise at the moment)
I press play and start to perform song 1 - both trackers are in sync
I make the transition from song 1 (on A) to song 2 (on B)
I perform song 2
So far, so good… But now I have to load the next song (3) on tracker A, therefore I have to stop tracker A. How can I get tracker A back to sync after loading song 3?
In an ideal world, there would be some kind of pick-up-sync in this situation. This means after loading the song, I should be able to “arm” tracker A, and when tracker B starts for example a new bar, tracker 4 hooks up.
In the beginning I was starting to write a wish draft, but I considered to ask first… maybe there’s already a solution for this scenario.
I think it’s probably easiest/cheapest to go oldschool:
Put a DJ Mixer between the two and handle them as if they were turntables.
Do manual sync by triggering start after you’ve loaded the project.
With the mixers headphone cue functionality you can easily get it to sync up, before sending the signal out to the room or the recording.
This also has the added benefit that you could mix the two and or perform some nice dj style cuts and things.
I just got a Reloop RMX10BT specifically for this and also a CME Thru6 that supports Bluetooth MIDI.
The idea here is twofold. Use the mixer as mentioned for manual syncing, and/or possibly develop a little Mobile Bluetooth MIDI App that could be the master clock that can send / resend transports (starts) through the CME Thru6 to all connected devices.
I use my Tracker in my DJ Sets to play my own stuff and check my songs in a mixing context against other tunes. I do it same as the guy in the video (only one Tracker + Traktor Dj s4 mk3 in my case).
Make the mix using your Headphones. On the Tracker set the tempo same as in the current Track playing (lets say 160bpm for exemple), maybe put your first pattern in loopmode. Press play in time on the tracker and fine adjust the sync with the tempo fader in the song mode. If for exemple the Tracker is a bit behind the current Track i speed up the Tracker Tempo (like up to 163bpm) until it is synced up tight and then i quikly put the Tempo back (to 160bpm). same as i would push or pull the tempo on a record player or cdj to get right on time. I hope this makes sense to you. get out of loop mode and bring up the volume of the new track on the mixer. This method to me is always better than other sync methods because you can really get tracks to groove better than with a stiff automated sync system. You could even let them run out of sync on purpose in a controlled way if that’s a desired effect at some point in your performance.
I have one and use it for this exact purpose. It can keep track of beats and bars, and send out a restart message (stop followed by start directly after) on the beat, that will restart all downstream sequencers
Thanks for all the contributions - and sorry for the delay… I’ve been very busy over the last week.
I’ve already tried most of the ideas, but they weren’t quite satisfactory for me… More gear is also not an option, because I try to minimize the setup as good as I can. Off course, I have to go with the stated solutions for the moment, but I’ll definitly try to draft a new wish
I think you’ll get better / more flexible results by treating them like turntables rather than relying on midi sync. i.e. cutting them in with the play button through a dj mixer and tweaking BPM manually as suggested above by Sandroid and others.
Two og trackers in and out of performance mode through a dj mixer is like heaven!
Additionally, having messed about with this a lot, I think two trackers set to 160bpm and triggered manually would be more reliably in sync than anything you’d get from using midi.
