This is an archive or an article that is no longer available and describes how I set up my Rane TTM57 sl with Serato Scratch Live to automate echo / delay effect with the bpm of the beat I am scratching too.

The original article appeared here:

~~http://ssl-wiki.help.bootlegs.de/Using_echo_EFX_efficiently~~ (no longer available).

and is curretly archived here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110517023013/http://ssl-wiki.help.bootlegs.de/Using_echo_EFX_efficiently

Please note that I am unable to answer questions on this process – I literally followed the instructions step by step until it worked without a deep understanding of what is happening!

Introduction

This article describes how I use the echo EFX efficiently avoiding jumping forth and back between the mixers function groups. This saves a lot of stress and reduces errors a lot.

Start

The TTM57 SL has the great feature to automatically track the BPM of either deck to use it with the EFX. This helps saving time and makes tapping the BPM obsolete assuming your audio files have proper BPM values set. The idea now is to move the “track BPM deck 1/2” function to the “group 1” (FIXME screenshot). Then we dont want to switch to the EFX group just for choosing to which deck the echo EFX will be applied to. We accomplish this by putting the echo EFX to the FlexFX chain. Then we will be able simply by pressing the “FlexFX” send button on either channel to choose to which channel the echo will be applied to.

Change group 1 assignments

Assign “track BPM” to group 1

Assign “track bpm EFX1” to J1, right direction, “left deck” (left joystick J1 to right direction tracks the left deck)

1 – Switch to group 1

2 – Click on ‘J1->right direction’ with right mouse click:

3 – Choose ‘track bpm effect 1’:

4 – Choose ‘left deck’:

Assign “track bpm EFX1” to J2, left direction, “right deck”

Repeats steps 1-4 as above for joystick J2.

Set the echo EFX settings properly

Switch to the EFX group

press Group button, then B6

Assign the echo EFX to AUX (shares it with FlexFX and Mic )[FixMe Screenshot]

press B3

Turn EFX on

press B6

Set the EFX parameters accordingly to your needs

press J1, right ‘1/2’

adjust the echo parameters

I use a wet/dry setting of 50%, feedback of around 60%

Use the EFX

Insert the EFX

So the echo EFX is now setup properly. If you want to apply them to a channel, simply press the “FlexFX” button on the respective side

Use BPM tracking to determine speed of the echo EFX

Dont forget to push the joystick J1 to the right, if you want to echo on the left deck…

See how the padlock icon in the echo EFX parameter panel appears in red (anything related to the left deck is displayed in red, for example track title, beat matching display etc.) indicating that the speed of the echo is determined by the left decks BPM (in this example the left deck has a track loaded with 112BPM)

Now if you want the echo speed to be determined by the BPM of the right dekc, push joystick J2 to the left

See how the padlock icon in the echo EFX parameter panel appears in blue (anything related to the right deck is displayed in blue, for example track title, beat matching display etc.) indicating that the speed of the echo is determined by the rightdecks BPM (in this example the left deck has a track loaded with 97BPM)

Keep in mind… choosing “track BPM for EFX” (for echo) makes the echo follow the BPM on the correct deck, it makes tapping the speed obsolete!! For example if you slow down the deck by half, then the BPM will be halved as well and the speed of the echo effect will automatically halved as well!

For example, the original tracks BPM at 0.0% pitch is 97BPM, I have choose to track the BPM on the right deck, now I have changed the pitched to +8%, see how the echo EFX speed has changed automatically to 104.7BPM (thats 97BPM +8.0% pitch)

Try it out, it is really really fantastic. Make sure your tracks have correct BPM tags!

Known Issues

If you apply the EFX as described above there are a few things you have to keep in mind:

The signal which is sent to the FlexFX-send runs through a DAC, and then when it loops back to the FlexFX-return runs through a ADC. This means you will loose a certain amount of quality, which I assume is very very little, as the complete signal runs inside the mixer
You cant use any external EFX at the same time
If you connect a mic or an additional signal to AUX-in at the same time, the EFX will also be applied to any of those signals, as the AUX-in, Mic and FlexFX-return share the same ADC.

Rane TTM 57sl and Serato Scratch Live: Using Echo EFX Efficiently