Do tracks recorded ever sound slower on playback to you?

LazerBeakShiek

Rad Racing Team
After I record a set of tracks, working with drums setting the tempo and all, the next day it sounds slower in tempo. This ever happen to anyone else?

I swear it's slowing down. Weird.
 
Happens to me too, some weird psychological thing I guess. Nowadays I try to find a comfortable tempo and add like 5bpm because I know it's gonna feel slower the next day.
 
No - if you perceive your tracks are slower then just bump them - the problem the next day you may perceive them as too fast.
 
I notice this a lot related to heart rate or adrenaline or something like that.
Music will sound noticeably slower when I'm very relaxed, like lying in bed listening to something.

I guess it's the same phenomenon when people involved in accidents say it all happened so fast.
The more worked up you are, the slower things seem to happen.

I've heard runners talk about having difficulty selecting music to run to because generally when you're sitting down to choose music you're in a pretty relaxed state whereas when you're actually running, you're running.

Edit: Got it backwards.
 
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I have had them seem both slower and faster, which is very weird.
Some stuff I know has felt like it had a tempo change after adding an additional instrument playing in either half or double time as compared to the original rhythm tracks.
 
I think when playing we are more focused on actual playing and when hitting a difficult part of a song it feels fast because we have to concentrate more, whereas it can sound slower when listening to it afterwards.
Essentially the speed we feel is very subjective and depends on circumstances.
A guitar solo might sound fast if I play it at the maximum speed I can, but next day after listening to some Van Halen it sounds like turtle waking up. 😉
 
if you perceive your tracks are slower then just bump them - the problem the next day you may perceive them as too fast.
It's one of those strange things. I've had it happen where something feels too slow and then at other times too fast. Or it's felt fast and uneven then as soon as the bass is added, it feels just right. Or it was recorded without drums and felt OK then as soon as they are added, feels too fast.
I have had them seem both slower and faster, which is very weird.
Some stuff I know has felt like it had a tempo change after adding an additional instrument playing in either half or double time as compared to the original rhythm tracks.
This too.
Back in 2009, I recorded a song called "The Psychodramatist" with my friend from Zambia on drums. It was the first time we'd ever recorded together {I was playing guitar} and it felt good to play, but later, listening back, it felt really jerky and somewhat unnatural. And it felt too fast, even though it didn't while we did the recording. The song had actually been composed on bass {the bass of my mind, really} and when I added the bass, it made things sound even more jerky. It felt like one would develop a hernia trying to tap a foot to it because the tempo and rhythm seemed to change. It only sounded good in the runout. However, I added vocals, backing vocals and other instruments and let it brew.......until this year ! I found that another song Ray & I had recorded around the same time, "Birds Valentine", had the ideal drum pattern for the verse while the original recording had the ideal pattern for the chorus, so I took the drum tracks from the verse of "Birds" and used it for my re-recording of "The Psychodramatist", while retaining that original set of drum tracks for the chorus. I was very fastidious about the tempo this time and had to match up the two sets of drums by varispeeding. And when I listened back to them, thinking that the tempos matched, it still felt a bit slower than I'd envisaged. But once I'd added the bass, everything fell into place.
Odd.
 
It's one of those strange things.
Its something.
s. I was very fastidious about the tempo this time and had to match up the two sets of drums by varispeeding. And when I listened back to them, thinking that the tempos matched, it still felt a bit slower than I'd envisaged. But once I'd added the bass, everything fell into place.
Odd.
Hey, it has a happy ending. That is cool when the architecture of the song keeps it straight. I like how you said 'let it brew' , so true. You got to let it settle, give a song time to separate.
 
I play too fast all the time, and tend to speed up more in a chorus or bridge. Then when I listen back, I think "WTF?" That's why I use a click (EZD drum track) when I record my first tracks on a new song - without it, I'll be too quick every time. I may still bump the tempo up a few bpm during sections, of course.
 
I've found that I pick a tempo to record a new song and often think it's too slow after beginning work. Especially after a couple days of not hearing it. I've also had some laid back songs come out too fast on initial tracks. No reason your first tempo choice needs to be the best one. Just make your last choice the best one.

Mick
 
Today, I had some time to record . It has happened again. It slowed down. Or sounds like it. I was gonna finish the 3rd verse. But it is slowed.

The trip is that when I test it with an external metronome, it marches in time with the BPM selected. So, is it all in my head? Its all in my head.



I think it has to do with listening to it, to fill in small open spaces with sound, or listening to the thing as a whole presentation.

Latency was suspect, or too small a buffer. The DAW has Cracker Jack Timing at showing less than 2 ms latency.

Screenshot 2021-08-26 002014.jpg
 
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Uh, to get back to the, uh, the warning that I've received, you may take it with how many however many grains of salt you wish, that the brown acid that is circulating around us is not specifically too good. It's suggested that you do stay away from that, course it's your own trip, so be my guest, but, uh, please be advised that there is a warning on that one ok?


If you're comparing it to an external metronome, then it clearly isn't running slow. Unless you are changing the BPM or changing the playback rate slider (youre still using Reaper, right?), then the timing should be constant.

Or it could be the brown acid!
 
I liked the tempo LazerBeakShiek. the fuzzy electric guitar needs some definite EQ attention on the top end though.

My songs always seem to feel too slow, especially after listening to a more upbeat reference of the same song. I feel like slow bpm never really seems to work once I hear a faster version. I notice a lot of people will record at a slightly faster bpm when doing covers for more perceived excitement.
 
electric guitar needs some definite EQ attention on the top end though.
Thanks, I will get into that with post FX. I made a number of threads trying to get the little issues worked out. I had timing synch errors and weak/thin recordings. The timing issues I had seem fixed. The recordings are strong now. I'm planning to continue on adding VSTs, and cab sim IR's, that people make sound so nice. I feel I've made great progress here.

This recording is no FX/EQ or anything yet. No VSTs. Except EZDrummer. A Unison model, In the Apollo console at the time of recording, had a simple compressor going. I think if you record with a compressor at the time of recording and post, the compression effect is different. Would you apply a HPF LPF filter set to every track to make it sound produced? Like from 150-12000hz for guitars. 35-15000 drums. etc. Or would you tweak it with small shelves? Should the filter set be applied first, how would you do it?
 
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Hey man.

I used to HPF at 100-150 for guitars (like your rhythm) but I started getting much, much better results by high passing at 80hz, so instead of wiping out the stuff in between 80-150, I would place a nice bell cut in between and just turn it down until you notice the low end clear up. or even low shelf filter, turning it down to the right level is definitely the way to go, those frequencies are important for punch/in your face/warmth/thickness. Wiping out all below 80hz to maybe 100hz on your track is a really good idea though. If there was no bass or kick I'd probably hpf at maximum 80hz, and lower if I could get away with it.

To get the low end right put an EQ on your master and high pass at 300-400hz, balance all of your tracks, not paying as much attention to the low end on kick or snare, bypass EQ. does everything get swamped by the low end and you lose your vocals etc? Well, now you know that there is too much low end, and it is not because the vocal is not loud enough!, cut your low end until your new balance of +600hz starts to poke through again.

That guitar I would start with a low pass filter at 11khz, I LPF typically at 8khz on electrics unless there is something up there I really like. if you like the fuzz up high, keep it there and turn down with a bell cut at 8khz so it's playing nicely in your track, if your fuzz is where you like it volume wise but maybe sounds too piercing or harsh, get a nice bell cut going at 5khz, along with tiny boosts at 350-500 in increments of half db at a time. by the sounds of it you need a hefty cut there at 5khz. maybe as much as 8db, i'm not sure. it depends what EQ you're using. An 8db cut on fabfilter proQ2 or 3 sounds way different to an 8db cut on the waves REQ. and again different to the stock logic EQ(which I don't even bother with anymore)

if you have harsh tracks set up a de-esser (not multiband compressor) and look around 2khz

I think your tracks are pretty good, it's only the electric that stuck out, when I listened earlier on I think that I thought it was too dry/upfront, and far too much highs so needs some "roomverb" to make it seem like it belongs with the rest of the tracks, if you struggle to find a reverb to match the rest, maybe re-amp it back out again and capture some ambience with a room mic in the same room that you recorded the other tracks.

HPF/LPF are helpful but you need to be careful with them. You can use them for more percieved low end on your rhythm guitars, but that is only when you use the HPF along with a boost on the corner cutoff frequency.

I compress everything a little on a track like that, even the distorted guitar, but only 1-2dbs. if there are stray spikes I catch those with a limiter, but only on those sections. Saturation I use all over the place to further control those transients. I compress vocals generally twice via inserts, the first compressor is highest ratio/ fastest atk/rel (limiter settings) to clamp down on wild sections, then an overall smoothing compressor. then set up a send to a bunch of spare busses and apply further processing, parallel compression etc, so the vocal never drops too quiet at any one point in the song, then you need to get creative with distorted delays/ slapback/ vocal thickening etc to make it take a huge step forwards without turning it up, if vocal are still not poking through after all of that then cuts on competing instruments at 2.5-3.5khz along with tiny boosts in the same place on the vocal as long as it doesn't bring out anything unpleasant. then do the same somewhere around 500-1khz(pick anywhere that is least damaging to the rest of your tracks. it's all a compromise. Vocals get compressed the most because I want them up front. Drums don't need any direct compression if you're using drum software, but probably will always use parallel compression, even if it is just automated up during a chorus. Your drum room mic is the exception, it can be cool to heavily squash this. depending on the song. Don't just do it without really listening to make sure you are heading the song into the right direction.

sorry for crappy grammar, pushed for time.
 
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I think if you are going to watch 1 video, make it that colt copperune SP? (Magic is in the mids) youtube video. You will notice instead of cutting the treble like I said, he does the same thing essentially by boosting the low mids/mid mids, if that makes sense. It's good to work both ways. It's probably the only way you are going to learn what the 200-1.2khz area sounds like by applying boosts instead of just going for the cut only approach aswel. CLA boosts the crap out of 7-8khz on most tracks!, but that is esentially the same as turning down the mids/bass, and trust me. you can't get away with doing this on less than stella recorded tracks. I did some recordings the other day on my sm57 and needed a 5db cut at 5khz, then I recorded the same part again using my ribbon mic through my arttubeMP and DI and while the track sounded great, it really needed a 20db boost at 5khz and still sounded a little thick, with not enough high end, but it also sounded fine without EQ! It was just a track that I could make as bright as I wanted almost without destroying the sound.

Another thing that could be a game changer for you is instead of cutting with EQ the tyical 150hz-250hz bass area, try using a multiband compressor to squash it down to where it sounds right, making sure to pay attention to the attack time. This keeps your low end constant, and is actually where the professional sound can come from.

Probably give this a quick read if you have time. https://sonicscoop.com/2014/11/19/using-multiband-compression-to-conquer-proximity-effect-issues/2/

The things I listed above won't guarantee you will nail your mix, but keep the few points in mind, especially about getting that balance right in the mids (watch the video, honestly), this is what you want to balance the bass to etc. but it won't work if your tones are too far out of balance etc
 
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