Prepping Acappellas in Traktor
Today we get back to the basics with a good old fashioned Traktor tutorial. After months of requests, we finally address a common problem- how to get the BPM for and beatgrid an acapella. If you have any questions, post them in the comments and we will update the post.
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:41 pm Quote
Awesome, once again another truely helpful tutorial!
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:58 am Quote
Very nice, but where are the MP3s and more info?
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:06 am Quote
great stuff man.. i really want to start doing some more remixes when playing live. thanks, very helpful :)
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:32 am Quote
This is a usefull video indeed!
But where can the MP3’s be found?
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:10 am Quote
Ean…thanks for all your info…you are so on a different level when it comes to stuff like this in traktor…thanks!!!
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:34 am Quote
http://www.filestube.com/6ac49add68bd4fcc03ea,g/ACAPELLA-ADAM-FREELAND-WE-WANT-YOUR-SOUL-ACAPELLA-MP3.html
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:58 am Quote
Any way to get the mp3 through Mediafire or someplace I don’t have to enter my email?
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:48 am Quote
this is awesome ean! thanks for the help
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:58 am Quote
Ean great article
just what i needed to keep me busy untill my MF arrives..
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:06 am Quote
Great tutorial. very simple and super useful!
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:56 am Quote
Pretty cool, I have always wondered about how to use Acapellas in my sets…
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:12 am Quote
try beatmatching and mixing them, sorta like a DJ or something.
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:20 am Quote
haha +1 @meh
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:01 am Quote
hahahaha this one really made me laugh
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:48 am Quote
Great tutorial there Ean. Gonna Tweet it
Anyone who needs Free Acapellas & Dj-Tools, just Google ‘acapellas4u’
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:41 pm Quote
Good tutorial.
I do a lot of live mashup sets with just instrumentals and acapellas, and I use a little different technique to get everything sounding good.
Use your favorite production application (Ableton, etc.) I personally use logic for all my production, so here’s the BEST way to get everything synced up.
Everyone knows Traktor is great because you can use a beatgrid for loops, syncing, etc. This makes using instrumentals extremely easy. However, like you said, acapellas are a little tougher.
Use some kind of BPM counter (There are a lot of good widgets out there for Dashboard) and figure out the average BPM. Doesn’t have to be perfect.
Open Logic and drop your acapella in. If you have the original song, find it and look for instances where the Beat hits on a word or syllable. That will be your starting point.
Trim the acapella to that, then drop it at the beginning of a measure or bar. Apply the round-a-bout BPM you found in the tempo window, then open up ultrabeat, any drum loop will do. Now is the tough part. Turn on ultrabeat so it plays with the track you’re working with. Keep playing it through until you find a spot where it starts to not sync with the acapella. Adjust accordingly in the tempo window until you get a perfect tempo throughout the whole acapella.
Once you find the correct tempo, go back into Ultrabeat and turn it off. Then, grab a 4-bar loop and drag it to the “1″ measure position of the entire track. Before you loop the drum, make sure you have stretched out the acapella from the starting point backwards. To do this, click on the bottom left of the actual track and simply drag.
Now, to make everything perfect, loop that 4-bar drum as a 32 bar loop. This will allow Traktor to make a beat grid. Then, place the acapella track right after the drum loop. Now, when the track is bounced and imported into traktor, you’ll have a long drum intro followed by your synced acapella equipped with a beat grid.
You can even beat juggle from the drum to the acapella with hotcues, a nice effect for blending into another song.
Hope this is a good alternative.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:19 am Quote
As Dj Trademark said, its a lot easier to do it with a daw like ableton first, determine your bpm and stuff, warp it, and then export it with a simple 32 bar kick loop or if you like a real drum loop.
Then I set the load marker at the beginning of the acapella.
July 24th, 2010 at 3:47 am Quote
acapella must be in the same key to sound good?
July 24th, 2010 at 6:35 am Quote
thanx for this.i’ve tried copying exactly what you did ean with a fairly easy to mix acapella(ruffneck ‘everybody’)but it wont set a beat grid.it says grid in the cue menu and is white but theres no grid??.im using the latest v of traktor.any suggestions
July 24th, 2010 at 7:10 am Quote
Calvin01,
Traktor should set a grid if you have a bpm set, and have at least one grid marker. Are you sure you have a bpm set against the track ?
July 24th, 2010 at 8:26 am Quote
yeah.i followed the tutorial which ean set the bpm in the window then selected the grid marker.but no grid??
July 25th, 2010 at 2:04 pm Quote
i’ve tried it on others with no problems.gonna render it to a new file and try again.thnx for your help moonie
July 26th, 2010 at 1:06 pm Quote
Seems simple enough…
Ken_UF
July 26th, 2010 at 5:50 pm Quote
What to do when you’re trying to figure out the bpm of, let’s say, a 70’s reggae tune when the band has a very chilled attitude towards metronomes and the like. A lot of tunes I’ve been trying to mix waver randomly at +- 5 bpm???
July 27th, 2010 at 11:37 am Quote
Traktor is pretty sweet software. I’m only playing with the trial version at the moment but I’m going to purchase this app. Great tutorial too by the way.
August 4th, 2010 at 8:15 pm Quote
Just a small addition to Trademark’s post.
As well as a drum intro I find if I actually place a small clap through the whole acapella I can more easily adjust the tempo manually, say if you want to mix it over a slightly less rigid type of track.
from the audience perspective they wont notice a clap adding to the original track, keep it small so only you notice. setting the beat grid in Traktor will work better too.
Also if you do a set using CDJ’s and don’t have the luxury of auto sync, you’ll find having a small clap
through the vocal will make life way easier.
Love your posts BTW Ean!