using time based effects...

[ayampanggang]

...such as echo, LFO based flanger, panning, LP/BP/HP etc, if to be done well, requires a perfect timing. Most mixers / effects unit provides a tap button to adjust the timing according to the song's BPM, but how accurate in timing could a human tapping be? After a few beats, the tempo will start to go off. And for certain effects (such as echo), if the timing is off even for a little, the resulting sound will be very bad because of beat clashing.

Generally, for you guys, how long will your tap stays in tempo? When using a certain time-based effects for a long time, what would you do to make sure the effect stays in tempo with the song? As for me, what I did is I adjusted the pitch of the song a back and forth little bit to keep it in time with my effect's timing.

It would be nice if besides the tap button there's a small pitch control function as in TTs or CDJs but we know this isn't the case for most mixers and effect units.

And if you're wondering, I'm using a Vestax VMC-004FX's builtin effects. And I'm thinking of buying a mid-level effect unit . I've just started looking around recently, but Korg Kaoss Pad KP3 or Pioneer EFX-500 looks good (though expensive for my current price range). EFX-1000 looks very good but would be too expensive for me. Any other recommendations? My price range is actually somewhere around US$300 at most (might raise the limit a bit if there's something really really worth the money). I'm really interested in effects unit that have good sampling and beat slicing capability.

Thank you in advance. :)

[ferretrock]

high pass the FX return = less problems/only use echoes with the bass dropped a bit.
You can't retap once you're in, or just manually adjust the pitch up and down with buttons?

I don't have any FX on my mixer, but have played the DJM800 a fair bit and it has both of the above.

[ayampanggang]

lol, in my mixers (Vestax VMC-004FX) I can't even adjust the EQ of the effects, and i don't have any send/return feature that's why i'm thinking of getting an effect unit and preferably upgrade my mixer to one that have send/return.

and having perfect tempo is quite versatile, as you can fiddle with the beat and will give the track a bit of new feel if you're good enough

yeah after i tapped in I actually adjust the song's tempo so it will always stay in sync with my effects, if say I use echo for 16 or 32 beat.

[TaNG]

Have a go of the Soundbite Pro, it's not so much an effects unit but lets you sample and slice and stuff, also has the LP/BP/HP filters.

[Spicy]

personally i think the VMC-004FX has shithouse timing. i have used this mixer a fair few times before and i really like it (was even going to buy one last year), but the beat counter is completely dicked.

the only worthy effect on that mixer is really the analog filter (hp/lp to suit).

my advice is upgrade to a mixer with a decent beat counter. all the DJMs i have played on have never missed a beat with the auto counting functions. no need for tapping! even cheapo numarks have a better counter that the vestax.

[Eclerkid]

get an Ecler.

Problem solved......

[ayampanggang]

if only evo 4 is only twice as expensive as my vestax :p

[quantum8]

if you're that far out when tapping then there may also be something wrong with your beatmatching skills

how long would you be using these effects to get so far out over time anyway?

[ayampanggang]

I'd like to be able to hold the effects for about 8 bars while fiddling with it. i believe tapping won't be able to hold that long except if i adjust the pitch of my CDJ to go along with my tapping instead, or if i can tap with like 99.99% accuracy.

i believe i beatmatch fine, the thing with tapping the effect is, unlike a CDJs or TTs which have pitch control, we can't adjust the effects tempo once we set. so when it starts to get out of sync with the song we're f*cked, esp. with effect like echo, where even a slight out of tempo will cause a wreck.

[TECHiONE]

Not sure what you're asking, but you do realise that DJ effects units like the EFX-500/1000 and effects in many other DJ mixers auto-detect and track the BPM of the music, and you don't have to worry about manually tapping to get the correct tempo for the effects.