How to make tempo map by tapping tempo?

[leigh]

It should be a fairly straightforward operation: you have audio that was recorded without a click. Now, you're mixing, and for whatever reasons you'd like to map out the tempo changes in the song.

Ideally, you could tap out quarter notes as the song plays back, and the DAW would write a tempo map for you. However, I don't know a way to do that, at least not in Pro Tools.

With Pro Tools, the way do it now is to Tab to Transient for each downbeat, then use "Identify Beat" to adjust the tempo map to fit that new point in the timeline. (See this video for a demonstration of this approach.) But this is SLOW! And because it's slow, I tend to identify only downbeats, whereas a tap tempo method would identify every quarter note.

This came up in a mix session the other day, and I realized I'd never found a satisfactory way to deal with it. Who's got a technique for this?

cheers,
Leigh

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi Leigh,

I use Beat Detective to create tempo maps all the time. I usually cut up the best track with the best transients, by 8 or 16 bar clips, and beat detective each one, for more precision.

However I do not know which version of Pro Tools you own.

I think in 10 both the HD and the regular versions have it.

Cheers

[No Wave Casio Kitsch]

I started using Beat Detective in the way Nick described and found it to be much quicker than using Identify Beat. Beat Detective is available in Pro Tools 9, both 9HD and non-HD. I don't know if it's in non-HD versions earlier than 9.

If you try this method you'll want to be on Bar | Beat Marker Generation.

[leigh]

Oh yeah, using Beat Detective to generate bar/beat markers would make a lot of sense! My brain kind of skipped over that as an option.

However, in the particular track I was working with, there were no drums, and several sections where the music was "floaty"... so probably not enough transient definition for Beat Detective to grab on to.

Hence, I was seeking a way to write a tempo map by manually tapping tempo. This seemingly simple feature was included on little standalone recorders from Roland and Korg, 10 or 15 years back. Yet I can't find a way for Pro Tools to generate a tempo map this way.

Anyone know if Logic or another DAW has this feature?

It could also be implemented as a plug-in (tracking your taps, then writing a MIDI file that contained the corresponding tempo map, which you could then load back into the DAW), but that sounds like more trouble than its worth. This kind of feature really needs to be baked into the DAW.

Leigh

[T-rex]

This is probably not what you are looking for but couldn't you record a track of you clicking a pair of drum sticks instead of tapping and then use Beat Detective on that? Nothing but transients and you have "tapped" it in.

You could probably do the same thing with midi. Just record midi notes from a keyboard for the entire track, non-quantized of course.

[leigh]

This is probably not what you are looking for but couldn't you record a track of you clicking a pair of drum sticks instead of tapping and then use Beat Detective on that? Nothing but transients and you have "tapped" it in.

You could probably do the same thing with midi. Just record midi notes from a keyboard for the entire track, non-quantized of course.

Yeah, that's a fair workaround! Good idea. Would still prefer a more instant tap tempo, but tapping in MIDI is almost painless!

cheers,
Leigh

[T-rex]

Awesome! Hopefully it will work.

[digitaldrummer]

This is probably not what you are looking for but couldn't you record a track of you clicking a pair of drum sticks

I have done this many times.

[Dakota]

This is probably not what you are looking for but couldn't you record a track of you clicking a pair of drum sticks

I have done this many times.

Yes, +2 all this!

And add this trick: set the session tempo to as close as you guess the song starts at, then open the tempo map view and zoom in to fine tempo resolution, and you can select 1 or 2 or 4 bars at a time and "pull" the tempo line up and down to get it to line up with your hits - you can see the grid expand and contract... do this every few bars, it's pretty darn fast once you get used to it. I hope I described that well enough.