Adjusting Beats to match drums recorded sans click

[fgagne]

Alright....it seems like every time I do this, I have to re-teach myself just wtf it is I'm trying to do.

Basically, it amounts to this:
setting up some 'non-traditional' custom clicks (3/4, 7/4, 9/4) and then using 'adjust beats' to line up measures and/or beats to what was played.

The first time through is just to get close and then, later, I'll go in and make things as tight to the original as possible. Note: This includes matching things that, timing-wise, are a bit off. Nothing huge but, you know.....a lazy beat here, a dropped beat there, etc.

Basically, the first step is to get my the click-track to match the drums as close to what was played as possible.

After doing this, I'll get a decent visual representation of just 'how off' things are and do my corrections then.

The problem I'm having with the current song, is that nothing seems to work the way I expect it to. Therefore, I, seemingly, have to do things which don't make much sense.

Here is my question (in a youtube video with annotations):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrSulHIx4hg

The other difficult thing is that, say I have a measure of 4 with 4 drum beats. If I need to 'adjust beats' to make the bars match the beats, most of the time it seems the beats as seen in the SE are so small on a visual level that it's difficult to drag the bars to match those beats.

And, of course, once I do drag the bars to where they should be, the actual beats that I see in the SE change in shape and/or size which throws me off again!

I've literally spent a good week on one song now and am still not done. Granted, the song is full of odd-time twists and turns so I'd expect it to not be easy but I'm running into all sorts of funkiness that I can't @&!!ing explain!!!!

I understand that on a technical level, this process is not easy. The UI, however, doesn't seem to help as each time I set the click values to, say, one measure the following measure's click value is so out of whack that it takes time to simply undo what, it seems like, I never actually did!

Anyway, Shooshie, if you could take a look at my youtube vid, it'd be a start. Anyone else too......feel free.

Thanks.

[fgagne]

Jeez louise.

I posted a bad link to the video. This is the one I meant to post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrSulHIx4hg

Sorry about that. I'll edit it now.

[Shooshie]

Ok, the difference between the two tracks you played in the video is that one has tempos that naturally follow what you played in, and they average about 165. The other is a straight tempo set to 158. The "natural" one sounds faster, because on the average it IS faster.

Be careful on what you do next. If you flatten the faster one out, you'll lose its character. I suspect that much of the problem there is your newness to the art of adjusting beats. The performance is fine, but the beats you adjusted to fit it are all a little off. Maybe the actual speed of the performance is 158; I'd have to listen again and try to figure some things out.

Remember a trick that I mentioned in an earlier post, plus I talked about it on my Adjust Beats video (which I know I really need to remake; that was a long, long time ago, and I wasn't very good with making videos). That technique involves using the Conductor Track in conjunction with the track you're using for adjusting the beats. As you snap each beat to a note or space between notes, look at the conductor track to help determine the placement of the beat. If you place the beat too far from its rightful place, the tempos will be jumping around like popcorn. You want to try to smooth out those tempos. Make the barlines find their rightful position which keeps the tempos more level. There is always some variation, but it should not be jumping around from 142 to 256.

It's part science, but most of it is art. There is a feel to placing tempos. You've got to have that feel in your playing, and then you have to pull up your left brain and ask it "where do the beats fall when the feel is like this?" The conductor track helps your left brain figure that out while your right brain happily places notes where it knows they belong, despite what's going on with the tempos.

If that paragraph didn't make sense, read it again and again until it does. What we're trying to avoid is quantization. We want the performance to rock. To bebop. To jive, groove, gel, dance, or whatever word fits your way of feeling. We want the DISPLAY of the notes to look straight, like a score. Getting those two to come together in this impossible paradox is indeed an art.

One of the most interesting things about great music is that often it seems to avoid the beat entirely, until certain points of repose. It's that tiny anticipation or hesitation that gives it its groove — its power to move. So when we're adjusting beats we have to learn when we can play a beat or barline right on the note, or when it needs to go slightly off. Holding the COMMAND key down enables you to override snapping and move it to where it belongs.

There aren't any rules. If there were, the next wave of music would be about breaking them. It's all about feel and intuition. You "know" where the beat belongs, and you can see where it falls on the score, and they aren't the same place. Different styles of music — at their rhythmic core — are about how large or small those irregularities are, and where you put them. Beats 2 and 4 are more often on the beat, while the bass may follow the beat when moving stepwise, and the kick drum if often right on the beat. (again, 2 and 4) See? There are tendencies, but not rules.

So, once again, as you're placing beats, watch the conductor track. When you see a tempo jump wildly out of place, reassess your placement of that beat. Hold the COMMAND key if necessary, and move it until the tempo seems to obey its natural order, while the feel of the song becomes more and more visually apparent based on how far off the beat those notes actually lie.

In some cases you may end up moving a note or two. Maybe they got played too far out of place. But the last thing you want to do is to put beats on each note, then go back and level out the tempos. That's essentially what we call quantizing, and quantized music ain't music. (well... unless it's techno or some other music that is rhythmically machine-like)

Shooshie