How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

username652719 · Post by **username652719** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:36 pm

Ableton seems to insist on always dividing the beat by 2, no matter what the case.

I'd love to be able to tap at a tempo of 3 8ths per beat instead of having to tap each 8th note, then make the Signature 6/4 (since the tempo seems to always be set to quarter notes no matter what the case, whatever I wish to tap at)

How do you all reconcile this?

Thanks!

Yoseph · Post by **Yoseph** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:45 pm

Ableton's tap tempo is based off of the meter that's currently set to your project. Ableton cannot interpret what meter you're playing in via Tap Tempo. You'll have to enter that in manually, beforehand.

stringtapper · Post by **stringtapper** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:11 pm

I think what the OP means is that when you already have the meter set to a compound meter like 6/8 and taP the tempo Live interprets your tapping to be the eighth note instead of the dotted quarter note, which is the standard beat duration for compound meters. It's because Live simply takes the tap as being the denominator of the meter and makes no distinction between simple and compound meters. And yeah, it's a problem.

Yoseph · Post by **Yoseph** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:18 pm

I agree, but how could Live understand the difference?

stringtapper · Post by **stringtapper** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:33 pm

By having the tap tempo default to a duration three times the denominator whenever certain "recognized" compound meters have been set (6/8, 9/8, 12/8, etc.).

The way it is now is incompatible with the way compound meters work (in general).

username652719 · Post by **username652719** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 12:51 am

stringtapper wrote:I think what the OP means is that when you already have the meter set to a compound meter like 6/8 and taP the tempo Live interprets your tapping to be the eighth note instead of the dotted quarter note, which is the standard beat duration for compound meters. It's because Live simply takes the tap as being the denominator of the meter and makes no distinction between simple and compound meters. And yeah, it's a problem.

Heck, even if it did scale to the denominator of the current meter I'd be happy, but as it is it seems that live only equates tap tempo to the quarter note.

This means that when I tap at 8th notes and set the meter to x/8, it doubles my playback speed because it assume I'm tapping for every 2 beats when the meter is set to x/8.

To get the desired tempo and tempo scale I want, I have to set it to x/4 and "pretend" the reference beat is the desired note value.

There is currently a "workaround" for compound meters, which is to tap for two 8ths and turn on triplet grid to simulate "3 in the space of two", but this doesn't help when attempting to tap a tempo of a piece that is in compound meter. I have to effective tap a duplet against the meter of the song for it to be at the tempo of the piece that is playing.

username652719 · Post by **username652719** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 1:01 am

Yoseph wrote:I agree, but how could Live understand the difference?

The same way musicians understand the difference, by having a note value indicator next to the desired numerical BPM value.

All it would take is a little picture of a notehead , changing in value by the up and down arrows, to indicate what the current BPM is set to.

Bam, problem solved.

(PS. Ignore meter)

How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

Re: How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

Re: How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

Re: How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

Re: How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

Re: How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?

Re: How do you tap tempo to songs with compound times?