Beatgrind

[Nick]

Someone I met this weekend told me about a feature in VirtualDJ he called "Beatgrinding". Some googling found me that it's actually called "beat gridding" and this explanation: http://www.virtualdj.com/forums/66481/Mix_lessons/Beatgrid_effect.html

Essentially it's a plugin that samples the 16 (presumably configurable) beats following when you activate it and throws them into a Hydrogen-style drum machine. The upshot is that you can very quickly on the fly cut and chop a section of a track and have it get looped underneath a different (or the same?) track.

I think we should (in the far future) add this since it looks like it would be really really useful. I get that similar separate apps already exist to do this, but it would be tricky to integrate them on the fly into a song with an unkown BPM.

Traktor already uses "beat gridding" to mean manually laying out a grid of beats, so I'm going to keep calling this grinding.

[naught101 (naught101)]

In general, this is called beat-slicing. There are a few programs that do it, including Propellerheads' ReCycle, and FreeCycle (which I think is defunct). OpenAV has a program called Slicr in the works that does it too. Not sure how that could integrate with Mixxx though.

[naught101 (naught101)]

Actually, I'm mistaken, the OpenAV plugin was Refractor, discussed here: https://github.com/harryhaaren/openAV-Fabla/issues/36#issuecomment-65944332 . Unfortunately, it looks like it's not going to be released.

[Harry van Haaren (harryhaaren)]

Hi All,

Regarding the Refractor plugin mentioned above: it has similar features, but not quite the same: The beat-grid there allows "retriggering" sample playback multiple times inside its "square".

I'll link to Masha here: which is a "glitching" or "beat-smashing" plugin. Its a pretty crude implementation, but does approximate what the functionality requested here. Masha v2 will incorporate a very short ADSR in order avoid clicks at start-stop boundaries of the loop.
https://github.com/harryhaaren/openAV-ArtyFX/blob/master/manual.md#masha

If a Mixxx dev is interested in discussing implementing this feature, feel free to get in touch: <email address hidden>

The beat grid is indeed cool, but you'll find it gets repetitive after a while (pun intended :)
Cheers, -Harry from OpenAV

PS: Re "Slicr" was discussed and in general I like the idea. It has not yet seen any development, and probably won't see much attention anytime soon, as OpenAV is prioritizing other projects.

[Harry van Haaren (harryhaaren)]

Ah found it: I had coded a beat matrix smasher before, but I wasn't sure if I still had the code lying around.
Quick demo video: http://openavproductions.com/tmp/beatmasher.mkv

Its implemented as a standalone JACK client, and the code isn't perfect, but I can share it with any interested dev, and explain any issues. Again, the DSP code is not production quality (clicks at segment start / stop etc) but its a good indication.

Cheers, -Harry of OpenAV

[Harry van Haaren (harryhaaren)]

Forgot to mention, it has a configurable number of steps, allowing for fine-grained beat-control. 64 step screenshot:
http://openavproductions.com/tmp/beatmasher.png

[Daniel Schürmann (daschuer)]

Hi Harry, thank you for your comments. It looks impressive.
What does this mean for this bug in therms of a todo list?

[naught101 (naught101)]

Probably just needs https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/pull/359 for Masha to work. That would be awesome. Sorry for throwing the thread off-track with discussion of beat slicing - I misunderstood the original request.

[Harry van Haaren (harryhaaren)]

@Daniel, in terms of a TODO, I don't currently have time to work on Mixxx, as I hope to release lots of OpenAV stuff really soon... That said, I'm happy to offer some assistance to somebody willing who wants to take this on.

I'll (privately) share the source code for the above linked beat-masher. I don't wish to publicly post it as it is not production quality, and I don't wish for people to use it thinking it is.

Ping me an email directly, <email address hidden> , as I don't seem to get bug-update notifies despite them being enabled...
Cheers, -Harry of OpenAV

[Swiftb0y (swiftb0y)]

Mixxx now uses GitHub for bug tracking. This bug has been migrated to:
https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/issues/5124