Adjust Beats - need a detailed explanation

[bayswater]

You're only snapping to downbeats. The rest of the figure doesn't really matter much, except that you've got to place the beats correctly before it and after it.

Yes, that is clear. I have a very detailed improvisation of a folklore-type ornamentation which include numerous tuplets and so on. I need to define them as well.

I wonder if you are mixing up beat adjusting and quantization. Using beat adjustments the way you describe means you want the tempo to change for each note in a tuplet. Why would that be necessary?

OR I should just adjust beats and than in the MIDI editor move these notes to be displayed correctly. I get sometimes a quintuplet sometimes no.

Yes, that's the way you would normally do it. Use Adjust Beats to get the DP metronome to play along with your music, including the changes in tempo as the music progresses. Then use quantize, or simple MIDI note editing to move any notes that sound out of place. (But note that these notes would have sounded out of place before you apply the Beat adjustments. Adjust Beats does not fix that.)

[Babz]

That's a great suggestion. Experimentation is also sometimes called "experience."

Also known as the method of error and error.

[foorere]

You're only snapping to downbeats. The rest of the figure doesn't really matter much, except that you've got to place the beats correctly before it and after it.

Yes, that is clear. I have a very detailed improvisation of a folklore-type ornamentation which include numerous tuplets and so on. I need to define them as well.

I wonder if you are mixing up beat adjusting and quantization. Using beat adjustments the way you describe means you want the tempo to change for each note in a tuplet. Why would that be necessary?

OR I should just adjust beats and than in the MIDI editor move these notes to be displayed correctly. I get sometimes a quintuplet sometimes no.

Yes, that's the way you would normally do it. Use Adjust Beats to get the DP metronome to play along with your music, including the changes in tempo as the music progresses. Then use quantize, or simple MIDI note editing to move any notes that sound out of place. (But note that these notes would have sounded out of place before you apply the Beat adjustments. Adjust Beats does not fix that.)

The fact is that 95% of all notes are at the correct place.
Everyone knows well "Für Elise" by Beethoven. The mechanical non-rubato playing is considered as bad performance, so a human rubato is very welcome in the performance. Finally, try to notate a such human performance, beat map and values to get truly notation but keeping the performance.

[SMS]

A couple of other tips/techniques-

Dragging beats works best when the sequence tempo is close to the audio tempo- you can't, for instance, drag a beat past an adjacent beat.

If detect beats doesn't work well enough to get the tempo:

• Count the number of measures in the piece.
• Place the audio track with bar 1, beat 1 at the beginning of the timeline. Edge edit the audio track if needed so it starts at 1|1|000.
• Adjust DPs tempo until the end of the the last bar lines up with the end of the audio (based on the total number of bars). This effectively sets the average tempo.

If adjust beats isn't working for you:

• Listen to the audio and set markers at the beginning of measures as often as you feel you need to adjust the tempo (cntrl-m). This can be every bar, every 4 bars, only at new sections, whatever.
• Lock these markers.
• Make sure DP is in Conductor Track mode for tempo.
• View the conductor track in the Event List editor.
• There will be a tempo event at the beginning of the sequence- if the first marker you entered after the beginning isn't at x|1|000 (x= whatever measure number it should be at), edit the initial tempo event until the subsequent marker falls at x|1|000. This is easy if you just use the cursor to scroll the time of the event when it's highlighted; you'll likely only need to adjust the ticks segment.
• Copy this tempo event, and Merge it onto the Marker you just adjusted to. If it then doesn't show as being exactly at the same time as the marker and this bothers you, go to the Markers window and just manually set the ticks segment of the Marker's time to 000 (its' discrepancy was below the visible resolution).
• Now adjust this just merged tempo event until the next marker is at x|1|000.
• Continue until done.

[kassonica]

Maybe it's just me, But I find the whole best detection and quantization in DP extraordinarily complex and non intuitive.

When I got 9, I watched a lot of tutorials re the new features and tried it out from those tutorials and I could not get it work..

It is an area that motu could improve on IMHO.

Ps Beat detection in PT is easy and way fast.

[SMS]

I don't need it very often but when I did recently i ended up having to do the above. It was orchestral music lacking obvious beats, visual or audible, so I doubt PT would have worked either.

[Shooshie]

Dragging beats works best when the sequence tempo is close to the audio tempo- you can't, for instance, drag a beat past an adjacent beat.

In that situation, you have it set the whole sequence to the tempo of the beat/bar you're dragging. (a menu setting in the Adjust Beats dialog) It may take a couple moves, but you'll get there quickly, and the whole thing is then spaced for the approximate correct tempo. You still have to do individual beats/bars afterward, but that is often the best way to start.

It's a matter of experimentation to learn how all the features work within the Adjust Beats dialog. Once you learn them, it's a very fast and accurate way to bring the sequence into sync with the actual performance. Fast as in 10-15 minutes, not fast as in push one button, but compared to the alternatives, that's still very fast!

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

I don't need it very often but when I did recently i ended up having to do the above. It was orchestral music lacking obvious beats, visual or audible, so I doubt PT would have worked either.

Here is a brief description of how to adjust beats for such music:

• In this circumstance, it's critical to do Adjust Beats in the Sequence Editor window. Keep the Conductor Track/Tempos right above the track you're using to set the beats.
• In the Conductor Track, zoom the tempos so that they utilize the entire vertical space of the track. That's so you can see small changes as they happen.
• When you start dragging beats, watch the tempos move. You know whether the tempos should be faster, slower, or remain the same, because you played it in, and you are familiar with the music.
• When there is a beat or barline that falls on empty space, where there is no note or other event to define that beat, watch the tempo markers as you set the beat. Moving the beat back and forth, you'll see the tempo rise and fall. When it's in line with the others, you know you've got it in the right place, give or take a few tics.

Shoosh

[SMS]

Dragging beats works best when the sequence tempo is close to the audio tempo- you can't, for instance, drag a beat past an adjacent beat.

In that situation, you have it set the whole sequence to the tempo of the beat/bar you're dragging. (a menu setting in the Adjust Beats dialog) It may take a couple moves, but you'll get there quickly, and the whole thing is then spaced for the approximate correct tempo. You still have to do individual beats/bars afterward, but that is often the best way to start.

It's a matter of experimentation to learn how all the features work within the Adjust Beats dialog. Once you learn them, it's a very fast and accurate way to bring the sequence into sync with the actual performance. Fast as in 10-15 minutes, not fast as in push one button, but compared to the alternatives, that's still very fast!

Shooshie

Thanks- I'll try that next time. FWIW, the method I described is also fast, depending on how many points you need to adjust.

Spence