Addressing a common pain point for DJs dealing with fluctuating tempos, we've introduced Fluid Beatgrid™ technology in djay for iOS. Capable of instantly analyzing and predicting the structure of any song, this dynamic grid system follows every tempo fluctuation and interruption in the beat.
Fluid Beatgrid™ automatically detects and adjusts to varying tempo and rhythmic changes within a song, ensuring beats are always locked in perfect harmony. This facilitates seamless beat-matching, making complex transitions easier and more accurate, especially for genres with fluctuating tempos. Rather than laboriously editing beat grids manually, DJs can now beat-match any type of songs together, making complex transitions easier and more accurate, regardless of their rhythmic structure.
Action / Button Layout:
1) Displays current BPM and opens up the BPM editing Popup
2) Halve the BPM. If there is an anchor anywhere after the play head position, djay only halves until there. If there is an anchor anywhere before the play head, halves start from there.
3) Double the BPM. Analogous behavior to #2.
4) Designate the closest beat in the current beat grid to be the downbeat (start of each bar). Changes the downbeat globally, i.e., of every bar. Snaps to half beats, so it can also be used to fix (very rare) offbeat issues.
5) Shift the current downbeat one to the left. It is equivalent to going with the play head to the next beat left of the downbeat and clicking on set.
6) Shift the current downbeat one to the right. Analogous behavior to #4.
7) Set the index of the current bar to 1. All previous bars will be negatively indexed. Useful, for example, if you have long intros or skits where you'd want to count down the bars to the "actual song start."
8) Identical to #2.
9) Set the BPM of the track to a precise value. The resulting beat grid will be straight and respect the exact BPM value. For example, inputting 128.7 gives you a precise 128.7 BPM grid.
10) Identical to #3.
11) Reanalyze the beats based on a tapped BPM hint. The resulting beat will not necessarily be straight as in #9 but will respect the BPM value up to minor fluctuations. This means you can use this to straighten out any hiccups the system has encountered. E.g. In the unlikely event that you know a song has a BPM of around 128 ±10, but the system detects any sort of jumps, and so on, then you can use this feature to fix that.
12) Switch to the analyzed dynamic grid with the BPM range given on the right. djay automatically detects if it should use the dynamic or the straight grid, but you may want to adjust this setting manually. For songs without any strong tempo fluctuation, the dynamic grid will usually be almost identical to the straight grid.
13) Switch to the analyzed straight grid. This is a grid with equidistant beats using the BPM displayed on the right. For tracks with strongly fluctuating grids, this is going to be the most prevalent BPM value. However, it may not be necessary to switch to a straight grid for songs that have a non-straight underlying grid.
14) Toggle the "1st Bar" section. See #7.
15) Toggle the "Anchor" section. See #17-#20.
16) Toggle the "Grid" section. See #21-#23.
17) Add an anchor point to the beat grid. An anchor point is always going to be a downbeat in the resulting beat grid, and the system readjusts the beats to respect this. Future beats are readjusted starting from the anchor position up to a point where the system recognizes that no more adjustment is needed, and for previous beats, only the single bar prior to the anchor position is adjusted.
18) Removes the closest anchor near the play head from the beat grid.
19) Shifts the closest anchor to the left.
20) Shifts the closest anchor to the right.
21) Clear all markers on the beat grid.
22) Shifts the entire beat grid, i.e., all beats, anchors, etc., by a constant amount, and not just the anchors or the downbeat to the left.
23) Shifts the entire beat grid, i.e., all beats, anchors, etc., by a constant amount, and not just the anchors or the downbeat to the right.
24) djay's automatically detected downbeat (yellow tinted markers).
25) The playhead of the current position in the track (red tint marker).
26) Your custom-placed beat grid anchor (light blue tint marker).
27) Readjusted beats (dark blue tinted markers) based on the placed anchor.
28) Originally analyzed beats and downbeats (grey and yellow tint markers, respectively). It is not affected by the placed anchor, as the originally analyzed beats are identical to adjustment starting from that point.