Beat detective problem

[::XeS::]

Hi
I recently bought the music production toolkit 2 so now I'm able to use multitrack beat detective.
Ok..Actually I'm reading the manual and seeing some video tutorial.
I have to work with a multitrack drum session but I got a problem.
Initially I selected the kick region (from the first transient to the end), I selected my drum group, region separation (capture, 1/16, Analyze, set the sensibility, sub-beat ecc). After the separation I tried to conform my regions....tac...here is the problem. A song that was 4:26 became 4:19!!
The performance was tighter in some parts but in other parts the drums "increase" the speed..
It does the same if I set the strenght (in conform menu) at 0% or 100%...
I don't understand the problem

Any advice?

Thank you very much

 

[Fox Mulder]

it's not a good idea to select an entire region.
try bar-by-bar, time consuming but worth it. it should be obvious that every bar of the song might not need beat detective. use your ears.

cheers!

 

[fade_2_black]

Yeah, DEFINITELY work in small chunks. Depending on the style of music and how tight the drummer is I work in chunks anywhere between 1-8 bars, but very rarely over 4. Makes everything a lot easier to deal with.

 

[::XeS::]

Ok...unfortunatelly every tutorial I found sucks......they explain BD with simple beats that don't need adjustments at all

 

[::XeS::]

I have another problem...
After the separation, the conform and the smoothing I have my little regions etc etc... in the case I have, for example, 3 kick beats and they have to be at the same distance each other but I have the first in the right position and the other 2 very close. I have to move the second beat in the middle, beetween the first and the third. So I move the "second" region in the right place and now I have empty space from the second region and the third. Now I trim the start of the third region to the end of the moved second region but.......when I pass where there was the "wrong" second beat it re-appear....and now I have 4 kick beat
When I edited drum tracks with logic I remember that if I was able to trim one of the 2 region an the old beat disappear....
I'm sorry for these noob questions but I read the manual and I found nothing that speak of these things

 

[::XeS::]

I'm goin' crazy...I've tried working for little regions, big regions, kick separatelly...every time it gives me a different result...and I don't understand how to fill the empty spaces it creates.
At this point, EA was way more intuitive and secure...probably I do something completelly wrong, but every tutorial I used doesn't work :\

 

[AudioGeekZine]

cough
look down. third link.

 

[::XeS::]

I know I know But I wanna learn because probably it will become a job

 

[Lasse Lammert]

and I don't understand how to fill the empty spaces it creates.

"add smoothing" (or similar)

 

[::XeS::]

Ok...I'm doing some steps forward. Now I start to edit the kick separatelly by little regions....it starts well, it aligns to the grid....but at some point it starts to fuck up the alignement... For example I have a double kick fill (1/8 duration every hit) that has to be aligned to the grid (first hit at 35/1, third at 35/2 and the second beetween 1st and 3rd)....BD initially alignes perfectly in this way but after some work it start to align like this: 1st 2/16 or 3/16 after 35/1, etc...
I know it's very hard to explain :\

 

[Wave_D]

did you check the time of the sync points?, sometimes if the drummer is off you have to double check and make sure the sync points are correct. for example. if he is playing 16th notes on the kick make sure the sync points are 000,240,480,720. they really should be put to the right spot. I've never had any huge issues with beat detective and i think it really comes down to knowing the rhythms the guy is playing and making sure beat detective is syncing them correctly. The issues i have is when the guys feet is not together with the rest of his body, which is when you go "we have two choices, play it right....or don't use your feet and we'll put it in manually..unless your down with sounding like a big turd"

 

[James Murphy]

well you said you chose 16ths....but is it possible in that song that not all fast kick bits are just 16ths?.. maybe some are perhaps 16th-note-triplets? if that's the case then you fuck up the timing if you just try to jam everything to 16ths. you have to be aware at all times of the rhythmic figure that the drummer is actually playing. it's also important not to try to make a selection that crosses tempo or meter changes.

if a part is actually 16th-note-triplets, the sync points will be 000, 160, 320, 480, 640, 800.

 

[Machinated]

i dont have experience with beat detective, but when quantizing the drums i find it better to do it in small sections so you can see what the timing should be for each part - i normally only do a few bars at a time, if that, just to make sure everything is moved to the right place.

 

[::XeS::]

Ok I found a way to work with it.
Initially I do all the adjustments to the kick drum: very little regions, beat detective and lot of hand-adjustments and hand-editing.After the kick I pass to the drums group and I BD it using the snare as a key/trigger mainly(but also a little of toms/oh...it depends from the part).
That's all...it turned out pretty well. The editing of the drums group was way quicker than the kick track because I was able to edit large regions without hand edits.

 

[::XeS::]

well you said you chose 16ths....but is it possible in that song that not all fast kick bits are just 16ths?.. maybe some are perhaps 16th-note-triplets? if that's the case then you fuck up the timing if you just try to jam everything to 16ths. you have to be aware at all times of the rhythmic figure that the drummer is actually playing. it's also important not to try to make a selection that crosses tempo or meter changes.

if a part is actually 16th-note-triplets, the sync points will be 000, 160, 320, 480, 640, 800.

Yes I think I did something wrong of course. Anyway I tried to set the note as the little note (or interval) in my region.
I understand that it's very hard to edit all the drum tracks with a single istance of BD

 

[Fox Mulder]

Erm. Re-do the tempo map? :S

 

[kaomao]

hey xes how can you work first on kick and then on teh rest of the drum group?
You'll have some phasey problems! with drums you gotta work across all tracks.

 

[kaomao]

.... The issues i have is when the guys feet is not together with the rest of his body, which is when you go "we have two choices, play it right....or don't use your feet and we'll put it in manually..unless your down with sounding like a big turd"

yes this is the only case when you can't fix it with BD!
The drummers must have at least feet and hands synced.
If they're synched, but you notice they're off time.. no problem you can fix that!.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

in very bad cases just ignore the kick....
quantize with the snare as key and do the kicks later seperately (the HP on the OH will take care of it)

 

[::XeS::]

I edited the kick separatelly because if I edit all the tracks togheter, BD fucked up too much the song, also if I worked for small regions. Instead the edit with the snare as a key,grouping all the tracks, is very quick
Anyway it turned out pretty good I think.

For the "snare key editing" I select my drums group (every tracks selected, apart the kick) and quantize with BD. After the analysis I select the triggers that I consider more important...not only the snare triggers: for some selected regions they could be snare, toms or cymbals...
I don't know if it could be a good way to work....it worked pretty well on this project I did
I