GridFix: A Desktop Application for the Correction of Algorithmically-Generated Beatgrids for Music

Abstract

Beatgridding is a technique meant to aid DJs in aligning the beats of two different songs. By overlaying a grid of beat markers (a “beatgrid”) on top of a waveform representation of the track being beatgridded, a song’s beats can be visualized and thus easily matched to another’s. State-of-the-art DJ software—like rekordbox by the company AlphaTheta—will algorithmically generate beatgrids for songs. However, these beatgrids are not always accurate and can often be difficult to correct with only the software-provided tools. GridFix is a desktop application designed to be an auxiliary tool for rekordbox, allowing users to correct rekordbox-generated beatgrids by providing additional functionality that rekordbox does not. GridFix’s main advantage is its ability to let users make local changes to small, isolated sections of a beatgrid, a task that is quite hard to achieve in rekordbox. GridFix is fully compatible with rekordbox and fairly easy to learn how to use, as shown by user testing.