AHH! Fastest and most EFFICIENT way to map out tempos?

[Charles J]

Very curious, I have my own method but it seems slow as fuck!

For you with tons of experience, what has been the fast, easiest, most painless way to map out your tempo's for each song?

Guitarist playing along with drummer part by part? Or even before this?

This is driving me nutsssssssso!

 

[darthjujuu]

if it's a nutty song i've heard of some dudes tracking the drummer doing a "dry run" freehand and then dropping tempo markers on the "one" of each beat. and then once you're done, for the parts that are supposed to be a consistent tempo, they'll delete the markers so that the only markers remaining are where there's an actual tempo change, and the song will be "warped" to grid as you delete the markers. pretty sure this method can be done in both reaper and protools. so then you go through the song with the band and make sure each part is the correct speed, making adjustments as need be (and there always needs to be some). once this is done, just re-track the drums, either with the drummer playing along to the "warped" scratch track, or just with the click and the tempo map you've created.

this method is definitely not faster, but is great for drummers that bitch and whine about clicks and have tonsa time/tempo changes. in some cases it's the fastest if the drummers too incompetent to do things the old fashioned way. you know the kid, trying to get him to just play to a click is like dragging a pregnant water buffalo up a spiral staircase.

 

[Charles J]

Thanks bro! I wonder what the equivalent or best way to do this in Cubendo is...

Sounds like a good fucking idea though...

 

[crosstalk]

What I do is simply find out what the initial tempo is by guessing a tempo and having the guitar play a moment to see how close it is and then adjusting until its right. Then I have the guitarist record the song at that tempo with the drummer either tapping along or playing on my e-kit just to be safe and when they run into a tempo/time signature change I stop recording, add a new tempo marker and find the new tempo. Then repeat. Doing this allows me to know exactly when the tempo changes and we can listen back right away to make sure it feels right for everyone.

Doing it this way has turned what use to be a nightmare into a much easier experience. I've had bands that I counted 20 tempo changes and this method didn't take much time at all.

I've tried having the band record a live take and then find the tempo changes, but it usually turns out that they're all over the place and it ends up being a mess and takes much more time.

I try to get bands to do a little pre-production of their own and actually find out their tempos and when they change. Most will not do it and those that have find out that they're not even close to being right when we try to track.

 

[Charles J]

^ That's pretty much the exact same way I'm doing it now. It just occurred to me that maybe there was a faster for effective way to do it, but I guess not.

Oh, aside from pre-pro. The easiest times I've had is when the band tabs all their songs out in guitar pro (if done properly) and all I have to do is import the MIDI track and boom, we're good to go.

Pre-Production (on the bands time) is where it's at, me thinks...

It seems frustrating to have a band come in and first thing we do is have to figure out tempos. Seems to get the session off to a boring/weird start... Maybe it just is what it is! =D

 

[JeffTD]

Prepro, no way around it. What are you recording scratch gtrs to in the first place?

 

[Trevoire520]

Get the band to powertab/guitar pro their songs out before the recording and export a midi from that. Get the tempo map from the midi file.

Or, get the band to write down all their tempo changes for each song before they come in.

 

[AndrewPGlover]

I prefer to record a scatch track to the click. I've thought about the trial run thing and finding a tempo for each bar but it seems like it would take way more time.

I've had a couple bands do guitar pro files and then go from there and it was pretty effective. I think a lot of bands I record are too lazy to go through and do it that way bt it is much more effecove. It's actually how my band goes about writig a good percentage of our songs. It works out especially well for preproing orchestral parts.

 

[egan.]

Do you guys really deal with that many tempo changes? Aside from speeding up a chorus or slowing a bridge slightly, tempo changes have been the exception and not the rule for me.

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

I do it pretty much the same as you've described. The problem with Guitar Pro files/written structures is that a lot of bands simply don't know their own tempos, and don't know how to properly write out their music. I get Guitar Pro files from the guitarist in my band sometimes, and the way I learn it from his tabs never fits how he actually plays it (the worse one is the seeming interchangeability of 3/4 bars with triplets and 4/4 bars with three notes and a rest).

It can help to get the song-writer (normally and hopefully a guitarist) play the song next to you and you tap the tempo as he's playing. If the timing is weird or the drummer is bitchy, get them to doing the tapping. If you use Reaper, the project tempo is tap-able which makes it even easier - you just tap the tempo on the mouse button. It doesn't matter if the guy is really consistent, as long as he's in the same area. All you have to do is watch the tempo gauge as you tap, and pick a nice round number in the middle of what he's playing. To be honest though, it's important they're right so it's worth taking the time on.

At the moment I'm doing all the click tracks for my band's next CD, and it's a nightmare. The lead guitarist is seriously good, but has real trouble playing to a click (yeah yeah, more practise blah blah, it's not going to help for this recording), so I'm doing them all by ear, then trying to record the guitar parts myself (I'm the bass player), then re-adjusting as needed. As if that wasn't bad enough, the last track I did was 11 minutes long, had 12 tempo and 30-odd time signature changes, and half of it is way beyond my guitar playing.

Steve

 

[Curse9]

you can try this out: http://www.hofa-training.de/pages/hofa-tools/bpm-dauer.php
http://www.hofa-training.de/pages/hofa-tools/bpm-in-msec.php
http://www.hofa-training.de/pages/hofa-tools/bpm-tap.php
but its german, don't know if this helps...

 

[Seth Munson]

Do you guys really deal with that many tempo changes?

Sometimes I get bands in here that have a ridiculous amount of tempo changes. usually the ones that wanna sound like BOO or VoM. Some of the Deathcore bands I have done have alot of tempo changes too (blast -> 2 step -> breakdown -> 2 step -> even slower breakdown -> blast -> repeat x5 times)

 

[DolphinSplatter]

If you use Reaper, the project tempo is tap-able which makes it even easier - you just tap the tempo on the mouse button.
Steve

can you explain this?

edit: nevermind, i just googled it (?!)

 

[::XeS::]

Guitar pro is the way. It make all the proproduction job way easier. I advice all my clients to use it.
Unfortunatelly there are many bands that don't know how to use a computer......in these cases, good advices to tab the tempo

 

[egan.]

Sometimes I get bands in here that have a ridiculous amount of tempo changes. usually the ones that wanna sound like BOO or VoM. Some of the Deathcore bands I have done have alot of tempo changes too (blast -> 2 step -> breakdown -> 2 step -> even slower breakdown -> blast -> repeat x5 times)

Fair enough. IMHO structures like that often = bad songwriting but obviously clients are clients and you do the best w/ what they bring you (and I may just be old and out of touch).

 

[darthjujuu]

my post from the other thread:

the drummer can be terrible, which is why alot of us resort to this method. you have a drummer play freehand and then drop a marker on the "one beat" of each bar. from there in most DAWs (i've done this in reaper and protools) you can warp each section to be a consistent tempo.

it sounds a little screwy since you're time stretching everything, but it's a convenient way to make a tempo map for a drummer that's too retarded to play to a click or for a band that's just generally musically retarded and doesn't know anything. the idea here is that after you've mapped everything out, you have the drummer re-play everything to either the new tempo map you've created, or he can try playing along to the old drum tracks once they're warped onto the grid. or, you can just program everything ontop of the grid you just made, which is pretty easy since all the hits are there for reference and your tempo map is already created. massey DTM/toontrack drumtracker works delicious in this context. i mentioned this is in another thread.

if the band is retarded enough, this often times becomes the fastest way to set up a grid. sadly for alot of us this is a common occurance.

edit: for you reaper users since i'm sure you're about to ask:

tempo mapping in reaper
warping a song to grid

edit again: for protools users, just youtube "protools identify beat" and itt'l show you how it's done. once you've identified a grid, set all your tracks to ticks and just move/delete/adjust tempo markers and they'll warp to the grid.

edit once more: i must re-iterate that warping a song to grid time stretches everything, so you CANNOT track a drummer freehand, warp him, and then consider it done. itt'l sound awful. you must then have him re-do everything to the new grid, or program everything.

final edit: when you're deleting tempo markers to make a verse or chorus or whatever one consistent tempo, the DAW can come up with some screwy approximations thus drastically speeding up / slowing down some parts, so it is IMPERATIVE that you have the band sitting with you while doing this. adjusting speeds is very easy, you can warp a drum part faster or slower just by dragging the automation point on the tempo track and itt'l warp into place. just make ABSOLUTELY sure with the band that all the tempos are correct during this phase. i learned this the hard way.

 

[::XeS::]

I don't understand a thing.
For example in whitechapel's studio reports you can see the band doing preproduction, and when they go at audiohammer, there re-record scratch guitar tracks....
Why? If the band already recorded a preproduction in a good way, with real drum, click, etc... why I have to re-record another scratch?

 

[Charles J]

Maybe to smooth out and finalize all tempos in all songs, etc. I think it's safe to say, when recording a full-length, that some things may have changed from the bands own pre-pro.

Hmm... interesting thought, though..

 

[Seth Munson]

I don't understand a thing.
For example in whitechapel's studio reports you can see the band doing preproduction, and when they go at audiohammer, there re-record scratch guitar tracks....
Why? If the band already recorded a preproduction in a good way, with real drum, click, etc... why I have to re-record another scratch?

im pretty sure that was a demo "pre pro" that they went into the studio with so their producer knows some of the material before he even starts doing clicks and can get a feel for what they want and where they should go with the album

 

[JonWormwood]

http://www.clubcubasenashville.com/PAGES/TIPS_&_TRICKS.htm

Part 2 (creating a tempo map from freely recorded drums wtih DRUMAGOG)



Decide which drum best reprsents the tempo through out the song (kick, snare, high hat, etc).

1. Insert Drumagog on that track.
2. Use Drumagog to generate a midi note number from that. Route the midi output from drumagog to a new midi track in Nuendo (use a physical midi cable if you need to).
3. Now... run the track and record the midi note numbers drumagog is putting out.
4. Now open up the midi track and delete any midi notes that aren't exactly one bar apart from each other.
5. Now you have a midi track with a midi note on EACH bar generated from the drummer himself/herself.
6. Nudge the midi track back a bit to align perfectly to compensate for any latency that was generated by drumagog.
7. Now turn on the Tempo Track
8. Now, open the midi track you created... highlight ALL the midi notes and right click. Now select from the menu "insert multiple tempi".

BAM!!! Your tempo track (and GRID) now follows the midi note numbers you created from your kit!

Edit away!!

Assuming you had drumagog