If you’re a Rekordbox user who’s been tearing your hair out because your auto loops won’t line up properly – even though your beatgrids are perfect – we’ve found the problem, and more importantly, the fix.
This isn’t about using quantize to keep your loops tight during performance. This is a specific bug in Rekordbox (we’re on version 7.2) that affects tracks analysed with the high precision beatgridding feature. When you create auto loops on these tracks, the loop end points end up in the wrong place, even though the beatgrid itself is spot on.
We discovered this while preparing a mix for our forthcoming Transitions Toolbox course – the track in question was “Never Too Much” by Luther Vandross – an older track with a live drummer where the tempo drifts slightly. Rekordbox’s high precision analysis did a brilliant job getting the beatgrid perfect throughout, but when we tried to set a 32-beat loop for the transition, it was almost a quarter beat too long!
Trust us…it sounded absolutely terrible.
What’s causing this (and the super simple fix)
After testing different Rekordbox versions, trying tracks with and without high precision analysis, and examining tracks that are easy versus difficult to analyse, we’ve narrowed down the cause.
The bug only affects tracks that need flexible beatgridding – in other words, tracks where the tempo drifts and Rekordbox has to do some work to keep the grid aligned. (You can see the grid moving slightly in the video to stay tight with the music.) These are exactly the tracks where auto loops go wrong.
Ready for the fix? Before you create your auto loop, turn on quantize. That’s it. You don’t need to leave quantize on – you just need it active when you initially create the loop.
Here’s the process:
Click the quantize button on your controller (or in Rekordbox – it’s the little “Q” icon) Go to the point in your track where you want the loop Set your auto loop as normal – 4 beats, 8 beats, 16 beats, whatever you need Save the loop to one of your saved loop slots (if you want) Turn quantize off again if you prefer to DJ without it
Once you’ve created and saved the loop with quantize active, it stays perfect even after you turn quantize off. The loop is now correctly aligned to the beatgrid, and you can use it normally in your sets.
Want to master Rekordbox?
Here at Digital DJ Tips, we’ve been teaching people how to DJ since 2010, and our Rekordbox Made Easy course will show you everything you need to know about the software. This fully up-to-date training will make you a Rekordbox ninja, whatever DJ gear you’re using – beginner to pro. And yes, we’ll be adding what we just learned about this bug to the course.
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So why is this happening?
Auto loops should be an exact number of beats by definition – that’s how you choose and set them. The fact that you need quantize enabled for them to work properly on flexible beatgridded tracks feels like a bug rather than intended behaviour. Rekordbox seems to be using an average of the track’s beat length rather than examining the actual beats (unless quantize is on).
We couldn’t find anyone else talking about this problem online, which had us wondering if we were going mad until we cracked it. Since making the video though, many have said they’ve found the same thing. To be clear: It’s NOT a case of “just use quantize” – you may not want an auto loop to snap to a beat or fraction of a beat (which is what quantize does). These should be separate things.
Read this next: How To Beatgrid Disco, Funk, Rock & Soul Music [Free Course]
If you know more about why this happens, or if you’ve encountered this in different situations, do let us know in the comments. One community member mentioned the same thing happens when beat jumping through flexible beatgridded tracks – we haven’t tested that yet, but it sounds likely.
