Understanding Tempo for songwriting

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Zydrus

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I'm not a drummer but as a guitar player I know how to count time and figure out tempo. What confuses me is say I count a song and say it is 80 bpm and another guy counts it and says it is 160 bpm. So if I started a session in Reaper and set the project tempo to 160 and then had EZ drummer play half time it would be same as me setting the project tempo to 80 and having EZ drummer play normal.

I notice a lot of guys will go with the higher BPM and I always use the lower. Meaning I count it as 1/4 notes and they count it as 1/8 notes I guess. Any pros and cons to this? If you were talking to a drummer in the above example would you tell them the song was 80 or 160 BPM?
 
Depends on the song. One of you is obviously having some trouble counting beats or something. 160 bpm is getting up there though. At that bpm I'd expect a pretty steady stream of kick-snare-kick-snare going on so if that's not happening then it's probably 80 bpm. Any sound clips you could post? Or even just a random song from youtube and you just tell us what you think the bpm is?
 
Yeah, 160 is pretty fast, and 80 is pretty slow. If one of you cant tell whether it's fast or slow...

But I tend to run my DAW at double tempo and then set it to 8/4 so that the measures land properly. What it does is increase the time resolution of the MIDI info. MIDI time is not counted in parts of seconds, but in parts of beats. The most you can get is 960 parts per quarter. That is probably enough even at relatively slow tempos, but I always figure that more can only be better, right? It's not a huge deal if you're running everything strictly on the grid, but for capturing live performance via midi, or if you're going to add any "humanization". Honestly, I've never done any testing to see if I could even hear a difference, but it makes me feel better.
 
Zydrus said:
The Cadillac Three - Tennessee Mojo - YouTube

I'm counting that song as 73 BPM and my buddy says it's 146. I can make it work either way. As I mentioned setting my project up at 146 then having EZ drummer play it half time or just setting the project up at 73 and having EZ Drummer play normal.

If you go to songbpm.com it says the song is 146 BPM.
Click to expand...
That song is slow. Its a straight backbeat. The distance between the kick and snare is one quarter note. Load up a straight rock beat in EZD and try it at 146. Play it for your friend. He'll probably tell you the software is wrong :/
 
Wow!...talk about complicating things for nothing.

It's pretty simple. Your imaginary "snare" should fall on the 2 and 4.

Or, if you're white, you're clapping on 1 and 3. If you're black, you're clapping on the 2 and 4. :D
 
Zydrus said:
The Cadillac Three - Tennessee Mojo - YouTube

I'm counting that song as 73 BPM and my buddy says it's 146. I can make it work either way. As I mentioned setting my project up at 146 then having EZ drummer play it half time or just setting the project up at 73 and having EZ Drummer play normal.

If you go to songbpm.com it says the song is 146 BPM.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's definitely 70ish. Your drummer is pretty crazy. Hope his playing makes up for his bad counting ability :D

RAMI said:
Wow!...talk about complicating things for nothing.

It's pretty simple. Your imaginary "snare" should fall on the 2 and 4.

Or, if you're white, you're clapping on 1 and 3. If you're black, you're clapping on the 2 and 4. :D
Click to expand...

Truth :laughings:

Glad you're back dude!
 
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