Song length vs. Flex Battle

[mmonagan]

I recorded a 5 minute song with drums and bass without a click. It's about 140BPM and Flex has worked pretty well up to the last chorus. Now the transient lines are not on the measure markers. I imagine the players slowed down enough to throw off Flex. Is there some way to get Flex to adjust? How can I get them to line up?

[David Nahmani]

Flex has worked pretty well

What did you do exactly: choose a flex mode and quantize a single, long audio region?

[mmonagan]

Yes. I flexed the entire song (5 mins) with "slicing" and quantized it to 1/8 note.

[camillo jr]

You are very lucky if that worked for even a part of the song! By not playing to a click, it's only by purest fluke that any of it lined up to the existing time grid at all. I'm not surprised that the transient markers stopped lining up with the bars.

 

There's nothing the matter with playing off-grid. But if you want to be able to quantize to a grid after recording, you need to beatmap the performance to make the grid line up with the song. Next, you Flex the tracks and then to make the song a consistent tempo, choose a new tempo in Global Tracks / Tempo Alternatives. If the beatmapping is done right (I usually just do every bar with occasional attention paid to beats within the bar), when you switch tempos, it should all line up. At this point, you can apply quantization to rein in beats within the bars or to change the feel.

 

Note that you can't choose a new global tempo from the Transport while you're in the beatmapped tempo because it's now all over the place with faster and slower areas. That's where the Tempo Alternatives come in. In effect, the beatmapped tempo becomes Tempo Alternative 1 and you switch to a new tempo in #2.

[mmonagan]

Ok. Beat mapping it is. I've learned about Flex in the last couple of days now ill just have woodshed on Beatmapping.

Just to make sure I have you right. I'll cut the tracks where the problem starts and create a region. I will beatmap that region. Then Flex it and add a new tempo. Finally I'll quantize the regions.

Thanks a million for the help!

[camillo jr]

Just to make sure I have you right. I'll cut the tracks where the problem starts and create a region. I will beatmap that region. Then Flex it and add a new tempo. Finally I'll quantize the regions.

Thanks a million for the help!

 

Not sure what you mean by "cut the tracks where the problem starts". The problem started when you flexed the tracks before you beatmapped them. You don't need to cut any tracks but you do need to beatmap the entire performance, from beginning to end, even the parts that already seem to be close to the original 140 bpm. And make sure you turn off any Flexed regions before you do any beatmapping so that they can go back to their original position. To do this, select all the flexed regions and un-tick the Flex box in the Inspector.

 

So, just to be clear here:

1) Beatmap whole song with Flex disengaged

2) Turn on Flex for all regions

2) Choose a tempo alternative, which will likely be something close to 140 bpm

4) Watch all the drum parts magically line up with the new tempo!

 

Note that you don't have to choose 140 bpm, it could be 130, 142 or what ever feels right.