Feel based Project Tempo Workflow?

[Magicaster]

Hi guys new here, first post
never really been on a forum before so sorry If not aware the etiquette involved

my question is how do you guys actually work around logic's unintuitive "project tempo settings"?

like most musicians, i'm not a robot and I don't automatically know what the bpm of my song will be as soon as I *create new project*, only until I feel it it and actually get some instruments in. it's typical for producers to either make the melody/harmony first and then the beat after. Logic assumes you already have the beat and time signature in mind. this is especially rough when you have some ambient or rubato flow going and then decide "i need drums now" boom, creative flow comes to a grinding halt trying to figure out tempo crap. I've seen numerous issues here. where people start a project, try to adjust it later and it just becomes a nightmare.
I've seen Ableton users:

1.) actually have a tap tempo (2024 still no tap tempo in logic, ridiculous)
2.) very easily freeze tracks and change it without issues.

-SMPTE lock doesn't work with midi so it's useless as far as i'm concerned, tempo still automatically changes.
-just discovered beat mapping but it's not very easy to understand, it's more of a film score tool, not a real solution to this, from what I see. 

so what's the play here to get a a more flexible tempo change?

[polanoid]

Read the fine manual on the topic "Smart Tempo"

[David Nahmani]

Hi Magicaster and welcome to Logic Pro Help!

There is a tap tempo key command in Logic Pro (choose Logic Pro > Key Commands > Edit and search for tap tempo, then assign a keyboard shortcut to the Tap Tempo key command): 

You could also use Smart Tempo. For example if you record something with a clearly defined beat in "Adapt Tempo" mode, Logic automatically finds out the tempo and lines up the grid to your recording. 

Now beat mapping is also a perfectly acceptable workflow, a little less automated and requiring a little more work, but very useful for any applications where Smart Tempo doesn't work for example because it can't clearly identify a beat in your recording. Takes a minute or two to map a song, but once you're done you can move on. 

Note that you can also use Flex Time to make any of your audio recordings follow the project tempo so that if you then decide to change the tempo so the song plays a little faster or slower, your audio recordings will follow.