Torq 1.5 User Guide Chapter 1 38Torq 1.5 User Guide Chapter 6 38
BPM Matching
So how does one go about doing a DJ set with only one tur ntable? It is a little different t han doing it in Standard mode,
primarily due to the fact that you must u se Torq’s on-screen Speed sliders to match tempos as opposed to u sing the pitch
sliders on your turntable or CD player.
Try it out: Click Vinyl on a Deck and start the ex ternal control source. While the song is playing , move the Deck’s on-
screen Speed slider. Sure enough—the pl ayback speed of the song changes, just as if you’d moved the pitch sl ider on the
actual turntable or CD player.
The reason for requiring the use of the on-sc reen controls lies in the fact that exter nal control can be toggled back and
forth between the Decks at wil l. Any time you do this, you’ll want the Decks to keep t heir previous tempos. If the tempo
of a Deck changed when swapping exte rnal control, the mix would suddenly fall wild ly out of sync.
Therefore, the speed of the Control Vinyl or Con trol CD must remain constant—Torq will scale the playback r ate as
appropriate based on the setting of t he Decks’ Speed sliders. If you change th e speed of the control source, you’ll find
that the Decks suddenly change spe ed any time you toggle external control.
There is, however, one unique advantage to this setup: you can m ake use of Torq’s automatic beat-matching! Instead
of manually moving the on-screen Spe ed slider with the mouse or MIDI Control, you ca n simply click the Deck’s Sync
button and it’s Speed slider will be moved to mat ch the tempo of the other Deck. Click the Sy nc button again to turn it
off, and the Deck will remain at the proper s peed waiting for the external control sign al to begin. All you have to do then
is start the music at the right time a nd keep it in alignment during the mix via exte rnal control. This makes the process of
preparing the next track much fas ter.
Runout Protection
Since there is only about 12 minutes of usable control s ignal on each side of the Control Vinyls or on each tr ack of the CD,
it is possible that the song you are controlling could exce ed the length of control signal available o n the record or CD. This is
extremely common when using Relative mod e since the needle or CD position could be half way through when you start the
next track.
In order to prevent the music from stopping abrup tly if the control signal runs out on the record or CD, Torq features Runou t
Protection which essentially dis ables External Control when the reco rd or CD reaches the last 30 seconds of its sign al. When
this happens, the song’s waveform will st art to flash yellow and the song on the Deck conti nue to play. You will now be able
to take the needle off the record and place it b ack at the beginning without Torq stopping the music (the same i s true for the
CD—you can jump back to the begi nning of the track without stopping th e music). Once Torq reads a few seconds of signal
from the new location, the flashing will s top and Torq will re-engage External Control al lowing you to scratch and manipulate
like normal.
✓ Note: If you are currently in Absolute mode w hen the last 30 seconds of control signal are reached , Torq will automatically
switch the Deck into Relative mode w hen it engages the Runout Protection. The De ck will remain in Relative mode after you
reset the record or CD, thus preventing the mu sic from jumping to an unexpected locatio n when external control is enabled
again.
MIDI Control
While the Torq Control Vinyl and Control CDs offer a great way to co ntrol song playback on the Decks, there are st ill plenty
of other features in Torq that would surely feel good under the fing ertips. For that purpose, Torq provides the option of MI DI
control for nearly every button, k nob, and slider on the interface. Since M IDI is a common protocol shared between all t ypes of
musical gear, you can use almost anything capabl e of generating MIDI note or CC messages to con trol Torq—they do not need
to be specialized DJ controllers. This wi ll offer you a way to experiment with dif ferent control methods when DJing, such a s
using an M-Audio Trigger Finger to control sam ples or an M-Audio Axiom 25 keyboard to cont rol effects and pitches.