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Multitrack Drum Quantize Workflow


davidpye

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I don't know why...but I'm not able to use both the metods.

If I try this one, I create the midi with the peaks of kick and snare (for example), open beat to map, quantize.....but the results is that I have a quantized midi and the audio tracks shorter than the midi...it works as far a certain point and after that Logic show me an error message (midi lost syncronization) and from here the tempo is totally wrong.

I tried to separate the whole song in different regions (also because there is a section not played) but it changed nothing..

 

The other metod: I select all the tracks with marquee, go to the start, shift+right...and it goes at the end of the song....and from here, shift+left, and it recognize the various transients.....but only as far a certain point. After this it go at the start. I tried to marquee all the tracks from the end to the first transient and it worked...But when I split the tracks (split region by locators) it didn't cut where I was, but in a random point....I don't know why.

I think it's very weird and frustrating :(

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  • 1 month later...
This is a fantastic method for slicing up drum tracks but I discovered a semi-annoying problem. I usually have my drum tracks in a separate folder. You cannot create beat maps via "Beats from Region" from within a folder. I had to unpack the folder into the main arrange area and perform the function from there.
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  • 4 weeks later...

yes i'm going to try again maybe i made a mistake.

 

another question comes to mind. when you are at the step of "disengaging" beat mapping and restoring the tempo back to the original via alt tempo in the global tracks...

 

 

what if the original song already had tempo changes??? like restoring back to 120 let's say as it was said in your step by step is fine because its one tempo you are restoring to and now the drums should be quantized to that, but let's say at bar 200 it speeds upto 140 and that's how it was recorded, that's what the original tempo map was. won't global mapping override that when you do it in the earlier steps???

 

 

this creates a problem for further tracking like guitars and bass vocals etc. etc.

 

i guess you could export the tempo track via midi first before any of this just to have a tempo track. btw, that is the way i do it for cross daw platform file exhange, i export a midi track that contains tempo, unless there is another way, but anyway aside from that, assuming the midi export thing is the tempo track i can then reimport the midi file and get the tempo that way??

 

unless i am missing something?

 

 

thanks

 

 

aram

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ok more weirdness...

 

 

for some reason it doesn't cut at 1/4 note divisions according to the tempo using alt + scissor unless the regions start at bat 1 at the zero mark...

 

for a few songs i've been doing this and it works then i got to one where the region was pulled a samples over the the right and when i tried cutting on th 1/4 beat it made 1/4 note equal divisions for the rest of the regions and cut it up into 1/4 bar long chunks NOT according to the grid or tempo at all.

 

i mean i fixed it by just adding some silence to extend the region flush against the start but just heads up in case anyone else gets this. i don't know why this is the case but just heads up anyway.

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THANK YOU so much for this method! I was having issues at first with the beats too high or low, but i got everything sorted out and it works/sounds great. (would you suggest on the fade to be as low as possible? just wondering)

 

But now I have a different question: I want to replace some of the weak KICK and SNARE hits with a stronger hit from somewhere else in the song; but I'm not sure how or when to do this during this process. Any ideas?

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  • 2 weeks later...

experiencing weird problems again.

 

 

on one session this worked. now i'm onto my next one (much sloppier initial playing and much more complicated playing as well) and haveing some problems with this.

 

 

i double triple quadruple checked my workflow to make sure it worked and it still doesn't.

 

for some reason, when it comes time to lock regions and change the tempo back to the original tempo regions move even while they are locked. very strange. tried this with many different approaches. tried with just kick, just snare, merged. different audio to score settings, different beats from region settings, different denominations (cut song on 1/4, 1/8, 1/16) notes... so i've tried everything and it keeps moving while it's locked at the point after cutting the song up in even increments and changing the tempo alternative to another "bank" and changing to desired tempo. at this point while the regions are locked, they still move a little here and there. then when i try quantizing them i notice that while when i had cut at the 1/4 notes of the song the cuts were on the transients, they are now like not on the beat, it is placing them all over the place. very whacky.

 

the only thing different about this project is that it was played live with no click and the band played 4 straight songs and i comped best takes and merged into one file and then created 4 seperate projects and cut up that master take into 4 audio files and loaded the song in that new file by itself cut from the others. don't know if it makes a difference. i'm gonna try to see how i can record the process and the problem i'm experiencing as a youtube video for further feedback. just when i thought i had a found a reason to like logic for editing my dreams get smashed.

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  • 3 months later...

Hey I really appreciate you showing us this excellent method. It sure as hell beats cutting every drum hit up and manually quantizing it (as I've been doing for my songs so far... sigh). Unfortunately, I have been running into some tempo related issues. Here are some of my questions.

 

1. After I click "beats from region" the trigger region sometimes becomes a size different from my drum region (it gets bigger or smaller), however, if I click on a drum track (my drums are grouped), go to the inspector and uncheck "follow tempo" it seems to fit. I don't know if that should be clicked or not. Can you help me understand what's happening when that box is checked in?

 

2. After I quantize a section of this song this way is it safe to delete the alternative tempo that was used while quantizing it? Will it ruin what I've already done? There are only 9 alternative tempos available, I can probably break up my song into less than 9 sections however, this is a really sensitive attribute of the project and I've been getting some really "kinky" stuff when ever I am at the "select an Alternative Tempo, in the Tempo track and set the tempo to that the drums were recorded to" step. Some pointers/ explanations in this topic would be spectacular.

 

3. Your "Step 5 Smoothing" makes sense, however, I am kind of lost on dragging the left corner back (partly because I don't know how far a 32nd note is when I zoom in). I always seem to mess something up here. I am also having problems with "while all the regions are selected, add an equal power fade of around 5-20ms using the inspector". When I go to inspector I am having trouble finding this, the option only seems to be available when the "follow tempo" box is not checked and even then I can't get the fades to work. Please try and help me out, maybe explain some things as thoroughly as possible if you could.

 

Thanks for reading. This is a HUGE thing for me. It's the only reason why it takes me sooooo freakin' long to finish recording a song and I can't stand it. If I could get the hang of it and know when/when not to use it as well when I should go back to my ways of manually putting the drums in time (if ever), I would be the happiest man alive.

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Ok lets try:

 

1. You don't really want Follow Tempo turned on for this. This feature will cause audio to follow tempo changes and will complicate this, and lessen it's effectiveness a lot.

 

2. Normally I would have 1 tempo alternative for the more complex tempo map, then one for the straight even tempo which is being quantized to. I would then switch between just these two. When working on multiple sections like you are, I would do all the triggering and splitting of regions first, then switch to the straight tempo and quantize ALL the regions in one go.

 

3. Again, you don't want follow tempo on, it will cause the audio to stretch to fit the alternative tempo which you REALLY don't want to happen as it will stop the audio lining up with the trigger points. To see a 32nd note on the grid look to your transport and select 32/1 in the division pull down menu, it will normally say 16/1 by default. This will split the bar into 32 beats in the grid. It doesn't HAVE to be a 32nd note, it's just a rough guideline.

Sometimes when you select multiple regions it displays a * instead of the word OUT where you would normally select EQP for equal power fade. This is because you have a region selected which doesn't cross another region on it's right side, therefore can't be CROSSfaded into that region. If you deselect these regions it will correctly display. But it's immaterial as you can still just click the * and select EQP and the length of the fade, it just looks weird like a lot of stuff in Logic, but it'll work fine.

 

Hope some of this rambling helps you.

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is it true that logic 9 eliminates the need for these workarounds?

 

I would definitely say that.

 

The new: slice at transient markers, Audio quantize and new Back and Forward by transient, where the Playhead actually moves to the next transient, are really awesome and very easy to grasp.

Hi Eric and all,

Has anyone tried this out with multi-track drums? does it work well/easily?

How is the processor hit? I was using the old transient detect/slice method, but on my 2core 1st gen imac, I could only really detect on 2 tracks, otherwise the processor hit slowed everything right down. Is this still the case? Do I need a new computer to really take advantage of this? Would grouping / ungrouping still work?

cheers, Nigel Mk II

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