What is a beat grid?
A beat grid is a set of markers, one on every beat of a track. In DJ software they're the thin lines over the waveform. They look like decoration, but almost everything that makes digital mixing easier depends on them.
What the lines mean
- A beat is one pulse: in most dance music, one kick.
- Every fourth beat starts a bar, and software usually draws that line brighter.
- Bars group into phrases of 8, 16 or 32, which is where tracks change.
The first beat of the first bar is bar 1, and the grid counts on from there.
How software builds one
Analysis works out two things: the tempo, which sets the gap between the lines, and where one beat actually falls, which pins them in place. From those two it lays a line on every beat to the end of the track. That works because most dance music holds one tempo all the way through. A track that speeds up or slows down needs a grid that changes with it, and a single-tempo grid will drift off it.
What depends on it
- Sync. It lines up the beats of two records by lining up their grids.
- Loops. A loop starts and ends on grid lines, so it repeats cleanly.
- Jumps. Jumping while a track plays can land on a beat, so you stay in time.
- Beat counters. Anything that tells you which beat of the bar you're on reads the grid.
If the grid sits on the kicks, all of these land on the music. If it's off, they land in the wrong place, even when the tempo is right.
Right tempo, wrong grid
A grid can have exactly the right tempo and still be off. If every line sits a little after the kick, sync will line the grids up and the kicks will still sit a little apart. You hear it as a flam: two kicks where there should be one. That's why DJs check the grid, not just the BPM.
How to check a grid
Look closely at the waveform at the start, the middle and the end of the track. The lines should sit on the front edge of each kick in all three places. If they start on the kicks and drift away, the tempo is wrong. If they're off by the same amount everywhere, the grid is shifted. Then listen: loop a bar and hear whether it repeats without a hiccup.
Grids in Mix//Sync
On the big waveform across the top, every beat has a small tick, every bar a brighter line, and every fourth bar a red tick. Four small dots on the mixer light up with the beat of the bar each deck is on. Every track gets a grid when it's analyzed, Rekordbox users bring their own grids across, and when one is off you can fix it on the deck in a few clicks. See Fix a beat grid.
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