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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 16:19:12 GMT -6
So I'm not a Logic guy (I'm on PC), but I've seen and read some good things about Smart Tempo in Logic. I think Luna similarly has a pretty great tempo mapping feature but, again, it's only for mac right now.
I currently use Reaper and, other than a standard undeviating click track, I haven't really messed with tempo mapping and other smart tempo features. Bottom line, are there any vst plugins that can somehow do this sort of thing? Or is there a feature that can do this in Reaper that I'm just not aware of?
Basically, I'm just looking for a click track/tempo mapper that can do intelligent things like map a tempo click to a prior recorded audio (not midi) track performance, do some sort of "humanizing" randomization (speed up/slow down) to a standard click, etc.
To be clear, I'm not necessarily looking to change or stretch the tempo of an already recorded audio source. That tends to introduce unwanted artifacts, at least from what I've seen. I'm mainly just looking, for example, to be able to have a drummer (or whatever instrument) play along to a click that is intentionally not perfectly in time.
Maybe Reaper can't do this and I have to look elsewhere at another DAW? I don't know. Thoughts?
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Post by jeremygillespie on Feb 3, 2021 16:53:25 GMT -6
This helps you none, but gosh as a player I’d have an awful tough time doing that. I’d just as soon find it easier to listen to the passage a few times and figure out the count myself and then lay down tracks than have to force my brain to stop thinking of a click track as “time”.
Or are you talking midi instruments?
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Post by mrholmes on Feb 3, 2021 17:10:34 GMT -6
Learning to ignore the click? Its funny given the fact you first learn to play with the metronome.
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Post by Tbone81 on Feb 3, 2021 17:19:21 GMT -6
I’d be surprised if reaper didn’t have a function for that. In Cubase there is a “detect tempo” function that will do just that.
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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 17:23:19 GMT -6
This helps you none, but gosh as a player I’d have an awful tough time doing that. I’d just as soon find it easier to listen to the passage a few times and figure out the count myself and then lay down tracks than have to force my brain to stop thinking of a click track as “time”. Or are you talking midi instruments? No midi. Just audio tracks. I guess I should try to explain a little more. Plenty of people, myself included, enjoy the fact that songs can ebb and flow in speed as the song progresses. Maybe the choruses are a little faster than the verses. Maybe the whole song slightly speeds up by the time it gets to the end. This is what I'm talking about. Sometimes there are songs where the drums come and go and don't play the entire time. These are particularly difficult. Sure, you can have a metronomic click going the entire time, but then you don't have the more human ebb and flow of tempo. It's always nice to be able to have a full band track at once but sometimes that's not possible or sometimes you're self recording everything on your own. I know you can record an acoustic first, tempo map that, and then use a click based on that to track drums to, but if your acoustic track has poor timing, it's not so good. Either way, I'm just looking for ways to humanize the tempo. |
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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 17:26:15 GMT -6
I’d be surprised if reaper didn’t have a function for that. In Cubase there is a “detect tempo” function that will do just that. The detect tempo thing is one thing I want to be able to do, but I'm mostly looking for a way to have a click do this on it's own without any prior audio input, either randomly or based on user defined points (end of verse 1, end of chorus 1, end of chorus two, etc.) in the song where the tempo is gradually (not abruptly) changing speed toward a predetermined bpm at certain points in the song. |
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Post by christopher on Feb 3, 2021 17:31:14 GMT -6
Here’s what I do:
In reaper I can’t remember the exact process so you’ll want to look it up. But you insert an audio track, hit play and hit “m” on the quarter notes, this creates markers on the downbeats that have human touch. Then it’s some command like “create tempo map from markers” and the click will follow the new tempo. Same process for creating a grid to non-time-aligned stuff.
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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 17:35:23 GMT -6
Here’s what I do: In reaper I can’t remember the exact process so you’ll want to look it up. But you insert an audio track, hit play and hit “m” on the quarter notes, this creates markers on the downbeats that have human touch. Then it’s some command like “create tempo map from markers” and the click will follow the new tempo. Same process for creating a grid to non-time-aligned stuff. The problem with that is that you're only applying micro tempo changes, not macro tempo changes. There will be small tempo changes, relative to the click, but it will still average out to more or less be the same as the click. I'm looking to have the overall tempo speed up or slow down. The song starts at 150 bpm but ends at 160 bpm, or something like that. |
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Post by christopher on Feb 3, 2021 17:43:36 GMT -6
Oh ok.. yeah I had the same issue once. The tempo track doesn’t seem to draw a gradual line like that? At least I couldn’t figure it out.. , so I tried to line the markers up with the transients in the recorded track while the track sped up. That worked perfectly but I didn’t think it was going to. And not as user friendly as other tempo mapping in DAWs I’ve done like decades ago..
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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 17:45:57 GMT -6
Oh ok.. yeah I had the same issue once. The tempo track doesn’t seem to draw a gradual line like that? At least I couldn’t figure it out.. , so I tried to line the markers up with the transients in the recorded track while the track sped up. That worked perfectly but I didn’t think it was going to. And not as user friendly as other tempo mapping in DAWs I’ve done like decades ago.. Well, and I'm trying to do this without any prerecorded audio at all. |
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Post by tkaitkai on Feb 3, 2021 18:07:10 GMT -6
QuintYou could use a tempo marker to change tempo of a certain section and then use what christopher is suggesting to create a humanized tempo map for that section. So if the song starts at 150 and the ending is 160, create a tempo marker for 160 on the downbeat of the ending, tap out markers for the whole song, and then create tempo map from markers.
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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 18:12:34 GMT -6
QuintYou could use a tempo marker to change tempo of a certain section and then use what christopher is suggesting to create a humanized tempo map for that section. So if the song starts at 150 and the ending is 160, create a tempo marker for 160 on the downbeat of the ending, tap out markers for the whole song, and then create tempo map from markers. If I'm understanding what you're saying, that creates abrupt changes in tempo at those markers. I want it to be gradual changes. Also, I don't want to have to do all of that tapping. I'm hoping to find something more "smart" that can do this for me. Just give it bpm destinations at certain points in the song and have it gradually speed up/slow down between these points. Or even have it do it randomly. |
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Post by tkaitkai on Feb 3, 2021 18:13:11 GMT -6
OK, I re-read your last post — are you trying to have the song gradually ramp up to 160 instead of a stark change from 150 to 160? (Edit: beat me to it!)
If so, create a tempo marker for 150 at the beginning of the song, and in the tempo marker dialogue, select 'gradually transition tempo to next marker,' and then add a tempo marker for 160 wherever you see fit. Cmd + Opt + M to show the master track in the arrange window, and you should see a tempo automation line that gradually goes up to 160.
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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 18:21:15 GMT -6
OK, I re-read your last post — are you trying to have the song gradually ramp up to 160 instead of a stark change from 150 to 160? (Edit: beat me to it!) If so, create a tempo marker for 150 at the beginning of the song, and in the tempo marker dialogue, select 'gradually transition tempo to next marker,' and then add a tempo marker for 160 wherever you see fit. Cmd + Opt + M to show the master track in the arrange window, and you should see a tempo automation line that gradually goes up to 160. These are Reaper key commands you're speaking of? I'm not, and never have been a key command guy. I use DAWs very simply as glorified tape machines, so I've never bothered to learn commands in any DAWs. I'm totally mouse based, though I'm sure I can figure out how to do it that way too in Reaper, as long as I know it's an option. |
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Post by tkaitkai on Feb 3, 2021 18:43:16 GMT -6
OK, I re-read your last post — are you trying to have the song gradually ramp up to 160 instead of a stark change from 150 to 160? (Edit: beat me to it!) If so, create a tempo marker for 150 at the beginning of the song, and in the tempo marker dialogue, select 'gradually transition tempo to next marker,' and then add a tempo marker for 160 wherever you see fit. Cmd + Opt + M to show the master track in the arrange window, and you should see a tempo automation line that gradually goes up to 160. These are Reaper key commands you're speaking of? I'm not, and never have been a key command guy. I use DAWs very simply as glorified tape machines, so I've never bothered to learn commands in any DAWs. I'm totally mouse based, though I'm sure I can figure out how to do it that way too in Reaper, as long as I know it's an option. Ah, sorry, just noticed you're on PC — to show the master track in the TCP/arrange window, go to the actions menu and look for "toggle master track visible." I also just remembered another cool thing you can try doing. You'll need the SWS extensions for Reaper to do this, which I highly recommend if you don't already have them (free download + easy install): 1. Set the project tempo 2. Go to Insert -> New MIDI item 3. Extend the MIDI item to the length of the song (right click -> 'item settings' -> make sure 'loop item source' is OFF) 4. Open the MIDI item and draw in a bar of quarter notes (make them each 1/8th note in length) and duplicate this as many times as necessary to fill the length of the song 5. Open the 'humanize' dialogue and humanize the timing of all notes by 5 - 10% 6. With all notes selected, go to actions -> 'SWS: Create project markers from notes in selected MIDI items' 7. Go to actions -> 'SWS: Convert project markers to tempo markers' This will give you a tempo marker at every quarter note, with each marker being slightly varied in tempo, so if your song is 150 BPM, one marker might be 149.6 while the next might be 151, etc. |
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Post by soundintheround on Feb 3, 2021 18:44:46 GMT -6
So I'm not a Logic guy (I'm on PC), but I've seen and read some good things about Smart Tempo in Logic. I think Luna similarly has a pretty great tempo mapping feature but, again, it's only for mac right now. I currently use Reaper and, other than a standard undeviating click track, I haven't really messed with tempo mapping and other smart tempo features. Bottom line, are there any vst plugins that can somehow do this sort of thing? Or is there a feature that can do this in Reaper that I'm just not aware of? Basically, I'm just looking for a click track/tempo mapper that can do intelligent things like map a tempo click to a prior recorded audio (not midi) track performance, do some sort of "humanizing" randomization (speed up/slow down) to a standard click, etc. To be clear, I'm not necessarily looking to change or stretch the tempo of an already recorded audio source. That tends to introduce unwanted artifacts, at least from what I've seen. I'm mainly just looking, for example, to be able to have a drummer (or whatever instrument) play along to a click that is intentionally not perfectly in time. Maybe Reaper can't do this and I have to look elsewhere at another DAW? I don't know. Thoughts? I do this all the time. Either because A: I’ll build a track around an analog drum machine or more often B: I’ll build a track around something recorded to tape (real drums) that were tracked to an ‘analog’ click. When I dump this into the computer the grid isn’t perfect to a BPM, both because of tape machine imperfections and in using an analog click. Cubase has tempo detection from audio file which does exactly this and works pretty flawlessly. I didn’t think Luna had this yet? If so it’s getting closer for me to try the switch over. |
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Post by Quint on Feb 3, 2021 18:45:14 GMT -6
These are Reaper key commands you're speaking of? I'm not, and never have been a key command guy. I use DAWs very simply as glorified tape machines, so I've never bothered to learn commands in any DAWs. I'm totally mouse based, though I'm sure I can figure out how to do it that way too in Reaper, as long as I know it's an option. Ah, sorry, just noticed you're on PC — to show the master track in the TCP/arrange window, go to the actions menu and look for "toggle master track visible." I also just remembered another cool thing you can try doing. You'll need the SWS extensions for Reaper to do this, which I highly recommend if you don't already have them (free download + easy install): 1. Set the project tempo 2. Go to Insert -> New MIDI item 3. Extend the MIDI item to the length of the song 4. Open the MIDI item and draw in a bar of quarter notes (make them each 1/8th note in length) 5. Open the 'humanize' dialogue and humanize the timing of all notes by 5 - 10% 6. With all notes selected, go to actions -> 'SWS: Create project markers from notes in selected MIDI items' 7. Go to actions -> 'SWS: Convert project markers to tempo markers' This will give you a tempo marker at every quarter note, with each marker being slightly varied in tempo, so if your song is 150 BPM, one marker might be 149.6 while the next might be 151, etc. I will check this out. Thanks. |
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Post by tkaitkai on Feb 3, 2021 18:47:05 GMT -6
Ah, sorry, just noticed you're on PC — to show the master track in the TCP/arrange window, go to the actions menu and look for "toggle master track visible." I also just remembered another cool thing you can try doing. You'll need the SWS extensions for Reaper to do this, which I highly recommend if you don't already have them (free download + easy install): 1. Set the project tempo 2. Go to Insert -> New MIDI item 3. Extend the MIDI item to the length of the song 4. Open the MIDI item and draw in a bar of quarter notes (make them each 1/8th note in length) 5. Open the 'humanize' dialogue and humanize the timing of all notes by 5 - 10% 6. With all notes selected, go to actions -> 'SWS: Create project markers from notes in selected MIDI items' 7. Go to actions -> 'SWS: Convert project markers to tempo markers' This will give you a tempo marker at every quarter note, with each marker being slightly varied in tempo, so if your song is 150 BPM, one marker might be 149.6 while the next might be 151, etc. I will check this out. Thanks. Made a few edits to clarify a few things... hope that helps! |
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Post by soundintheround on Feb 3, 2021 19:00:12 GMT -6
So wait...you want a click to follow you live with ebb and flow? Change on the fly while recording?
If so, I think Abelton 11 is coming out with that feature.
Live tempo following:
“Live listens to and adjusts its tempo based on incoming audio in real time, making it a dynamic part of the band instead of the tempo source that everyone has to follow.”
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Post by svart on Feb 4, 2021 12:17:11 GMT -6
With reaper you can just do a tap tempo and hit the marker button to drop tempo markers as you go and then use the smooth/ramp transition setting?
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Post by Quint on Feb 4, 2021 16:32:25 GMT -6
So wait...you want a click to follow you live with ebb and flow? Change on the fly while recording? If so, I think Abelton 11 is coming out with that feature. Live tempo following: “Live listens to and adjusts its tempo based on incoming audio in real time, making it a dynamic part of the band instead of the tempo source that everyone has to follow.” If I'm understanding you correctly, then no, that's not what I'm looking for, though I could still see this being a useful feature as well, and might be an alternative way to achieve what I'm looking for if you track some scratch drums and then use that to develop a more humanized click track. But what I have been looking for is for a way to start, without having recorded any audio thus far, with a click track that has a humanized ebb and flow to it's tempo. |
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Post by Quint on Feb 4, 2021 16:37:02 GMT -6
With reaper you can just do a tap tempo and hit the marker button to drop tempo markers as you go and then use the smooth/ramp transition setting? I'm looking for something that doesn't make me have to tap and do all of that. I want it to be able to just intelligently ebb and flow the tempo without a ton of effort. Either randomly or, as I would most likely prefer, done in a user defined manner where bpm is defined at different intervals in the song and the click track intelligently knows how to gradually ramp up/ramp down to meet the speed of the next upcoming tempo marker. Or something like that. |
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Post by svart on Feb 4, 2021 16:46:08 GMT -6
With reaper you can just do a tap tempo and hit the marker button to drop tempo markers as you go and then use the smooth/ramp transition setting? I'm looking for something that doesn't make me have to tap and do all of that. I want it to be able to just intelligently ebb and flow the tempo without a ton of effort. Either randomly or, as I would most likely prefer, done in a user defined manner where bpm is defined at different intervals in the song and the click track intelligently knows how to gradually ramp up/ramp down to meet the speed of the next upcoming tempo marker. Or something like that. Well if you know what your tempos in each section are, you can set markers and have them fade timing into each other in Reaper. |
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Post by christopher on Feb 4, 2021 17:07:54 GMT -6
One problem when I last tried is Reaper won’t let you tap markers unless there’s audio in the timeline, because it won’t playback. So you can’t just setup some tempo markers by tapping it out before any audio is tracked, that’s why putting an audio track is required..( you can move it and place it way out at the 30 minute marker if you want, I do this for references a lot)
Another workaround I do is start with 120bpm put a VI drum machine on track one, create midi kick notes on 1/4 notes for a measure(s). Copy that measure and hold down control+V while it pastes a zilllion measures as far out in the timeline as I need, 7 minutes or so. Then select-all and midi humanize. Then it should be locked to the grid so you can adjust tempo, or create a tempo map. A Kick sound is better than the stock metronome anyway. Reaper’s humanize doesn’t impress me though.
So what I do now is record myself playing about 4-8 measures of kick on the VI drum machine. I use Reaper virtual keyboard and use the typing keys. Then listen so it sounds right, copy and paste a million of those.
A simple plugin for what you want seems doable? Maybe one exists? I have some phone apps I sometimes use but they don’t humanize.
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Post by Quint on Feb 4, 2021 18:20:24 GMT -6
I'm looking for something that doesn't make me have to tap and do all of that. I want it to be able to just intelligently ebb and flow the tempo without a ton of effort. Either randomly or, as I would most likely prefer, done in a user defined manner where bpm is defined at different intervals in the song and the click track intelligently knows how to gradually ramp up/ramp down to meet the speed of the next upcoming tempo marker. Or something like that. Well if you know what your tempos in each section are, you can set markers and have them fade timing into each other in Reaper. I don't want them to fade timing into one another, at least not if you mean it in the same way someone would crossfade edits. I want the gradual ramp up in tempo to occur over the entirety of the section. So, say for example that a 30-second long verse starts off at 150 bpm and that the ensuing chorus should be at 165 bpm. Well 10 seconds into that verse, the tempo should be 155 bpm, 20 seconds in it should be at 160 bpm, and upon hitting the chorus it should be fully up to 165 bpm. Granted, I wouldn't normally want quite as extreme a tempo change, but you get the idea. This may just come down to my relatively novice degree of knowledge about Reaper, and everything I'm talking about is easily doable. But I'm not sure. I guess the other question is, even if it's doable, is it doable in a super easy way? |
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