Subject:Beatmatching

Posted by: Doctorwho

Date:12/31/2003 8:00:10 AM

This question has probably been asked God knows how many times, but couldnt find one that best answers this question........

All I want to do is match the tempo on a set of tracks so that they play with the same beat. I would load up the track with beatmapped, get a tempo reading lets say.......of 138.67. Then Id load up the next track which isnt but a few tempo levels off with beatmapped, and realize that the tempo is around 97 or 110.876 or something of the sort. So I take the track with 110.876 and I change the tempo to 138.67. I noticed that the sound goes WAAAAY off the charts and its like I turned the tempo way down and Im playing SCREW to a hard house track.

Is Acid Pro that sensitive in tempo??!! I even switched it back to original tempo and then dropped it a few notches manually and it still sounded like crap.

All I want to do is find a way to beatmatch all my tracks together to the same beat.

If anyone knows of any other easy tempo auto matching software out there as well, please please let me know. Thanks

Subject:RE: Beatmatching

Reply by: Erik_Nygaard

Date:12/31/2003 8:22:58 AM

The way to make different waves with different original tempi work together in the same Acid project is to acidize each wave first (in Acid or preferably Sound Forge). Make sure the wave loops correctly first, this is easiest with 2-4-6 etc beats pr loop/wave)
This puts metadata into the wave wich lets Acid know the number of beats and original tempo of the wave. It then uses this to calculate how to play it if the project tempo differs. Acid is very good at this without creating to many artifacts.
Search this forum for md/Iacobus' many excellent little beginner's advice.

Subject:RE: Beatmatching

Reply by: Doctorwho

Date:12/31/2003 8:30:13 AM

Yah I am a beginner at this, so a lot of this is greek to me. hehehe.

I did read up on this Acidized stuff, but still confused as to how to do this. When you say I need to Acidize the tracks, how do you do that? This all sounds like a lot of work by just beatmatching the tracks together. lol

So is there like a section when I select the track loaded up that tells me to Acidize the track? *sheesh, Im confused nowheheh*

Subject:RE: Beatmatching

Reply by: Doctorwho

Date:12/31/2003 8:54:00 AM

I read up on a topic that someone else posted up on beatmatching but it sounds confusing....1. when you bring a song into acid, run the beat mapper on the file..
(just say its sean paul, get busy....it will beat map to 100 b.p.m)
2. run the beat mapper on all your songs in the same fashion, just say your second song is "get low" it will beat map to 102 b.p.m.
3. set your acids main project tempo to say, 102 bpm....it will stretch ALL your beatmapped songs to 102. (wether they were beatmapped at 100, 99, 103 or so on...) now you will be able to beat mix your songs perfectly!
4. just remeber, dont try to "DRASTICALLY" stretch any songs. usually a 3-5 BPM stretch is considered in audible in sound quality. anything more than that you will run into the possibility of hearing "time stretching echo" or loss of audio quality.
5. if you need to do drastic BPM changes, insert time and tempo markers in your project to change acids main project tempo.
hope this helps...
--marc

I did the beatmapped feature and noticed a check in METRONOME, and saw Measures with a 1 by it when it was calculating the beats and all.

What does this all mean? I tried changing the tempo on this one song from 96 bpm's to 89 to match another song and again it sounded like I sped it up drastically. Sounds like the chipmunks now. lol

HELP

Subject:RE: Beatmatching

Reply by: Doctorwho

Date:12/31/2003 9:03:25 AM

What do the Root notes do in the stretch field??

Subject:RE: Beatmatching

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:12/31/2003 10:20:38 AM

Adding to what Erik has said...

ACIDization is the process of adding tempo and key data to a file so that it will stretch properly in an application that can read the data (like ACID Pro...natch). So that "root note" setting under the Stretch tab is part of it all.

If a root note of a given Loop is set to "A" and your overall project key is "G", the Loop will be key stretched to "G".

Note that Beatmapped tracks are not key stretched (by ACID) unless the "preserve pitch when stretching" option is checked under the General tab.

What this setting means is that the original pitch of the track (noted under the Stretch tab) is taken into consideration by ACID before the overall project and key.

Otherwise, if the option is not checked, the track will sound odd (it will actually change pitch by itself) when tempo changes occur. And that is because when you change the length of a digital waveform, you also change the natural pitch. Experiment with a Beatmapped track to check this out.

If you want to hear the track as the Beatmapper deemed, you can try right-clicking the track in the track list and select Use Original Tempo. This will make the overall project tempo the same as this chosen track.

Also, it really helps to know the absolute tempo of the original track, because if it's not known, a tempo that's somewhat off will more than likely fall out of sync. Even so, the original track may fall out of sync regardless, due to faulty equipment (e.g., analog equipment isn't as stringent as digital) when the original project was recorded.

HTH,
Iacobus
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