Smoothing a recorded drummer's tempo drift

[gnuyork]

Hello Logic people,

I have decided to challenge myself to get a good sounding recording of my band in my basement that sounds like a record and not a recording in my basement. I have learned a lot from reading and experimenting, trying micing techniques, and using 3rd party plugins, etc.

I only have 10 tracks to work with, so we are doing drums first, then over dubbing bass, guitars, keys, vocals, etc

We have now done the drums for 6 or 7 songs, and before we begin tracking everything else, I'd like to edit the drums to have a consistent tempo. Our drummer does not (and cannot) play to a click... So we did our best (we all played along with scratch tracks into a separate mixer feeding 2 of those 10 channels and through a headphone amp to not make a sound on the drum recordings) however with all songs there is tempo drift, say from 120 to 126 by the end of the track (sometimes even more drastic).

I have tried grouping the tracks, and setting some target tracks for quantizing, and using the slicing flex mode and even manually dragging some of the transients... But this is just not working.

Is there an easy way to even out a drummers tempo performance? I don't need to be right on the grid, though I'd like to be close and still keep a "feel." 

I've looked at the smart tempo thing, and I guess I just don't understand it. Is this something I should have engaged as we recorded? Would this have made life a lot easier regarding these edits?

Thanks!

[fuzzfilth]

You can try Smart Tempo, although personally I feel it quite difficult to correct what it gets wrong.

I prefer the manual way of first Beat Mapping the song, where I tell Logic where the downbeats of the bars are, and then edit the resulting Tempo Map where I tell Logic how much to straighten out tempo fluctuations and / or timing errors.

Let me know if you need further directions.

[gnuyork]

If you don't mind, can you provide further instruction how to do the beat mapping? That might prove to be very helpful. Thanks.

[David Nahmani]

1 minute ago, gnuyork said:

If you don't mind, can you provide further instruction how to do the beat mapping? That might prove to be very helpful. Thanks.

Here's an example: 

[gnuyork]

Will give that a try. Thank you very much.

[David Nahmani]

1 hour ago, gnuyork said:

Will give that a try. Thank you very much.

You're welcome! 🙂 

[matthewbarnhart]

Just wanted to chime in as an anti-click guy: the basic tracks for most of my current band's records are recorded in our basement during practices, all playing together, without a click.

When I start mixing, I beat-map as described here -- not to align everything to a grid, but more of convenience when setting delay times, selecting bars/beats for automation, etc. I typically start beat-mapping the first downbeat of each section, maybe going down to every bar or two depending on the tune.

On the occasion there's an errant hit (usually my bass playing, ha!), the beat-mapped grid is helpful for quickly nudging things into place.

This works well for our style of music, which is indie-dad rock. Other styles might need more rigidity, but I would suggest starting very lightly with quantizing if you aren't playing to loops/samples/tracks/etc. One thing I love about Logic's workflow for beat-mapping (and flex pitch) is that it leads me to do less messing around and get more natural, pleasing results than I might in other DAWs.

My $0.02!

[David Nahmani]

46 minutes ago, matthewbarnhart said:

Just wanted to chime in as an anti-click guy: the basic tracks for most of my current band's records are recorded in our basement during practices, all playing together, without a click.

When I start mixing, I beat-map as described here -- not to align everything to a grid, but more of convenience when setting delay times, selecting bars/beats for automation, etc. I typically start beat-mapping the first downbeat of each section, maybe going down to every bar or two depending on the tune.

On the occasion there's an errant hit (usually my bass playing, ha!), the beat-mapped grid is helpful for quickly nudging things into place.

This works well for our style of music, which is indie-dad rock. Other styles might need more rigidity, but I would suggest starting very lightly with quantizing if you aren't playing to loops/samples/tracks/etc. One thing I love about Logic's workflow for beat-mapping (and flex pitch) is that it leads me to do less messing around and get more natural, pleasing results than I might in other DAWs.

My $0.02!

Thanks a lot for sharing this. It's often insightful to hear about other people's workflow. Indeed having the grid follow your performance's natural, human tempo map can really ease the editing and arranging process. Well worth taking the time to do it IMO. 

[matthewbarnhart]

And I guess to clarify my POV: are you sure it’s an actual problem that the beat drifts from 120 to 126? Are you sure bleed from amps/etc is a problem?

When I started recording I thought all of that stuff had to be eradicated. I was soon fortunate enough to work on some multitracks recorded by my heroes, which were full of bleed and tempo drift, but the final mixes were amazing. Really turned my head around.

Again, it will depend on your style of music, but you might find it illuminating to try quantizing some of your favorite recordings from before, say, 1979, and see what happens! 

Edited July 26, 2023 by matthewbarnhart

[gnuyork]

I'm 100% certain there is tempo drift. There is no no bleed, as I mentioned we recorded the drums only to mics, all the rest was recorded direct  as a sctratch and we were on headphones.

 

I have not had time to try any of these methods yet, but your input is helpful too. Hopefully I can get some time tonight to give something a try .

Our project is indie (ish) as well. 

[Adinfiitumband]

The beauty of music is in the imperfection!  That's the human factor.  Just my $.0001.

[gnuyork]

1 minute ago, Adinfiitumband said:

The beauty of music is in the imperfection!  That's the human factor.  Just my $.0001.

I get it, but I need consistent tempo. A beat or 2 off might be ok... maybe,  but not 6 or more.

[gnuyork]

So I gave the beat mapping thing a try. It worked great until a certain point. For some reason it drops the smart tempo way down to 84 at the change in the song (the chorus) but the tempo should be the same.  I can't figure out why. It doesn't sound much different when I play back, but I can't beat map it because I can't drag the transients that far. If I drag the smart tempo back up to 120 it plays very fast and does not sound right.

I have attached a screen shot:

 

 

[steveLpx1]

...at the "change" take a look at the transients, sometimes the algorithm misses a little. When I've had that I've either just ignored the "goof" or sometimes I "fixed" it...hth.../s~

[fuzzfilth]

A couple of things:

- As mentioned, I'd stay away from Smart Tempo. It is (sometimes frighteningly) good at guessing the right tempo, but just as stubborn when it insists on things it got wrong. I'd also not combine automatic Smart Tempo and manual Beat Mapping, as invariably one gets in the way of the other.

- If you want to keep the feel of the drummer and just correct the tempo drift, you' re using way too many Beat Markers. You are essentially quantizing the drums (actually you're quantizing everything to the drums, but that will turn around once you begin to straighten out that Tempo Map later). If you look closely at your picture, many times you're lowering the tempo on the 1, and speed it up on the 3. In reality, you're adapting to the drummer just playing a laid back second kick in half time, and this will be gone once you 'fix' the tempo.

- As for the actual point where your approach fails, the drummer switches from a steady halftime backbeat to double time (or more like a 'pretty woman' beat), the straight quarter notes go to the snare and there are no such hits on the kick track which you're using to Beat Map. Now, you can map any syncopated note if you know where it's supposed to go, like you'd consistently map the kick or snare to the 2 in a 1-drop reggae where the 1 isn't played. But here, you better just use an overhead track which has all the important transients regardless of the rhythmic structure.

I'd approach such a section like this, (my drumming, from Tuesday's rehearsal):

[gnuyork]

Ah, thank you. I will give this another pass this evening. Start fresh.

[fuzzfilth]

Great. If you have a solid Tempo Map that follows the acceleration, we'll move on to the next step(s).

[gnuyork]

I have stereo overheads and also two mono room mics. Would it be better to use one those tracks rather than a kick drum or snare track. My thinking is the transients would be more defined in either kick or snare tracks. 

[fuzzfilth]

If you look at my example, I used the overhead track and it worked just fine.

[gnuyork]

OK. Another thing. You mention to stay away from smart tempo, How do I turn off smart tempo. To be honest I'm not sure how I even turned it on, or can't remember. I can fly my way through Adobe premiere or DaVinci Resolve, but I sure am a dum dum in Logic Pro. I know just enough to be dangerous, ha ha.

[fuzzfilth]

In your screenshot, in the counter, you have Smart Tempo set to Adapt instead of Keep. Change it there, or in Project Settings:

Also, you don't need the Smart Tempo pane at the bottom, it'll only add to the confusion.

Edited July 28, 2023 by fuzzfilth

[gnuyork]

Just an update. I haven't had any time to work on this any more. I'm slammed with non hobby work at the moment. I'll try to take a stab at it soon and chime back in after I'e made another pass.

 

Again, thanks of these tips.

[gnuyork]

I finally had a chance to mess with this. Here is another attempt at beat mapping. I did only the beats on 1 this time. Is that what I need to do? Or is that still too many?

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by gnuyork

[David Nahmani]

3 hours ago, gnuyork said:

I did only the beats on 1 this time. Is that what I need to do? Or is that still too many?

It really depends on the performance, and how often and how widely the drummer changes tempo. Generally, once a bar as you've done should be enough, but really the best way to know is to try to finish the procedure, and then listen to the results. 

[gnuyork]

On 7/27/2023 at 9:40 AM, fuzzfilth said:

Great. If you have a solid Tempo Map that follows the acceleration, we'll move on to the next step(s).

OK I'm ready to try the next steps, please.

[fuzzfilth]

• select all drum Regions
• ctrl-click one of them and select Tempo>Write Project To Audio File
• select all drum Track Headers
• enable Flex in 1, 2 and 3

• open the Tempo Editor

• Change or remove the existing Tempo Events to edit out the drummer's drift

Edited August 14, 2023 by fuzzfilth

[gnuyork]

Brilliant!

However, I noticed the wash of the cymbals sounds a tiny bit weird, might not be noticeable within a mix. Is this due to too extreme of a correction? We started at 120 and I see one measure at 129, a few a 12, 128, and many hovering on the 124-126 range. Maybe I should pick a halfway point as the tempo?

 

 

 

 

 

[fuzzfilth]

Whatever feels best for the song. Sometimes slight acceleration throughout the song sounds more organic.

Try the different Flex modes to reduce artifacts.

[gnuyork]

Thank you so much. This is a tremendous help.