Solco grids every track itself, with its downbeats, and most grids are ready to play as they are. The Beatgrids step lists only the ones worth a look, so you check a few tracks instead of thousands.
The Beatgrids step
Click Beatgrids in the sidebar. Three tabs sort the tracks:
- Uncertain: grids the analysis couldn't settle.
- Changing tempo: tracks whose tempo moves, such as a live drummer. Their grid follows the music, so they need a look less often.
- Checked: grids you marked right.
When an export asks you to check some grids, they get a tab of their own, From the export.
The Why it needs a look column gives the reason: Maybe twice too fast, Maybe half speed (the file's own BPM tag says so), Tempo wanders or Tempo changes.
Check a grid
Click a track to load it on the deck, and play it with Click on: a metronome on the grid, accented on beat one. If the clicks sit on the kicks and the bar numbers start on the drop, the grid is right. Click the tick at the right end of the deck's toolbar to mark it right. It moves to Checked, and any later change or new analysis asks again.
When Solco can't tell whether DJs count a track at, say, 70 or 140, the deck says This grid may be twice too fast (or half speed). Use 70.00 BPM changes it; Keep 140.00 marks the grid as it is right.
Fix the tempo
The BPM sits at the right of the deck's toolbar, between ½× and ×2:
- ½× halves the grid's BPM (140 becomes 70), keeping the beat nearest the playhead and every other beat.
- ×2 doubles it (70 becomes 140, 87 becomes 174), adding a beat halfway between each pair.
- Click the BPM to type an exact value: Solco grids the track again at that one steady tempo. Right-click it to step it up or down, and to choose the step.
None of these changes how fast the track plays. For a track whose tempo changes, the BPM shows the tempo at the playhead, and clicking it offers Analyse as steady… for a track that should have one tempo.
Fix the downbeat
Put the playhead on beat one where you hear it and click Downbeat. On a steady track the whole grid moves there and that beat becomes one. On a track whose timing moves, Solco fits the grid to the music again through your mark: the bars count from it across the track, and only the beats around it change.
If the grid drifts later in the track, mark the downbeat there too, working from the start. Between two marks the grid has a whole number of bars and follows the music, and two marks far apart on a steady track set its tempo exactly. Your marks are drawn as thicker red downbeat lines.
- The arrows either side of Downbeat nudge the mark nearest the playhead, or the whole grid when there are no marks, by 1 ms. Shift+← and Shift+→ over the waveform do the same.
- Clicking Downbeat within half a beat of a mark moves that mark.
- Over the waveform, Delete removes the nearest mark and Insert marks a single beat.
- Ctrl+Z undoes a grid edit and Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes it (⌘Z and ⌘⇧Z on a Mac).
Right-click Downbeat for Mark beat 1 here, Remove the mark here, Manual grid, Clear marks, and undo and redo.
Manual grid is for a track Solco hears wrong, such as a song that changes metre: your marks become the grid, with evenly spaced beats between them. Turn it off and Solco fills in between your marks again.
Your marks are kept when a track is analysed again, and on your USB drive the players get the grid beat for beat.
In a narrow window
When the toolbar is too narrow, the grid tools wait behind the Beatgrid button at its right end: click it to show them in a row underneath.
Analyse it again
Right-click the waveform and choose Analyse again › Beatgrid only to grid the track from scratch. Your marks stay and are fitted to the new analysis. Grid edits wait while an export runs.
Grids Solco isn't sure about go on a USB drive as they are, and the export's plan names them so you can check them: see "Exporting to a CDJ or XDJ USB drive".