I think this is an ongoing issue with any DJ apps,

Serato or Studio get the first downbeat wrong most of the time, its up to you to mark and set the first downbeat,

I'm not sure if Serato can automate this,

DJay Pro has A.I Beatgrids and they cant get this right.

Hey Syndic, I know you're trying to help, but respectfully, you would do yourself a favor if you only comment on threads where you really have something substantive to add.

Translation: unless you agree with me, dont comment.


Syndic8 is right, ALL software struggles with locating the downbeat, even on some fairly basic house tracks, and that includes Djay Pro (which i use often)

No, it has nothing to do with agreeing or not. I don't care about whether software struggles with this, I already know this, otherwise I wouldn't ask.

I'm asking if someone has a concrete fix for Serato Studio to move the downbeat, without losing the markers it sets.

You should ask the question on the Serato Studio portion of the forum, as you're far more likely to get an answer there, this is the 'Serato DJ Pro General Discussion'

+1 Agree✊

this is why I have to go through every song to set the downbeat, I simply cant rely on Dj software to do this,


lol me too :)

Beat grid auto analysis should be based on Drum Stems only. Maybe it should be an option (thorough analysis)

to the OP:

Serato Studio beat gridding analysis is worse than SDJ pro in my opinion.

I re-analyzed my entire library in Serato studio based on SS having better gridding for fluctuating beats... but noticed the beat gridding over all was worse than SDJ Pro.

I re-analyzed my entire library again in SDJ Pro and noticed it's a bit better now.

VDJ and DJay Pro seem to be a lot better than SDJ pro, but like the gentlemen above said, it's an industry wide struggle to get close to perfect gridding.

it would be nice for Serato to make their beat gridding process a little less time consuming... VDJ seems to be the easiest when it comes to correcting grids...for the majority of my "off" tracks in VDJ... I just have to slide the first down beat over and everything else has pretty much been lining up almost perfectly.

I'm sure it won't be long before one of these companies nail it with new gridding technology.

I'm rooting for SDJ to be the first... who knows maybe they might something game changing up their sleeve for 2026.

I agree,

I analyzed about 100 old funk and disco tracks with Serato Studio. Overall, the analysis is really good and, in my opinion, better than Serato DJ—but the problem of incorrect downbeats exists in some tracks. I then tried to manually correct the downbeat in Serato DJ, but unfortunately, the analysis completely changed—so I can't recommend that.

Personally, I prefer an incorrect downbeat to a completely off-kilter beat. Especially since I know the tracks and where the downbeat should be.

The alternative is to manually set beat markers every few beats – this is certainly the most accurate, but as is well known, extremely time-consuming.

Right. I shudder to think how much time I've spent merely beat-gridding over the years. :-/

fluid beat grids have to be the next big thing in the works. What SDJ should be doing is running its detection algorithm on the drum stems only. That might slow it down but a good option to improve accuracy.