Subject:matching song to tempo

Posted by: dogdrum

Date:12/9/2005 5:48:04 PM

Hi,

I'd like to have an entire song that I import match the tempo I set in ACID beat-for-beat. Meaning I want each beat of the song I Import to follow the beats of the ACID project. When I use the Beatmapped Wizard feature and I try to line up the markers on each measure, they don't stay locked. If I move the end of one measure it also moves the start of the measure, which throws it off.

Ideally, I'd like to tap the beats of the entire song, then have the song change its tempo dynamically as the file plays to stay locked with the tempo of the project, beat-for-beat. Is this possible? (Note, I don't want the tempo of the file to change to follow the song, but rather the other way around. I have a feeling I'm just not getting it. ;-)

Help!

Thanks!
dogdrum

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:12/9/2005 6:03:13 PM

> When I use the Beatmapped Wizard feature and I try to line up the markers on each measure, they don't stay locked. If I move the end of one measure it also moves the start of the measure, which throws it off.

That’s because the song is not at a steady beat. It is drifting and this drift in the song is what throws the beat off. It’s called Tempo Drift.

> Ideally, I'd like to tap the beats of the entire song, then have the song change its tempo dynamically as the file plays to stay locked with the tempo of the project, beat-for-beat. Is this possible?

Yes, but not with ACID. You need to use Sound Forge (or other audio editing application) to time stretch each measure to be in constant time. I have a tutorial on my web site called Fixing Tempo Drift Using Sound Forge. This was one from one of the chapters we had to leave out of the book Instant ACID because it was over by 30 pages.

Please give me feedback on the tutorial because it is a hard thing to explain with just static pictures. It really needs to be a video tutorial.

~jr

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: dogdrum

Date:12/9/2005 9:26:34 PM

Hi JR,

Thanks for the info. I tried it on a few measures using SF with success. Although, as you stated, it's very time-consuming, so I'll continue to search for another way. I would think this would be something that could be easily done in just ACID by simply tapping in the beats then let the program adjust as necessary. Maybe in a future release.

Thanks again!
dogdrum

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: Weevil

Date:12/10/2005 1:52:51 AM

While it is sometimes desirable, forcing changes to the tempo of the source material is often the last thing you want to do. Professional musicians will usually push or hold back the tempo at different times in a song to accentuate different moods. Brick walling the source to a static tempo will destroy all of this subtlety in the music.

You can get ACID to follow the tempo of a dynamic source but it also is a little laborious.

First you need to set the project tempo to the approximate source tempo and turn snapping off.

Then you need to insert a hit marker near the first beat of the source audio. You can then ALT-drag the hit marker until the first beat in the audio lines up with the first beat in a bar. You then insert a tempo marker at this point.

Then you look further along in the audio until you see a beat at which the source audio drifts out of time with ACID’s ruler. Drop another tempo marker on that beat. Then you insert another hit marker just to the left of the new tempo marker (or you can reuse your original hit marker by dragging it just to the left of your new tempo marker).

ALT-drag the hit marker until the beat that was out of alignment with the grid is in the right spot.

Continue on with the above two paragraphs working your way from left to right all the way through the song.


...Again it has to be pointed out that this entire process would be massively, massively less cumbersome if Sony simply allowed users to ALT-drag tempo markers.

If that were the case all you would have to do is drop a tempo marker on any beat that was out of alignment with the ruler and ALT-drag it into place.

It would be a simple, clean, real-world solution to a problem that so many people have for so many years.

Sheer madness that Sony do not allow users to do this.

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: drbam

Date:12/10/2005 5:17:11 AM

Or. . . one could choose to do what the artist BT has described in various interviews and take whatever time is needed to do it correctly: invest in the time to do the level of time/beat alignment that will produce the type of results he is famous for. According to him, a week or two doing time/beat alignment on one song isn't unusal if you want professional results. Of course, in this era of quick fixes, instant results, immediate gratification, and a demand for the software to do everything for us, that might be asking a bit much.

drbam

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:12/10/2005 6:46:01 AM

> You can get ACID to follow the tempo of a dynamic source but it also is a little laborious.

I thought he said that he didn’t what the project to follow the song but that he wanted the song to lock to a steady beat. I agree with you, "tempo mapping" the song like that preserves the intent of the original musicians. This is what I do but I don’t do dance music which sometimes demands a steady beat regardless of the musicians original intent.

~jr

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: Weevil

Date:12/10/2005 2:13:46 PM

> I thought he said that he didn’t what the project to follow the song but that he wanted the song to lock to a steady beat.

Yeah, you might be right, it’s hard to tell!

Changing the tempo of the source material is certainly sometimes valid; different situations always require different solutions. Like AutoTune unfortunately it is too frequently overused and abused. It can be a lazy way of trying to cover over poor musicianship.

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: dogdrum

Date:12/11/2005 4:37:16 PM

Hi,

> I thought he said that he didn’t what the project to follow the song but that he wanted the song to lock to a steady beat.

Yes, that's want I want, have a single steady, non-changing tempo throughout.

This is what I did if anyone is interested...

I played the song in Sound Forge. As it played I placed markers on the downbeat of each measure. using the M key. I changed the Markers to Regions, then Exported the Regions to separate WAVs. Then I imported the WAVs into ACID, using one region per measure.

Yes, this created a few artifacts in the audio, but for my purposes, and what I'm doing it worked fine. I probably could have spent more time making sure the markers in SF were placed perfectly, then some more time working with the Stretch markers in ACID, which would have produced better results, but like I said, it was a good solution for what I'm doing.

Thanks everyone!
dogdrum

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:12/13/2005 4:23:52 PM

Just for the record, Cubase SX/SL has a good set of tools (Timewarp) to do this (tempo map a whole song). The other sequencers (Logic etc) may well have similar tools.

Subject:RE: matching song to tempo

Reply by: djriko

Date:12/14/2005 6:31:08 AM

the easiest, least time-consuming way that i've found to do what you want to do is to slice up the file that is drifting, then nudge the pieces left or right to fit the beat. if you move a piece to the right, creating a gap of blank space, then just pull the left edge of the file to the left, filling the gap. yes, this means that a portion of the song is played twice, but if you put the slices at quieter parts of the song, between beats rather than right on beats, and the song is mixed with the other elements you are matching it to, you usually can't hear it.

it's better to make a lot of small slices and nudges than to make fewer, larger ones, as a larger nudge can be more noticeable.

hope that helps.