Beat detective.

[Loren Littlejohn]

Son of a bitch I bought 2 books on pro tools and niether cover beat detective.

So...

Could any of you point me in the right direction? What can beat detective do? What can it not do?

Link on how to use it?

Your help is imensily apreciated.

 

[colonel kurtz]

i'm going through a book right now titled "editing audio in protools"

chapter 6 is all about beat detective

alas, i'm 1/2 way thru chapter 5...i'll be finishing the whole thing on monday though, so if nobody has chimed in by then i'll post some info

 

[Metaltastic]

I get the gist of it, but the one thing that always seemed problematic about it is that if you move something in the OH's (like a snare hit), it seems almost a guarantee that you'll get some fuckup with the inevitable cymbal ring being warped, right? (especially in, say, a crash-heavy part)

 

[theblackmoon]

Son of a bitch I bought 2 books on pro tools and niether cover beat detective.

So...

Could any of you point me in the right direction? What can beat detective do? What can it not do?

Link on how to use it?

Your help is imensily apreciated.

Search for Kenny Gioia at the Womb. He can help you big time, he made some really great videos, they come for a price thou. Not expensive. Worth the cash IMO.

Almost forgot, read the manual. Basically it´s all there.

 

[csholtmeier]

One important thing to think about w/Protools LE is that Beat Detective only works on one track at a time if you don't have the Music Production Toolkit.

 

[LydonB]

lol Digidesign is so grimey that way. They are comparable to how Microsoft has like 10 versions of Vista ffs.

 

[colonel kurtz]

yea, well...you have to give the HD crowd some reason to feel as though they're getting their $20,000 worth!

 

[greyskull]

it can slice up and quantize drums, bass guitar, vocals, hell anything with rhythm if you use it right!!!

heres my quick how to...

ill assume you're editing drums...

Create an edit group for all your drum tracks.
Bring up beat detective (apple+8)
High light a small section of the song , say intro for example. (it must start and end on a bar or B.D will spazz out)
choose what sort of feel the song has (1/4 , 1/8 16/th notes ) and click triplet if necessary
then drag the slider down till all the transients have a marker on them,
also make sure to turn on the region start pad and sit it to 5 ms or 7 ms or so.

hit seperate

then switch to conform mode.
choose what feel the beat has and what you can see against the grid.
Now. here you can choose how much you robotize the drums. I normally set strength to 80-89 % and exlude within 10% on a good drummer. just so you dont kill his feel.
Then hit conform and listen to where the beats are now against the click. It'll sound a little odd due to there being gaps in the audio, but the timing is the most important.

Then move any regions that are not in the right place, or undo (z) and change the conform options til the beat is right.
then, you can either move onto the next section, until you've done the whole song, or choose fill and cross fade (7ms) an hit that.

Now listen to the section again and listen out for any wierd phasey noises and destroyed cymbals. if theres real trouble you might wanna grab that hit from another take.

One thing to be careful of that is obviusly a case by case scenario is fills. I try and em seperatly if i can , because they can throw of a simple beat and vice-versa.


Thats all i can rememeber right now. I have just woken up so if you need any more help gimmie a shout

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Amazing guys thanks.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

One important thing to think about w/Protools LE is that Beat Detective only works on one track at a time if you don't have the Music Production Toolkit.

Fuck.

Well thats a bunch of bullshit.

 

[AStudio]

Quote:
Originally Posted by csholtmeier
One important thing to think about w/Protools LE is that Beat Detective only works on one track at a time if you don't have the Music Production Toolkit.

Fuck.

Well thats a bunch of bullshit.




Doesnt matter as greyskull said, edit in groups and watch out for the overheads phasing and moving around, 90% of the time you move the cuts across the whole drum edit group to aviod any phasing/pops/clicks/timing jumps. Just highlight individual tracks and cut the in sections (not too big as it will spaz if you try a big section). Then apply the exact cut to all tracks. It works exactly the same as the HD version just takes more time. It is easy to do just be prepared for some head aches as it jumps stuff around if you dont concentrate (get used to ctrl+z). I never never use the quantize feature of BD always do it manually, i cut in BD then i manually move the grid value to lowest (ctrl+alt and then + to move lower grid size) select the cut audio and hit ctrl+0 that will quantize the audio with far far less jumping around. its an amazing tool but frustraiting to get the hang off because it will jump stuff around if you dont know what to do. Well worth learning as it can save your ass on many occasions. Be warned tho it can bury your ass too, dont use it on everything, and if the drummer has great feel, dont feel you have to BD the hell out of the take. As greyskull said 80% to 90% quantize is enough, you dont want them to sound like a robot.

 

[C_F_H_13]

it can slice up and quantize drums, bass guitar, vocals, hell anything with rhythm if you use it right!!!

heres my quick how to...

ill assume you're editing drums...

Create an edit group for all your drum tracks.
Bring up beat detective (apple+8)
High light a small section of the song , say intro for example. (it must start and end on a bar or B.D will spazz out)
choose what sort of feel the song has (1/4 , 1/8 16/th notes ) and click triplet if necessary
then drag the slider down till all the transients have a marker on them,
also make sure to turn on the region start pad and sit it to 5 ms or 7 ms or so.

hit seperate

then switch to conform mode.
choose what feel the beat has and what you can see against the grid.
Now. here you can choose how much you robotize the drums. I normally set strength to 80-89 % and exlude within 10% on a good drummer. just so you dont kill his feel.
Then hit conform and listen to where the beats are now against the click. It'll sound a little odd due to there being gaps in the audio, but the timing is the most important.

Then move any regions that are not in the right place, or undo (z) and change the conform options til the beat is right.
then, you can either move onto the next section, until you've done the whole song, or choose fill and cross fade (7ms) an hit that.

Now listen to the section again and listen out for any wierd phasey noises and destroyed cymbals. if theres real trouble you might wanna grab that hit from another take.

One thing to be careful of that is obviusly a case by case scenario is fills. I try and em seperatly if i can , because they can throw of a simple beat and vice-versa.


Thats all i can rememeber right now. I have just woken up so if you need any more help gimmie a shout

Here's a variation on his idea that I think is extremely helpful...especially for metal drums....

1. Make TWO edit groups. One group is entire drumkit, then other is the close mics of the Kick/Snare/Toms and Maybe Hi Hat Or ride.

2. Open Beat Detective and Disable your "drumkit group". Select a section with the "close mic" group on. Go to region separation, set to low sensitivity, then move the slider till all the transients are marked.

3. Enable drumkit group and SHIFT Click on one of the regions that weren't selected. Now the whole drumkit will be showing the markers that are triggered ONLY BY THE CLOSE MICS. This will help the overheads from fucking up where the actual transients are. Then separate, conform, and fill as normal.

I find this method way more effective with metal drums. You can also use collection mode, but I find this takes way too much time.

 

[2012]

Long live the Detective.

I've been messing with Elastic Audio in 7.4 but the trusty old gumshoe is still #1.

 

[greyskull]

Here's a variation on his idea that I think is extremely helpful...especially for metal drums....

1. Make TWO edit groups. One group is entire drumkit, then other is the close mics of the Kick/Snare/Toms and Maybe Hi Hat Or ride.

2. Open Beat Detective and Disable your "drumkit group". Select a section with the "close mic" group on. Go to region separation, set to low sensitivity, then move the slider till all the transients are marked.

3. Enable drumkit group and SHIFT Click on one of the regions that weren't selected. Now the whole drumkit will be showing the markers that are triggered ONLY BY THE CLOSE MICS. This will help the overheads from fucking up where the actual transients are. Then separate, conform, and fill as normal.

I find this method way more effective with metal drums. You can also use collection mode, but I find this takes way too much time.

oooh nice one!