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Subject:Trying to lay a beat under a song
Posted by: wilddj
Date:10/22/2002 7:42:06 AM
I've been trying this for a while and I keep coming up with crap as a result. I'm trying to lay a beat under a hip hop song so that I can give it an intro to make it beat mixable, but I'm having a heck of a time trying to get everything to line up right. What in the world am I doing wrong?!?!?! I've tried zooming in on the beats to look at everything to line them up, in some cases it would work and in some cases it wouldn't. Also, it there a filter that will cut out the punchiness of the bass in the original song, but still keep the voices and the music at a usable level?? I've been going through them and I've come up empty, if anyone has any suggestions let me hear them. Thanks |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: TeeCee
Date:10/22/2002 9:23:57 AM
The original track is not going to keep a consistent tempo. You can try to use the beat mapper to get a basic tempo, but I wouldn't expect great results from it because the tempo will not be consistent. My recommendation is to chop the original song into nice, easy to deal with loops in Sound Forge. Zoom in and be precise. As for cutting the bass from the original, you need to use the low frequency shelf on the Track EQ. TeeCee |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:10/22/2002 12:20:52 PM
In addition to what TeeCee said, check out Joel's post on another workaround. HTH, Iacobus |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: wilddj
Date:10/22/2002 11:59:02 PM
so should everything work out right if I follow Joel's method by just going to each measure and doing the process?? I've noticed that even doing that it still doesn't line up where the measure ends and begins and all that. I haven't made it all the way through the song yet, but once I render it to a new track, should it be as perfect as it's gonna get??? thanks again |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: astral_supreme
Date:10/23/2002 1:46:52 AM
Im not sure if this will help but: When getting things to line up make sure you dont have "snap to " enabled. This will let you place your track anywhere you want it to be. |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: Weevil
Date:10/23/2002 8:33:59 AM
I’ve got a different approach to Joel, it looks kinda similar when written but for me it is a lot simpler. 1. Bring the song into ACID all by itself as a one-shot and set the project tempo to roughly the same as the song. Then you want to insert a tempo marker at the start of each measure. To do this you: 1.5 Turn on snapping and set the grid spacing to measures. 1.6 Set the horizontal magnification so that the ACID timeline shows the start of each measure (1.1, 2.1, 3.1, etc...) 2. Set the cursor at the ACID timeline's measure 2, beat 1 3. Press T to create a Tempo marker there. 4. Press [Page Down] to jump to the beginning of the next bar. 5. Repeat steps 3-4 until you reach the end of the song. Once you have done that you go back to the start of the song [Ctrl Home] and fine tune the tempos so that each tempo change markers line up with the first beat of each bar of the file. To do that you: 6. Turn snapping off and set the cursor at the beginning of the file's first (audio) beat. 7. Right-click the adjacent Tempo marker and choose "Adjust tempo..." 8. Move the cursor to the beginning of the file's next measure (the fifth beat, if you're in 4/4 time), 9. Repeat steps 7-8 until you reach the end of the song. Once finished you are left with an ACID project that will automatically speed up and slow down to follow the nuances of the original material. |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: TeeCee
Date:10/23/2002 9:38:36 AM
I can't comment on Joel's method, but if you do what I said and you trim it well, you will have a constant tempo perfectly synced to whatever you add. You don't have to chop it into small chunks unless the tempo drifts too much. TeeCee |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: Weevil
Date:10/23/2002 8:34:17 PM
There is one itty bitty tiny little tweak SF could apply to ACID that would make the whole process of beat matching massively simpler. 1. Bring the song into ACID all by itself as a one-shot. 1.5 Make sure that snapping is turned off. 2. Set the cursor on the first beat in the file that isn’t aligned perfectly to the timeline. 3. Press T to create a Tempo marker there. 4. If you could [Alt + drag] a tempo marker (IN THE EXACT SAME WAY YOU CAN [ALT + DRAG] A HIT MARKER) you could drag the beat in the file until it aligns with the corresponding beat in the timeline. 5. Repeat steps 2-4. And that is it!!!! Holy Beatmapper Batman, how easy was that, problem solved quick as a flash. [Waving arms frantically] Joel...Peter...can you guys hear me? ...Also there seems to be a bug. When dragging a Hit Marker that occurs after a tempo change marker (with snapping turned on) it seems to snap to the old tempo and not the new! |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: SonicJG
Date:10/25/2002 5:19:46 PM
Hi James- I hear you, but unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, it seems like you're misunderstanding the differences between the Hit markers and Tempo markers. :) The hit markers are associated with Time (in seconds and minutes), where the Tempo markers are associated with Measure:Beat:Tick time. Alt-dragging a tempo marker wouldn't be the same unless it was just doing the inverse function of what the Hit marker is doing, which would be both difficult to implement and wrong, because the M:B:T ruler remains constant-width, while the time ruler, hit markers, and one-shots are elastic. You'll see that all three of those are tied together, if you Alt-drag the Hit marker. What you're proposing would keep the one-shot's waveform, and the time-ruler (and any hit markers) constant, but would bend the rest of the world around a single one-shot, and we wouldn't necessarily want that. :) As far as the Hit marker snapping, it seems to be working here as expected. Are you not seeing it snap to the nearest Time-grid? I know that smoothing out uneven-tempo'ed songs is still fairly difficult, but so far ACID hasn't been designed for that purpose, and the current methods, plus your methods are workarounds to a better programmatic solution. We're still looking into ways of making this process more simple and easy for future versions, so I really do appreciate that you took the time to suggest, and if I misread what you wrote, please clarify. Happy Friday, Joel |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: Weevil
Date:10/25/2002 11:39:57 PM
Yep, looks like you completely misunderstood what I was trying to say! :-) Deary me, the last thing I am suggesting is that horrible things happen to the beat ruler when you [alt drag] a tempo marker...perish the thought. I’d like to be able to (in this one specific mode) associate a tempo marker with the time ruler (rather than the beat ruler). I’ll try it again as clearly as I can: When you [alt drag] a hit marker what you are actually doing is changing the tempo of the tempo marker that precedes it. The hit marker itself moves in relation to the beat ruler but remains locked onto the same position on the (elastic) one shot audio and the time ruler. I want the option of being able to move a tempo marker in the same way: You [alt drag] a tempo marker and this actually changes the tempo of the tempo marker that precedes it. The tempo marker (you are dragging) moves in relation to the beat ruler but remains locked onto the same position on the (elastic) one shot audio and the time ruler. From the users point of view it gives you the ability to easily stretch or shrink different sections of the one shot audio so you can align it perfectly to the (at all times static) beat ruler. Simplicity itself. ...Or are you arguing that there is a greater philosophical reason why the tempo markers should never ever, ever behave like this? If so...we are in big, big, big, big, big, big trouble. :-) I’m not ‘misunderstanding the differences between the Hit markers and Tempo markers’ I’m deliberately making a paradigm jump. To me it seems to be the programs inability to make that jump that causes it all its problems with this issue. Cheers. |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: Weevil
Date:11/8/2002 5:18:45 AM
Bump. Joel? |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: groovewerx
Date:11/8/2002 9:48:17 AM
trying to add intro beats to an existing song... i may be off base here but why not: 1. locate a breakdown or portion of the song where the drum/beat stands alone. 2. split that section at it's start/stop points. 3. copy/paste (graft) that piece onto the beginning of the song. you may have to 'select all on track' to move and make room for the graft but it shouldn't be difficult. you can also use beatmapper to set the project tempo according to the tempo of the graft section for tighter blending. |
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Subject:RE: Trying to lay a beat under a song
Reply by: TeeCee
Date:11/8/2002 3:29:51 PM
I keep telling you guys my method for doing this sort of work. I've done this to about 25 songs in the last year, working only only on most Tuesday nights. If the tracks weren't bootlegs, I'd let you guys here the results. We usually end up with a version that has DJs asking us where we got the remix at. TeeCee |