Smart Tempo question

I wonder if I'm just trying to use it in a way it wasn't designed to be used..

 

I have a mono drum track recorded without metronome, and a bass part played along with the drum line. I thought I could

 

- create a group with those two parts and Quantize-lock the audio

- then use Smart Tempo on the drum part to lock that to the grid

- and at the same time sync the bass playing (since it's phase-locked to the drum part)

 

Instead I'm getting glitchy results with the the bass part seemingly completely separated from the drum part.

 

I'm guessing this Smart Tempo function isn't supposed to be used like this?

 

cheers

Are you trying to sync the bass to the drum's groove?

In such case you could try the groove track approach.

Well, not really - I just want the bass (as it was played along with the drums) to maintain position relative to the drum track.. I had expected to be able to slave the bass to the drum track, so that when Smart Tempo does is doing it's magic, the bass would be locked to it.

 

Is this not how it's supposed to work?

Hi @cinningbao, I have the same issue and it is really frustrating : I've watched Eli's demo and it seems so simple and robust. I'm trying to get (smart) tempo from freely midi piano + voice live recorded, and I cannot make it work. Eli can :

 

https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/Logic-Pro-X-10.4.2-Update-Explained?itemid=16678

 

If anyone could share some insights, that would be really appreciated, thanks !

Hi frdrc,

 

It is a little frustrating, I’m glad I’m not the only one suffering the nuances of this function. Unfortunately I don’t have access to those groove3 videos.

 

I did little bit of looking though and found this vid which I might refer to when I get home in a bit.

 

 

Have a look it, it might be useful to you?

 

Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this!

 

Let me know what you find!

Cheers

CB

Ok, I have used the dancetech guys method (from my previous post), and it does actually work! From how it looks when other folks use it though, i'm not sure you can use raw MIDI tracks to do the tempo detection thing; it will want to convert it to an audio channel with no effects in, if you haven't already prepared it as such.

 

basically

- select all your audio files in the workspace

- right click on any of them and select 'Tempo->Create or New Smart Tempo Multi-track Set'

- in the edit frame change to Smart Tempo mode and select your "Downmix"

- make sure your downbeat is in the right place by holding your mouse over the orange bars in the Smart Tempo window and clicking to top nodule to change it if not

- far left of edit frame 'Edit -> Apply Region Tempo to Project Tempo'

 

And that's it!

 

If you want to fix the tempo of the project,

- turn on flex for all audio tracks

- expand Global Tracks

- click the Tempo thing and select 'Tempo Sets -> New Set'

- new constant tempo applied to the project audio!

 

So yeah, I probably need to do it a few more times to not forget it, but at least I've got this post to reference if I do..

 

Hope it works for you!

Hi CB,

 

Happy for you ! It seems working great on project audio ! That's really good news !

 

I'm trying to do the same with hybrid audio/midi project, and it's just a headhache : midi track and audio track cannot stay in sync. Perhaps the next lgpx update will handle this issue. We will see. Thanks for all !

If you care to compress/zip your project and upload here we can test itc

I just tried a quick test and as long as I selected "Maintain Time Position of All Regions", either from the menu or when pressing "Apply Region Tempo to Project", my MIDI region to maintain the correct position with regard to the new variable Tempo from the audoi file.

 

Although I'm sure you've tried it, did that still not work?

I'm having a similar frustration getting smart tempo to do what I think it should do. I have a freely recorded rhythm track and a vocal track that was recorded along with it so they are tempo locked. Now I want to add an apple loop so I doubled clicked the track and clicked EDIT SMART TEMPO and chose Variable. I then see the variable tempo in the track edit window when I view Tempo Curve Overlay. The tempo matches the track and the downbeat is correct. I have my main window set to Keep Tempo but I noticed that the tempo curve on the main window doesn't really match the tempo curve on the lower track window and when I add a software drum loop I can hear it's obviously following the main window tempo curve. I also did (Apply Region Tempo to Project Tempo) but it seems to have made no difference. My variable tempo in my main window remains unchanged. It's a variable tempo although I don't know where it got that tempo mapping from since it doesn't match the first track that I'm trying to lock everything to. I'm obviously misunderstanding something because what I'm trying to do can't be that unordinary. BTW, I don't have flex mode on for any tracks. Hope someone can give me some insight as to what I'm doing wrong.

Hi, I don't have time right now go into every detail of your post, but you will definitely need FlexTime set to ON on each of your audio channels. Otherwise Logic will just play the files at the rate they were recorded. Start from there and try the process.

Thanks. I ended up just exporting the tracks and importing them into a new project without ever using flextime and now it's working.