How to correct tempo of untagged loops

Hello-

I've been exploring Logic's untagged loops feature recently and it is very cool! However, I'm finding occasionally it is incorrectly guessing the tempo of some loops I am importing. Is there an easy way to simply correct this after they import? Thanks for any insight.

I'm trying to do that too.. apple remove "apple loops utility" (I have no idea why..) and there is no replace..

bump

I know this sounds too obvious, but are you 100% sure that each loop has the right length? For example a 128bpm loop should have (depending on how many beats and bars it's supposed to play for):

0.469 ms

0.938 ms

1.875 ms

3.750 ms

7.500 ms

15.000 ms

30.000 ms

60.000 ms

 

I don't really use that feature, because to me the loop browser always "sucked" (for lack of a better word), but the few times I used it, it worked as expected.

 

If you're not happy with it, I would recommend Loopcloud. That's what I use and it's free

Thanks for the heads up on Loop Cloud, I will check it out. No I'm not 100% sure loops are exact lengths, and most likely they are not, or they are unusually long... I would say 97% of the time, Logic is getting it right...I do wish there was an easy way to fix when it's not.

Thanks for the heads up on Loop Cloud, I will check it out. No I'm not 100% sure loops are exact lengths, and most likely they are not, or they are unusually long... I would say 97% of the time, Logic is getting it right...I do wish there was an easy way to fix when it's not.

 

Ok so here's my suggestion: if those loops are really important to your work, spend time organizing them. Here's how you can do it: since you said 97% of the time Logic is right, check the loops that Logic doesn't get right and put them on a different folder. You end up with a folder with all the good loops and another one with the bad ones.

 

The way to fix those bad loops is to just make sure you know their original tempo and then knowing the tempo, you can find the correct length. There are so many variables in an audio file for Logic to consider it a loop or not. The most important one is the length, of course. If you have an audio file that was played at 100 bpm, but for some reason it has an extra 2 seconds of silence, that alone changes how Logic will process it.

 

For example: imagine that you have 4 snares hitting each tempo at 100bpm. If you only have that, then you can have a loop, but let's say that the last snare had a reverb and you want to preserve that reverb. Now you have to let the reverb sustain until it ends, so that audio file, even though the snares are a loop per se, the audio itself is longer than the first one. Does it make sense? There's no way Logic will understand that the file is a loop, because once the audio file ends playing and it goes back to the beginning, it will not be in sync with the song.

Hope I'm not stating the obvious, but this is just to tell you that regardless of you using Logic's loop browser, Loopcloud or any other option, you will probably face the same issue, if the audio itself is not properly cut to work as a loop.

 

Hope it helps

Thanks for the feedback! Yes makes sense that if lengths are off, Logic may have some trouble. I'm finding that many times on the loops that Logic gets wrong, the tempo is right there in the file name... just wish there was a way to easily force Logic to recognize a particular tempo on a file... like in Pro Tools you can just right click and choose set Elastic Properties to change the orig tempo so that it will conform correctly to tempo changes. I believe a similar choice should be available in the Logic browser... since there are other preference choices there. But for now I will just dig into these loops a little further and get the lengths set. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback! Yes makes sense that if lengths are off, Logic may have some trouble. I'm finding that many times on the loops that Logic gets wrong, the tempo is right there in the file name... just wish there was a way to easily force Logic to recognize a particular tempo on a file... like in Pro Tools you can just right click and choose set Elastic Properties to change the orig tempo so that it will conform correctly to tempo changes. I believe a similar choice should be available in the Logic browser... since there are other preference choices there. But for now I will just dig into these loops a little further and get the lengths set. Thanks!

 

Beware that sometimes the tempo may be correct, but as I mentioned, if there's a tail, then the length of the audio will affect it. So even if you have a 100bpm loop with a snare, for example, and the original author of the loop decided to add a delay effect on the last snare, the delay will be included so the file itself needs to be longer than the loop length, making Logic not find the correct tempo. You know what I mean?

 

My suggestion is: for those that are wrong, set the project's tempo to the tempo in the file name. Drag them into Logic and see if they are in sync with the metronome. If so, then check if there's a tail. If there's one, then you have 2 options: you either remove that tail if you feel that you won't need it, so you will have a perfect loop (then save it as a new file) or you can find a way to make the file match a loop length. Example: let's say the loop itself uses 4 beats (1 bar), but then the tail extends for another 2 beats. Logic will see that as a loop with a different tempo, because it's checking which loop tempo matches that length. So what you can do is add silence after those 2 extra beats so the file extends for 2 extra beats (4 in total). So now you have a loop with 4 beats, a tail with 2 beats and silence for 2 beats, making it 8 beats (1 bar) long. That's a perfect loop.

 

Hope it makes sense again

 

I know these things take time and work, but I've learned that sometimes it's better if we fix everything beforehand so when we are working, we don't stop the creative process to do them.

Hi! I'm an avid user of Splice and I've experienced this problem many times. What has helped most of the time is to go into the audio file and turn on Flex Time Rhythmic. In that window move the cursor over the end of the audio file towards the top and stretch the end of the track to line up with the end of the bar. It should adjust to the correct tempo when you do that. I hope that make sense!