Traktor To Get Elastic Beatgrids & Real-Time Stems Separation

Phil Morse | Founder & Tutor
Read time: 2 mins
Last updated 21 August, 2022

Traktor Pro 3 DJ software will soon become easier to use for DJs who play disco, funk, rock and other non-electronic genres, as well as for creative mashup DJs. This is thanks to the news that both elastic beatgridding and real-time stems separation have been added to the product roadmap.

The Traktor team has started publishing quarterly updates on what it’s working on and what stage the work has reached, which is where we spotted these two pretty major features.

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Stems, done right this time

It’s great to see Traktor formally adding stems DJing to its roadmap, as it pioneered the idea six years ago (with an ultimately flawed implementation).

Now that Traktor and iZotope, a leader in audio manipulation software, are under the same ownership, it looks like Traktor will have a class-leading “v2” stems feature in the near future, albeit one only available behind its new Traktor Pro Plus subscription version.

This will bring Traktor in line with Virtual DJ and djay Pro AI, both of which have had such a feature for the last two years – and put it ahead of Rekordbox and Serato, who have yet to announce any type of stems DJing.

Beatgridding crawls nearer…

Meanwhile, to the beatgridding news. This is a major missing feature that has been requested for as long as anyone can remember, and which has long since been added to all other DJ platforms – and the good news is that as of the Traktor Pro 3 Feature Roadmap Q3, it is listed in the “Priorities” column.

Note “Flexible beatgrids” in the priority research section here.

However, if you’re a Traktor user who’s been waiting for this, don’t start planning those four-deck Led Zep mashups quite yet: The Traktor team goes on to qualify that: “These areas still require further research and clarification to better understand the challenges and the efforts involved.”

They also say that “initiatives in this section may change based on the feedback and priorities of our user community” – so if this is a feature that is important to you, do make sure you let them know so it doesn’t slip back on their priorities list.

What is elastic beatgridding, and why is it important?

Elastic, or flexible, beatgridding is the ability to add a beatgrid, or “map” of where the beats fall in a track, to music where the tempo varies – something that always happens when a live drummer is involved (so rock, funk, old disco etc).

Adding a beatgrid means you can then use the “sync” button to beatmix those tracks, as well as use rhythm-based effects such as delays and echoes properly.

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