tempo maping???

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thajeremy

thajeremy

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I have a local band comming in in a couple of weeks. To prepare for the upcomming session, I broght in the leadsinger/guitarist in for some pre-production work. He wants to do some tempo maping for the drummer. Im not familiar with doing this. Im not really sure where the idea came from. The style of music is death metal. There are a lot of tempo changes in the songs and Im looking for some input on how others may be dealing with this.

The singer/guitarist is also the writer for 99% of the music and my suggestion to him was just to play to a metronome as a scratch track and let the drummer listen to these tracks to lay down drum tracks, then everyone else can play to these. The problem is that the guitarist doesnt like the idea of using a metronome....for several reasons...1) there are several tempo changes and we dont know how to deal with this on the fly, and 2) he has not spent much time with a metronome and doesnt feel comfortable with one.

any suggestions?
 
I handle it by having them not play to a click or by mapping everything out WAY in advance and making sure everyone is cool with the tempo. The only way to do it to a click IS to map it out or to be an extremely tight band.
 
Why don't you get them in and have them play through once, and then you can use the resulting audio and create a tempo map from it. Then you can rerecord everyone using the tempo mapped click.
 
I have recorded MANY metal bands in the past and I have not had any trouble with my usual way. I would normally have the guitarist in the room with me playing through an amp sim and into cans for the drummer to play to...then everyone else play to the drum tracks...but these guys are insisting on something different....the problem is that Im not sure what they are insisting on. the drummer doesnt want to hear the guitars...he wants to hear a metronome...the guitarist has never played to a metronome and when I play a click, he cant play with it. Does anyone know if there is a way in Adobe Audition to have the metronome change tempo on the fly?
 
thajeremy said:
Does anyone know if there is a way in Adobe Audition to have the metronome change tempo on the fly?
Click to expand...


There's got to be. Read the manual? i know it Pro Tools you can create a tempo map, which basically says at bar 1 the tempo is this, the meter is this, and then runs thru bars & beats until you put another tempo change in, etc.
 
I don't think you can change the tempo in AA. You might need to do like I do and use an external (or seperate internal) drum machine as your click track. You can then record the various tempos you need, and assemble them in edit view to follow the song. A little more work I suppose, but it can be done.

FWIW, I use a Alesis drum machine, and I have a regular drum beat ("rock 01", or whatever), with all the drums panned hard left. Then I have a cowbell on 1/4 notes (or another division as appropriate) panned hard right. Record that onto the computer into 2 tracks. That gives me the option of listening to either or both "metronome" tracks.

Also, it provides a visual tempo representation, in case you need to drop in markers, to reference for editing purposes. For instance, if theress a slightly sloppy drum fill, you can put a marker on the cowbell hits, and nudge your drum fill bits around to line up tighter. Heck, if it's a fast fill, you can just look at the time of 2 markers on either end of your fill, take the difference, divide by 16 or 32, or whatever, and drop additional markers at exact spot the 16th or 32nd beats should go. Then you can adjust your drum fill accordingly.

Anyway, the whole point is I REALLY like having an actual audio wav track for my click. And for whatever reason, cowbell seems to work well. loud, but not piercing. And not too crisp, so it allows the drummer to groove along slightly outside the beat a bit without getting slapped off time by a ping or a click, if that makes any sense.
 
like someone mentioned above, you're going to have to manually punch in the time signature and tempo for each part of the track to get your click track together. not sure how it's done in audition, but i'm sure there's a way

then just send the click track to the drummer's phones while the guitarist plays along to the drums through the monitors
 
Sorry, no experience with AA but I can say that Cubase has had this function for many years. I'd be surprised if AA couldn't do it.

Also, do not underestimate how tedious setting up a tempo map can be. It wouldn't hurt to go through the song with the guitarist and count measures/beats and maybe even provide them with a click track to practice with and verify on their own. You will get frustrated doing this while the whole band is around. It's easy to miss a measure. Also, don't forget the count in "1,2,3,4 go".

What is the drummer practicing with now? If he's not practiced to a click at all and there's tempo changes they're going to be in a world of hurt trying to get a good take. If the songs are complicated and he already has a click, you could just record whatever he's using.

Back when my band recorded in the tape days, we'd bring a drum machine with the programmed click including tempo changes to the studio. It was the same one we rehearsed with.
 
Out of curiosity, if they can not play to a click, how are they going to play to a tempo map? Basically a tempo map is a click track with predetermined tempo changes. If they can not play to a standard click track (or metronome) a tempo map will be impossible for them to follow.
 
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