Subject:Beatmixing with Acid - a suggestion to Sonic Foundry

Posted by: thebaz

Date:9/21/2000 12:37:00 PM

A request for easier beat mixing with ACID

After a quite considerable search I found Acid is the least
inconvenient program to create a beat sync mix of several
songs because it has the ability to adjusts the BPM
automaticaly. It is however still pretty cumbersome to do
and it could be so much easier. I take the effort to write
this down hoping Sonic Foundry will come up with a product
to facilate this.

Here's how I mix two tracks now:

I load them in CoolEdit and determine the BPM of each track
as accurate as possible (124.67 and 126.18 BPM). Then I
place both tracks in ACID and determine the 1-beat at the
end of the first track where the second track should start
and position a 1-beat of the second track under it. After a
number of bars the beats become out of sync which I solve by
tweaking the BPM of either of the songs until the beats
remain in sync for long enough to do the cross fade.

The result is pretty good but it is very time consuming.
Besides one can never determine/specify the BPM accurate
enough to make the songs stay in sync for a longer periode
of time, especialy if the songs have live drums.

What I'd love to have is this:

I load a track in SoundForge and mark a 2 and 4-beat (in
dance these are usualy very easy to visualy spot as spikes
in the waveform). SoundForge now calculates the BPM of the
track (BPM = 2*44khz/no_samples_between_markers) and stores
the BPM value together with the location of the first 1-beat
to a tiny file.

Now I can drag a track in Acid under the end of the previous
track and ACID can easily synchronise the 1-beat and tempo
automaticaly using the BPM and timing info from the tiny
file.

Now I still have the problem the two tracks become out of
sync when they are played simulatenously for a longer
periode of time. This can be easily solved by allowing the
user to add a couple of additional markers in SoundForge. If
the bars and beats are displayed on the horizontal scale in
SoundForge one can just add a new marker at the first beat
for which the waveform deviates from the scale.

I'm a programmer and if I had the sources for your
wonderfull two programs I'd write the above myself. It does
not seem like a very difficult job and the tough part,
placing markers in the waves and adjusting beat and pitch,
has been done already.

With this facility added one could even mix two tracks live
as a DJ does, without any beat-mixing skills. Perhaps an
idea for a new product?

Kind regards
thebaz

PS. Posted to the messageboard and mailed. If somebody from
Sonic Foundry comments on this more than two weeks after my
post on the messageboard I'd appreciate a copy by mail.

Subject:Re: Beatmixing with Acid - a suggestion to Sonic Foundry

Reply by: Fidel

Date:10/1/2000 7:11:00 AM

As much as I am for new products from SF, I have to ask why you want
this. If it's so this product could be sold to people who cant
beatmatch themselves and want to make a demo cd so they can get gigs
this is lame. Very lame. If you cant beatmatch yourself and you want
to play out, I dont want to listen to you. If you want to sell fake
mixes to record labels I wouldn't want to buy them. Are you trying to
take the soul out of an artform in it's infancy?
Wannabe DJ's who cant mix are LAME LAME LAME!!!
Oh yes and the term is indeed beatmatch.

thebaz wrote:
>>A request for easier beat mixing with ACID
>>
>>After a quite considerable search I found Acid is the least
>>inconvenient program to create a beat sync mix of several
>>songs because it has the ability to adjusts the BPM
>>automaticaly. It is however still pretty cumbersome to do
>>and it could be so much easier. I take the effort to write
>>this down hoping Sonic Foundry will come up with a product
>>to facilate this.

Subject:Re: Beatmixing with Acid - a suggestion to Sonic Foundry

Reply by: FoKuS

Date:10/3/2000 11:17:00 AM

Hello,

I agree, if the person is selling these cds as a "mixed" cd that
would be lame. I am a DJ in Austin, and I am just getting ready to
make a "produced" cd just so I can give it to the girls in the club
and so forth just so they can hear the music. My girlfriend wanted
an all vocal cd, so I am going to use acid to do this. I have been
djing for about a year and I have mixed a couple cds that I have put
out, but they aren't perfect.

So, I do agree if they are selling them as promos then that is bogus,
but if they are just doing it for fun, then oh well.

What about the people that don't know how to beatmatch and would
still like to make a mixed cd.



Fidel wrote:
>>As much as I am for new products from SF, I have to ask why you
want
>>this. If it's so this product could be sold to people who cant
>>beatmatch themselves and want to make a demo cd so they can get
gigs
>>this is lame. Very lame. If you cant beatmatch yourself and you
want
>>to play out, I dont want to listen to you. If you want to sell fake
>>mixes to record labels I wouldn't want to buy them. Are you trying
to
>>take the soul out of an artform in it's infancy?
>>Wannabe DJ's who cant mix are LAME LAME LAME!!!
>>Oh yes and the term is indeed beatmatch.
>>
>>thebaz wrote:
>>>>A request for easier beat mixing with ACID
>>>>
>>>>After a quite considerable search I found Acid is the least
>>>>inconvenient program to create a beat sync mix of several
>>>>songs because it has the ability to adjusts the BPM
>>>>automaticaly. It is however still pretty cumbersome to do
>>>>and it could be so much easier. I take the effort to write
>>>>this down hoping Sonic Foundry will come up with a product
>>>>to facilate this.

Subject:Re: Beatmixing with Acid - a suggestion to Sonic Foundry

Reply by:

Date:10/8/2000 5:15:00 PM

Fidel wrote:

>> people who cant beatmatch themselves and want to make a demo
>> cd so they can get gigs

Such a DJ would only have a single gig and after that his/her
reputation would be set.

>>If you want to sell fake mixes to record labels I wouldn't
>>want to buy them.

It's just nice to make compilations which have no pauses in between
the tracks. I have no intention of selling mixes or pretending to be a
DJ myself.

>> Are you trying to take the soul out of an artform in it's
>> infancy?

IMHO it's the inspiration of the artist/musician/DJ which counts. Not
the tools he uses. People objected against drum machines as well and I
think those have made a great contribution to music. So have
sequencers and samplers.

To play out I don't think anyone would want to use a piece of software
like this. One probably would not want to use a computer at all. Nor
music stored on harddrive. You tell me.

To create mixes or new pieces of music out of samples and loops I
think such software would be great. Even if you are an excellent DJ
it's extremely difficult to mix two wave files using a mouse and a
keyboard. So you imagine what you want to accomplish but can not do it
because the controls are to clumbsy. *If* you are using software to
work with music it would be nice if the software is as versatile as
possible.

>>Wannabe DJ's who cant mix are LAME LAME LAME!!!

Relax.

There is no need to feel threadend since there's more to being a DJ
then getting the beat synchronised. You think mixing should be done
only by people who have the skills to beatmatch using turntables,
because the practise it takes to get that skill, filters out the
people which have no taste or are not truelly motivated? IMHO it makes
little difference. There's already plenty of radiostations with
propperly beatmatched but totally uninspired broadcasts. And a good
club will never leave a robot or a pc-aided amateur in charge of the
dancefloor.

thebaz

PS

>>Oh yes and the term is indeed beatmatch.

Thanks. I'm dutch and what I know about DJ-ing is what I hear and see
when I go out.