EightMilesHigh
Member
I wanted this post to be informative as well as inquisitive. 
Putting it mildly, I have always strained in finding the correct tempo when laying down songs in my home studio. (I am a rock or pop/rock singer/songwriter.) Sometimes I’m too fast, other times I’m too slow. I like using a click track for most songs, but it seems that my mind adapts to whatever tempo I set it on, so I can’t feel a difference after about ten seconds of playing along, (unless there’s a major difference, of course). This led me to an experiment recently:
Because I sing and play all of the instruments, I decided to try different methods for finding the tempo. First, I recorded a rough track without a click track. This was just singing and playing acoustic guitar, trying to keep a steady beat, not playing with a lot of force. Second, I sang the number relaxed and a capella, again without a click track. I then repeated this process seven times for a total of eight different original songs. Comparing the two versions recorded for each track, I found, almost every time, the a capella version to be the faster of the two. Next, I am going to try and match the click track to my rough recordings, and find some kind of middle ground between the two. The click track has one hundred decimal places, so accuracy is possible if I kept a solid beat. If all goes well, I would then use this resulting middle ground click track value as the tempo for the song. This, for the most part, is all I can think of for finding the tempo, and I am not sure if it will work. It hasn't always in the past.
I have also used a BMP analyzer on other people’s professionally recorded songs that I would imagine to have a similar feel and tempo to my songs, and then used the resulting tempo. This again hasn’t always worked because my song and someone else’s are not the same.
Does anyone else struggle with this? Does anyone have any tricks for finding the right tempo that I haven’t mentioned? Thanks, all responses are welcome.
Putting it mildly, I have always strained in finding the correct tempo when laying down songs in my home studio. (I am a rock or pop/rock singer/songwriter.) Sometimes I’m too fast, other times I’m too slow. I like using a click track for most songs, but it seems that my mind adapts to whatever tempo I set it on, so I can’t feel a difference after about ten seconds of playing along, (unless there’s a major difference, of course). This led me to an experiment recently:
Because I sing and play all of the instruments, I decided to try different methods for finding the tempo. First, I recorded a rough track without a click track. This was just singing and playing acoustic guitar, trying to keep a steady beat, not playing with a lot of force. Second, I sang the number relaxed and a capella, again without a click track. I then repeated this process seven times for a total of eight different original songs. Comparing the two versions recorded for each track, I found, almost every time, the a capella version to be the faster of the two. Next, I am going to try and match the click track to my rough recordings, and find some kind of middle ground between the two. The click track has one hundred decimal places, so accuracy is possible if I kept a solid beat. If all goes well, I would then use this resulting middle ground click track value as the tempo for the song. This, for the most part, is all I can think of for finding the tempo, and I am not sure if it will work. It hasn't always in the past.
I have also used a BMP analyzer on other people’s professionally recorded songs that I would imagine to have a similar feel and tempo to my songs, and then used the resulting tempo. This again hasn’t always worked because my song and someone else’s are not the same.
Does anyone else struggle with this? Does anyone have any tricks for finding the right tempo that I haven’t mentioned? Thanks, all responses are welcome.
