Subject:Beatmapping - subtle tempo changes in recored vinyl

Posted by: Phantasy

Date:5/29/2002 10:14:48 AM

Do any of the Sonic Foundry products fix tempo inconsistencies in complete songs.

To describe my problem in detail, I have recorded my old vinyl house tracks to WAVs and I am using ACID Music to create a mix CD using the Beatmapper to ease mixing the tracks into one another. However, some records appear to speed up and/or slow down ever so slightly (as little as half a bar) so that when I have the correct BPM set in the Beatmapper I do not get the desired 'strobe effect' whilst moving the slider back and forth.

I know this is not my turntable (Technics 1210) becasue some trackes beatmap perfectly with only minor adjustment. I can only assume the tempo defect occured in the recording process, perhaps the reel to reel used or even at the record pressing plant. Regardless, in order to successfully beatmap these tracks I need an application that can correct tempo inconsistencies in WAV files - is there such a thing?

Kind regards,

Phantasy

Subject:RE: Beatmapping - subtle tempo changes in recored vinyl

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:5/29/2002 12:29:48 PM

Sound Forge sounds like it's more up your alley. Don't expect it to work magic for you automatically, though. (The old "I want to remove vocals" subject comes to mind.) You'll have to do some work on your end, possibly using trial and error.

HTH,
Iacobus

Subject:RE: Beatmapping - subtle tempo changes in recored vinyl

Reply by: groovewerx

Date:5/29/2002 1:44:15 PM

i've been making megamixes for 20+ years using 20+ records in each. recently i've enlisted acid to help with the arrangment. at first i also thought the beatmapper would keep the songs on beat but i was wrong because of the pitch drift. drift has to do with both your deck and the way the vinyl was manufactured.

here's the perfect solution:

1. set acids tempo to the average tempo of the vinyl
2. create a metronome track and make it the length of the mix
3. record each record using the metronome as a tempo guide and adjust the deck pitch when neccessary to keep the tempo locked to the click


once all tracks are recorded you can arrange them in any way and they will all be on tempo without the need for beatmapping. so instead of mixing to a record that may drift, you'll be mixing to a dead on click.

thats an old school dj trick brought to you by an old school dj.

Subject:RE: Beatmapping - subtle tempo changes in recored vinyl

Reply by: Phantasy

Date:5/29/2002 4:54:33 PM

Now why didn't I think of that??? Thanks very much, fantastic idea.

Shame about the Beatmapper though it could have really helped to save so much time. I wonder if CD recordings suffer from the same pitch drift.

Thanks and again groovewerx and mD.

Phantasy

Subject:RE: Beatmapping - subtle tempo changes in recored vinyl

Reply by: djtricky

Date:5/30/2002 5:05:11 PM

I remix using ACID on a regular basis - the problem you describe is a big pain, especially if you're remixing a track with live instruments.

I wish there was a way to manually set a beatmap markers in the wizard, and have it generate a tempo map according to the markers. That would solve a lot of problems. Similar to how Cubase works with Recycle.

djtricky

Subject:RE: Beatmapping - subtle tempo changes in recored vinyl

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:5/30/2002 8:19:57 PM

Great idea. Did you submit it via the Product Suggestion form?

Iacobus

Subject:RE: Beatmapping - subtle tempo changes in recored vinyl

Reply by: spesimen

Date:6/5/2002 3:28:13 PM

two quick notes:
1. i've suggested this to the submit form some time ago too. a potentially very useful feature particularly when working with live drums that are close but not quite perfectly on beat. the program 'live' does this now and it works well, i'd be surprised if SF doesn't add the functionality since the beatmapper already kind of works the right way for this - it would basically be addign a different 'mapping' to user-specified points in the file to compensate for drift.

2. when recording the vinyl, you might have more luck if you do it at 0% speed change - on 1200's the 0% is quartz-locked or something like that so you get a much more stable playback speed. still, any number of factors could contribute to the song not being perfectly timed all the way through.