ProTools Tempo Mapping, Etc...

[wedge]

I used the freakin' search function, but it ain't working right now! So...

I want to get jiggy with learning the ins and outs of tempo mapping and quantizing beats and alligning transients to the tempo map and all that stuff in ProTools LE... I have 6.4 but I'll update if I haveta...

Any recommendations for good books or websites or videos or classes and the like?

[joel hamilton]

Just mess with it until you get it to do what you want.

Put the thiing in grid mode, track to a click, then use beat detective to quantize the performance, or grab the live performance and force the grid to "chase" the drums. Great for locking sequence based stuff to the drummers performance, even without a click.

As far as slicing up a perfeormance, and forcing it to a grid, I have found that doing a section at a time really makes for more accurate quantization... I also have found thatapplying the quantizing just 30 or 40 percent at a time, can be much more pleasing. Weird, but true. If you simply quantize percent-by-percent, you can drag things towards the "target" point and get some musical variation out of the performance still, even if you wind up at almost 100% in the end anyway.

[wedge]

or grab the live performance and force the grid to "chase" the drums.

This is what I'm aiming to do... Could you give me a bit more detail?

I guess I should explain my specific needs, too. I have a series of songs that were tracked live voice and acoustic guitar, with the intention of adding drums, which I have to some of the songs already, and harmonies, keyboards, etc.

Much to my chagrin, some of grooves aren't as close to nailed as I thought they were, so I want to create a grid, I guess, then chop up the vocal/guitar parts to fit the grid, then do so to the drums...

I don't have beat detective, either, 'cause I have 6.4...

[joel hamilton]

or grab the live performance and force the grid to "chase" the drums.

This is what I'm aiming to do... Could you give me a bit more detail?

I guess I should explain my specific needs, too. I have a series of songs that were tracked live voice and acoustic guitar, with the intention of adding drums, which I have to some of the songs already, and harmonies, keyboards, etc.

Much to my chagrin, some of grooves aren't as close to nailed as I thought they were, so I want to create a grid, I guess, then chop up the vocal/guitar parts to fit the grid, then do so to the drums...

I don't have beat detective, either, 'cause I have 6.4...

Oh, right...

So without good transient information for beat detective to latch onto, you wouldnt get much use out of it anyway...

Sounds like you would have to place tempo markers manually to be able to lock anything to the performance anyway. Is it close enough to a grid that you can lock reason, or a sampler, or whatever you are locking, then print the beat in as audio and move section by section to get it to sit right? That would keep the human performance intact, but shove the locked loopbased stuff around to meet the human.

if you dont care about that, you could export a copy of the whole performance (if it is just stereo, or 2 tracks) to recycle, and "force" it to conform to a grid by making your own slice points, or just chop it up to the grid in PT.

I would probably just cut to the grid in protools if the original performance is even close to the grid. You can move the areas that are out, then lock whatever you want via midi or rewire. You can even time stretch the chunks that come up short on the grid if they are close, and not have any gaps in the "original" performance..

There are a few ways to do this, but none of them are fast, or particularly fun...

[ryangeller]

use the gtr as the guide. identify beat (apple I) and tab to transient. there is going to be a lot of tweaking. do 2 or 3 bars at a time then unmute the click and listen back for accuracy. this is easier w/ drums, but really isn't as bad as everyone makes it up to be.

lately i've been tracking everything w/out a click and creating a grid for each 1/4 note after the fact and it gives the music a much more realistic flow and has all the benefits of beat detecting and conforming to a grid. only time that i think i would use beat detective now is if i wanted to add drums or something rhythmic to a midi/ audio sequence that i started in logic or something. otherwise let the drummer groove.

--ryan

[SaneMan]

Yeah, I second what ryan's saying. I often create grids by identifying the beat(apple-i), I don't know if tab to transient will work if you're basing your grid off an acoustic guitar though. You could try just hitting the down arrow on the beat then apple-i'ing it if it's not picking up transients. I usually identify at least beat one of every measure(depending on what the purpose is), if not every beat(which can take quite awhile, but is much fun).

Hmmm... On a side note, I'm surprised you use beat detective Joel. That works out alright for you? I do everything manually, whether it be creating a grid or placing kick and snare samples. I've never once used beat detective, so I don't know much about it, but it seems to get such a bad rap I've just never been interested. I guess doing it manually gets you a lot faster at Pro Tools, so I like that.

[ryangeller]

well the tab is just to nail the transient-- that way you won't flam if you drop in loops or delays etc. for some types of music it isn't soo necessary, although if i'm going to take the time to do it, i'm going to do it right. you might have to drop in markers approximately at first, but you'll soon be able to see patterns in the player's performance and then do it quicker by tabbing.

as far as beat detective, i think it works wonderfully, you just have to know what your goals are before you start using it. i usually create a drum submix first and print it internally via a buss. then i'll nudge the printed submix back so that it's time corrected and then beat detective that mix and apply the slices and markers to the other tracks (talking about drums here). if it's a basic rock beat then mix mostly the kick, snare, and a little hat in there. forget about the room mics and only bring in a little bit of the overheads. set the detection to "low" which will be more sensitive to the kick and snare and then pick your subdivisions. obviously this would be a little different it the material were from a jazz piece or something, but there's a method for any material.

all of these features work-- it's just a matter of the user making correct decisions.

--ryan

[joel hamilton]

Yeah, I second what ryan's saying. I often create grids by identifying the beat(apple-i), I don't know if tab to transient will work if you're basing your grid off an acoustic guitar though. You could try just hitting the down arrow on the beat then apple-i'ing it if it's not picking up transients. I usually identify at least beat one of every measure(depending on what the purpose is), if not every beat(which can take quite awhile, but is much fun).

Hmmm... On a side note, I'm surprised you use beat detective Joel. That works out alright for you? I do everything manually, whether it be creating a grid or placing kick and snare samples. I've never once used beat detective, so I don't know much about it, but it seems to get such a bad rap I've just never been interested. I guess doing it manually gets you a lot faster at Pro Tools, so I like that.

Beat detective can be amazing.
I have had to do everything from tap the "in" arrow and paste along with the tempo, up through tab to transients, then beat detective. I have been "doing it by hand" since PT4.3, and beat detective can be a really creative tool, beyond the obvious drum quantizing crap. Using it like a slightly dummer recycle for all kinds of sonic mayhem can be amazing. There is no better way to slice and stretch out a final cymbal hit into a break.... you can use beat detective almost like granular synthesis type stretching and morphing, just by making it freak out and chop a selection into ten zillion little slices, then force them to conform to an irrational grid....

Anyway,

tapping along with the "down arrow" and pasting along side of something that doesnt take well to "tab to transients" is just one way, like I said. There are a ton of ways to make this happen, and none are that fun....

[wedge]

force the grid to "chase" the drums.

Joel...

How would I go about this? Now that I've pulled through a hair-raising computer updating process that left me protool-less for a couple of tense weeks, I want to jump into this gridding stuff and learn all I can...

[joel hamilton]

force the grid to "chase" the drums.

Joel...

How would I go about this? Now that I've pulled through a hair-raising computer updating process that left me protool-less for a couple of tense weeks, I want to jump into this gridding stuff and learn all I can...

Well,
Without beat detective... I guess you would be using "tab to transients" to manually insert a "bar/beat marker" at the "1" of every measure... whew..

is there really no way for you to get the "live performance" on the grid? if you can do that, anything will lock to it. Doing it that way will get you CLOSE, so you can nudge the hits that flam too much for your taste...

Maybe you should just call me... I cant type fast enough to explain this. PM me if you want to chat....

[wedge]

Joel

Thanks for the tips... I'd never used grid mode before, so I didn't know what I was missing, really.

What I did -- for one song, anyhow, and probably will for the rest, too -- was to lay down a shaker track that grooved tightly with the voice/guitar, and that was accented on the "1". I then used the "1" transient to tab to, then apple-I'd the measures.

I then sliced up the drum tracks, and then snapped them to the grid.

I can't believe how good it sounds, now. It's astounding, really. The song rocks, but it's not too stiff, as I feared it might be.

My question now, is: since I sliced all the beats into individual bits, each bit has a small little pop at the beginning and end of it. How to rid myself of these pops without spending an hour adding a short fade to each slice? Is there a setting that creates zero edits automatically whenever you slice? And might there be a way to select all the bits at once, and then apply a zero-edit thing?

[joel hamilton]

Joel

Thanks for the tips... I'd never used grid mode before, so I didn't know what I was missing, really.

What I did -- for one song, anyhow, and probably will for the rest, too -- was to lay down a shaker track that grooved tightly with the voice/guitar, and that was accented on the "1". I then used the "1" transient to tab to, then apple-I'd the measures.

I then sliced up the drum tracks, and then snapped them to the grid.

I can't believe how good it sounds, now. It's astounding, really. The song rocks, but it's not too stiff, as I feared it might be.

My question now, is: since I sliced all the beats into individual bits, each bit has a small little pop at the beginning and end of it. How to rid myself of these pops without spending an hour adding a short fade to each slice? Is there a setting that creates zero edits automatically whenever you slice? And might there be a way to select all the bits at once, and then apply a zero-edit thing?

to put a tiny fade on all the slices: just click anywhere in that track, or grouped tracks, and select ALL, then hit apple F "fade" and type in something stupid short, like 10Ms and PT will apply a tiny fade to every edit.

If you still hear one popping at you, grab it as you are working, rather than listening specifically for the pops and editing for an hour...

Some of the slices may "want" to be time stretched slightly (i just use the time stretch tool in TDM) to "fit " them up to the grid...

[dtrider]

I am confused regarding the identify beat command. Is there a way to determine the intended tempo of a selection or region of a track recorded sans click? Identify beat gives me markers but they are not on the grid and they are somehow based on what my initial tempo marker was.

I imagine selecting the drummers stick clicks for instance; "click click click click", then telling Pro Tools and blammo PT makes a grid.

Right now I am figuring out each section by ear with a metronome and then placing markers at each section(verse, chorus etc.) followed by mucho editing. It works but it is arduous.

This thread is years old. I am in PT 7.4 and have elastic time.

[joel hamilton]

I am confused regarding the identify beat command. Is there a way to determine the intended tempo of a selection or region of a track recorded sans click? Identify beat gives me markers but they are not on the grid and they are somehow based on what my initial tempo marker was.

I imagine selecting the drummers stick clicks for instance; "click click click click", then telling Pro Tools and blammo PT makes a grid.

Right now I am figuring out each section by ear with a metronome and then placing markers at each section(verse, chorus etc.) followed by mucho editing. It works but it is arduous.

This thread is years old. I am in PT 7.4 and have elastic time.

I dont know what you mean...
I have 7.4 HD.
When you say "based on your initial tempo marker" that makes me think you are doing something weird. If you already had a tempo, and you were working to the grid, you dont need to identify the beat, the beat is already identified.
If you wanted to shove the grid around for some reason, then you could do it that way, but I dont really get what you are trying to do.
this thread was about something that was tracked without grid or a click at all, and how to create a grid based on a performance and have the ability to lock to the "free" performance after the fact.
I usually would have just gone in a clicked sticks along with the track to give the grid generation in beat detective an easy target. I will still do that, but then use elastic audio after I have generatd a grid with beat detective.
That lets me lock something like a software sampler or rex player in reason or live to a drum track that was originally done without a grid or a click.
Sometimes I will use the marker generation to a click that was printed to tape, just to get everything working properly to a grid/tempo and have an easier time getting midi program changes to work with some old FX boxes that I still use that take beat clock or program change info.
Anyway, what was the question!?!?

[dtrider]

"based on your initial tempo marker"

There is always a 120 bpm marker at the beginning of my sessions when I start a new session. I don't mess with it unless the song is tracked live.

this thread was about something that was tracked without grid or a click at all, and how to create a grid based on a performance and have the ability to lock to the "free" performance after the fact.

Yes! exactly what I want to do. I started with this thread because I thought the principles should apply still but I would be using elastic time to adjust the performance AFTER creating a grid.

Scenario>
Let's say the band slowed down during a few bars of a take that was recorded with no click. It feels akward and can't be re-tracked.

a) i want this performance on a grid so I can fix the part. I have grid lines of course but they are at the "120" rate stated earlier because I don't know how to get rid of it
b) i want to speed it up a bit to match the rest of the song so it is more in the pocket. .


Right now i am
a) guessing the tempo manually,
b) splicing up the errant bars into a group
c) placing a tempo marker(of my guessed tempo) at the beginning and end of the group(so the rest of the perfomance doesn't get messed with)

There has to be a better way and I am getting lost on the identify beat command. I think the key is the bar/beat mode or something.

Thanks joel, ps i use my bova ball all the time.