Logic Pro X Flex Time transient markers don't appear

I'm trying to use Flex Time to fix some timing errors in a (real) drum part that was recorded after the rest of the track. There's a four-bar stretch where the drummer got a little ahead of the beat, culminating in a fill and cymbal crash that is noticeably out, causing an obvious 'jolt' in the music, so it seemed to me that Flex Time might be able to fix this.

 

I'm still quite new to LPX and haven't used Flex Time before. I've tried to follow all the steps in the manual but when I select the flex mode, I get an 'analysing' message but no transient markers appear in the track I'm trying to fix, so I can't proceed.

 

I may have missed something obvious (but I have turned on the 'Show/Hide Flex' button at the top of the screen and in the individual track control strip, so it's not that) or it may be the rather roundabout way I got the tracks into my project:

 

Recorded into Garage Band 11 on a 2011 MacBook Air (running Lion) at the studio (5 takes of 4 tracks via a Scarlett 6i6 - R and L overheads, snare and kick);

 

File opened into LPX on 2008 MacPro (running Mavericks) at home and saved as an LPX project; so far so good.

 

I tried to copy each drum track with all its takes into my original LPX project but for some reason the last four or five bars didn't come through on any take of any track; repeated copy/paste attempts produced bizarre errors in which the pasted drum track was apparently longer than the whole song but slower too (but see note about tempo below);

 

Exported each usable drum take/track from the LPX version of the GB file and imported those into the LPX project as 16-bit mono AIFF files. This worked.

 

Created a track stack for each take of the four drum tracks for convenience of handling, comparison, manual comping (via cut+paste) etc;

 

Doubled snare and kick parts for finished comp using ESX24 samples.

 

The other point that may have an influence is that there are two quite major tempo shifts in the song - slow intro and couple of verses, fast chorus/solo, then repeat slow intro at end. The version the drummer played along to was an exported (Bounced) version from the master LPX project, with a metronome click track included. I didn't attempt to set the tempo in Garage Band to match the master song for the drum recording but left it at its default 120 bpm since the variable click was already included in the backing.

 

What have I missed / done wrong?

 

Thanks

 

Michael

In the audio region or take region, make sure there is a checkmark in the Flex checkbox in the Region inspector.

You could also open the audio region in the Audio File Editor and use the Transient Editing mode to see and edit the transients markers in that file.

In the audio region or take region, make sure there is a checkmark in the Flex checkbox in the Region inspector.

Thanks, I'd missed that. It's not explained in the manual.

 

I can now see the transient markers in the tracks area and in the Track Editor, but it seems to have speeded up the entire drum track by a few per cent without me attempting to edit anything!

 

The problem point in the song I'm trying to fix was at about 1min 04sec but on that track it's now at around 1min 01sec; the end of the song should be about 3m13s is now at about 3m01

 

WTF?!!

In the audio region or take region, make sure there is a checkmark in the Flex checkbox in the Region inspector.

Thanks, I'd missed that. It's not explained in the manual.

 

I can now see the transient markers in the tracks area and in the Track Editor, but it seems to have speeded up the entire drum track by a few per cent without me attempting to edit anything!

 

The problem point in the song I'm trying to fix was at about 1min 04sec but on that track it's now at around 1min 01sec; the end of the song should be about 3m13s is now at about 3m01

 

WTF?!!

That is probably due to wrong quantize settings; in which case doing adjustment to quantization would help.

Or otherwise it could be due to improper transients detection. In that case, following David's advice should normally solve your issue.

Thanks, I seem to be getting somewhere now. Turning on the quantisation is also is not explained in the manual, it's really quite poor.

 

When I select the 'slicing' option and quantise to 1/16th some parts of the sliced waveform are white and some turn blue. It looks like Logic Pro has aligned everything onto the the 16th grid, is that right?

Thanks, I seem to be getting somewhere now. Turning on the quantisation is also is not explained in the manual, it's really quite poor.

Indeed, the current documentation seems less comprehensive than the one that was published for

LP9. Posting your feedback to Logic support page would help provinding them incentive to improve the documentation for LPX. In the meantime, David's book is a reputable learning tool! And the author is hosting this very board.

 

When I select the 'slicing' option and quantise to 1/16th some parts of the sliced waveform are white and some turn blue. It looks like Logic Pro has aligned everything onto the the 16th grid, is that right?

There is some quantization description available here that could shed some light on what to expect with the different settings.

Thanks. I had to abandon this and re-record the drums, I could have spent ages and not got a satisfactory result. I will report the weakness in the documentation as you suggest, I would expect better from an Apple product with a 'Pro' tag