Tempo Recognition Program Please

[ruebin]

I'm in a band and we are trying to implement ableton into our live sets. We all want to be synced up to one clock so all our arpeggiations and effects are synced up and controlled through our drummers tempo. He has an electric drum set and we can hook it up via midi. This is why we need to brainstorm ideas on creating a max 4 live program for tempo recognition; I just don't know how our where to start.

[trevox]

Get your drummer to play to a click track - far easier to do things that way...

[masterblasterofdisaster]

I think you mean "beat induction".

[trevox]

I think you mean "beat induction".

Well yes! Just pointing out that this would not be particularly easy and there would be a lot of room for the tempo getting "lost" - unless of course there was something pretty constant going on all of the time. And even then, the "constant" could be different for each track which means you would have to allow yourself parameters to change what the constant is which could get kinda complicated. Or if the constant is the same in each track, you may be limiting your drummer. Anyway, you get the idea...a click track means none of these headaches.

[masterblasterofdisaster]

I think you mean "beat induction".

Well yes! Just pointing out that this would not be particularly easy and there would be a lot of room for the tempo getting "lost" - unless of course there was something pretty constant going on all of the time. And even then, the "constant" could be different for each track which means you would have to allow yourself parameters to change what the constant is which could get kinda complicated. Or if the constant is the same in each track, you may be limiting your drummer. Anyway, you get the idea...a click track means none of these headaches.

Sorry, was giving reubin the correct term.

But yeah, I agree with the points you make, Trevox.
Best best is to have a human doing the beat induction rather than a computer.

At any rate, there are a few different methods I'm aware of:

1) autocorrelation
2) oscillator-entrainment based approaches
3) periodicity transform

[gavspav]

http://www.b-keeper.org/

[Venetian]

yeah, check the

http://livemusiclab.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/

we have
B-Keeper - max4live drum synchroniser
and Btrack a more general beat tracker, works well

we'll happily help you get it working

Andrew

[Machinate]

Also, Andrew is a great guy that knows his shit. So if anyone's the person to talk to about this, it would be him.

Andreas (thanks for a great weekend at m4u)

[BOB Cooper]

WO, I come here once a year, look at a few threads and go away.. what a chance to find this one

click tracks : make the human drummer so annoying and flowless

a quite old plug-in that induce beat : http://www.circular-logic.com/index.html
(haven't tried it yet but looks good.. I have the same concerns than reubin, but it's for a near future only, no time yet)

problems with tracking / induction models (to date and to my knowledge) is precisely that they track. but time, as a lived dynamic (especially musical time) is about past, present, AND future. for a "musical" application, models yet lack anticipation (if someone could correct me on this, Id' be happy)
Reubin, do not hesitate to ask for more directions or literature, there are a lot of papers about this issue, but I think the devices proposed here should satisfy you !


Andrew, I'm glad I found out about your work and your lab, I didn't know about it ! what you do interests me a lot, regarding both the theory and the musical applications !!
I look forward to find any time to read your writings and see how you made the patches ! that's something I wanted to do in a near future and for a long time, but I honestly lack computer / max / maths skills. I'm more on the human and conceptual side of these researches.
Maybe if I understand how it works, I'll later be able to add the features I had in mind.
anyway, thanx for doing what you do, and I hope we'll catch up one way or another to talk more about these one day !