I've been using sequncers and Live for a while, but here's one thing that always gets me stuck:
When I play piano in an improvisational/compositional style, my tempo is all over the place. But I haven't been able to catch that spirit electronically when using synths and Live.
I've tried to get some controller to act as a tempo receiver, but that didn't work too well. I tried to just play and then go back and tweak the measure breaks, but wow that's a bear.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
how do you create a multi-tempo tune?
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DeadlyKungFu
- Posts: 3603
- Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 8:26 pm
I don't really get what you're after.
- There's record quantise to clean stuff up as you play.
- If you name a scene "120" it plays at 120 BPM, name it "63" and it plays at 63 BPM, that's how you change tempos in Live
I personally find it really difficult to work on a song that was done without a click track.
I'm not sure what you mean by "tempo receiver".
- There's record quantise to clean stuff up as you play.
- If you name a scene "120" it plays at 120 BPM, name it "63" and it plays at 63 BPM, that's how you change tempos in Live
I personally find it really difficult to work on a song that was done without a click track.
I'm not sure what you mean by "tempo receiver".
I think what he means is, how do you make live follow the tempo of your piano or whatever instrument. The answer is you dont. :( If you think about it for a few minutes youd realize why. If you were just playing 16th notes and changed speeds it would be one thing for software to track it. But to be able to follow your tempo while you play a keyboard/guitar whatever, well, how do you define a measure? How do you define a bar? How would it know if you were playing in 7/4 or whatever unless you already knew it was 7/4. Er, the software would have to see into the future to know what changes were about to happen, was that the end of a measure? a held note? the end of the song?
So realtime beat matching to non-tempo dependand stuff by software, i'm not sure its possible. It seems like it would lag a few measures like most bpm detectors tend to do. That would totaly ruin it. Even bpm detectors costing a decent chunk of money (hardware / software) realy only work on pretty straight forward beats.
It seems like you would have more luck figuring out the tempo changes after its been recorded (i'm not sure if you wanted to do this live or not). I dont know of any good, or uh any software at all that would do this. What I'm done in the past, and this is kinda slow and stupid. Ok:
So you have whatever recorded. Render it to a wav. Take the time to cut it up into measure chunks, not every measure will be the same length. So now you have (many minutes later) a bunch of measures of diffrent length. Highlight all of them and set the pitch shifting type to repitch.
Set the live sequencer to about the average bpm of the keyboard line or whatever you recorded. Then warp each measure you cut to fit in one measure of the sequencer (its pretty quick even on like 30+ diffrent measure clips).
Now put them all in order in the sequencer, er, by sequencer I mean arrangement view. So, now when you play it, everything sounds terrible, pitches are all wrong and everything. The wrong pitches are the key to how this works. Now open up the master bpm envelope and go measure by measure tweaking the bpm envelope until that measure is the write pitch (same as original). You can keep toggling the pitch shift type to like beat or something, you want to have minimal diffrence between the two.
And yes, you go measure by measure doing this. It takes hours, I wont lie. But, It gets you pretty close. Did that make any sense? I'll try to summerize it incase I rambled this out compleatly.
-Record Keyboard Line
-Cut it into logical measure clips
-Pick average bpm
-Arrange clips in arrangement view
-Set them all to pitch shifting type repitch
-Very slowly add a master bpm envelope to each measure checking the pitch by changing pitch shifting type from repitch, to beats (or complex)
-Make sure and stand up every few hours or you'll get the roids
PS: Crazy bpm envelopes through entire tracks tend to make bpm dependand (delay) do rather interesting things. Most of the time you will just manualy set a rate instead of sync'ing it to the bpm clock.
To summerize the ENTIRE thing. It sucks, it takes forever, and unless you acualy enjoy this kind of thing, it will suck all the inspiration out of the track just by you having to listen to each measure over and over. Good luck!
So realtime beat matching to non-tempo dependand stuff by software, i'm not sure its possible. It seems like it would lag a few measures like most bpm detectors tend to do. That would totaly ruin it. Even bpm detectors costing a decent chunk of money (hardware / software) realy only work on pretty straight forward beats.
It seems like you would have more luck figuring out the tempo changes after its been recorded (i'm not sure if you wanted to do this live or not). I dont know of any good, or uh any software at all that would do this. What I'm done in the past, and this is kinda slow and stupid. Ok:
So you have whatever recorded. Render it to a wav. Take the time to cut it up into measure chunks, not every measure will be the same length. So now you have (many minutes later) a bunch of measures of diffrent length. Highlight all of them and set the pitch shifting type to repitch.
Set the live sequencer to about the average bpm of the keyboard line or whatever you recorded. Then warp each measure you cut to fit in one measure of the sequencer (its pretty quick even on like 30+ diffrent measure clips).
Now put them all in order in the sequencer, er, by sequencer I mean arrangement view. So, now when you play it, everything sounds terrible, pitches are all wrong and everything. The wrong pitches are the key to how this works. Now open up the master bpm envelope and go measure by measure tweaking the bpm envelope until that measure is the write pitch (same as original). You can keep toggling the pitch shift type to like beat or something, you want to have minimal diffrence between the two.
And yes, you go measure by measure doing this. It takes hours, I wont lie. But, It gets you pretty close. Did that make any sense? I'll try to summerize it incase I rambled this out compleatly.
-Record Keyboard Line
-Cut it into logical measure clips
-Pick average bpm
-Arrange clips in arrangement view
-Set them all to pitch shifting type repitch
-Very slowly add a master bpm envelope to each measure checking the pitch by changing pitch shifting type from repitch, to beats (or complex)
-Make sure and stand up every few hours or you'll get the roids
PS: Crazy bpm envelopes through entire tracks tend to make bpm dependand (delay) do rather interesting things. Most of the time you will just manualy set a rate instead of sync'ing it to the bpm clock.
To summerize the ENTIRE thing. It sucks, it takes forever, and unless you acualy enjoy this kind of thing, it will suck all the inspiration out of the track just by you having to listen to each measure over and over. Good luck!
Inductive - Horrible Music : http://buzzmusic.wipe-records.org/index ... userid=143
You could always preplan your tempo changes. Listen to a composer like Ben Monder (oceanus is an album worth buying). There are 4 people, no improve, and tons of speed/timing changes. In some ways its easier with a few people. What you can do is figure out how you want the time changes to go, spend some time making a custom click track (with bpm envelopes and timing changes). Then record your live instrument over that. I've done this in the studio before and its a pain. But, its faster then doing it how I said before (after the fact). Or, do eveything live, find a friend to tweak speeds in live while you play whatever it is your playing. It might take longer then the other 2 ideas realy but with the proper friend and a few intoxicants youll most likely end up with cooler music anyway.
Inductive - Horrible Music : http://buzzmusic.wipe-records.org/index ... userid=143
you can automate the 'song tempo' on master trackjesQuick wrote:Yes it is...would be cool to do tempo changes in the arrange window aswell (like in logic, PT and so on)... Guess Ill have to put it on the ´wish-list´! If it isnt alreay there... Means alot to the groove of a song...added dynamic fx in the chorus...
Re: how do you create a multi-tempo tune?
?SlowX wrote:I've been using sequncers and Live for a while, but here's one thing that always gets me stuck:
When I play piano in an improvisational/compositional style, my tempo is all over the place. But I haven't been able to catch that spirit electronically when using synths and Live.
I've tried to get some controller to act as a tempo receiver, but that didn't work too well. I tried to just play and then go back and tweak the measure breaks, but wow that's a bear.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
What do you mean "all over the place" ? Rubato?
when intentionally then
1. record in midi then do adjustments.
2.preset tempo changes in tempo track
when unintentionally and you want to become better musician
1. practice with metronome for few years
2. take music classes
when unintentionally and you like it this way- not having command over time- just record as it is but avoid forcing others to say they like your "music"
have fun anyway
playing music
slowx,
you say when you improvise, your tempo is all over the place, but is this what you want?? changing tempos in music can obviously be used to great dramatic effect, and good live musicians will subtly change tempos during different parts of a song to accentuate the feel/mood of the tune.
but the question goes back to:: do you want/like your changes in tempo?
if so, just record without the metronome (and tap your own toes). yes, it makes it a little tricky to match tempos if you're doing a lot of multi-tracking yourself, but making good music isn't easy.
anyway, tiny variations in speed, attacks, etc. is what gives music played or recorded live its organic feel. and it tends to make tracks sound "thicker" because everybody's downbeat occurs at a slightly different time. if you were then to go back into a computer and try to make each attack on each different track match, then all you'd do is destroy the natural feel of what was recorded.
sorry if i went a little off-topic, but, practice and play a lot. If you want natural tempo changes in live-recorded music, then just play/record without the built-in metronome and just use LIVE like you'd use a tape deck -- just record until you get a performance you're happy with.
If you don't want any tempo-changes or variations, then just practice and practice until you can play your parts on the beat (or just program the parts in in the midi piano roll). anyway, standard recording practice is to record many takes of a part and then edit out the bad stuff and keep the best things and then move 'em around as necessary.
computer recording software is not a replacement for good musicianship.
that reminds me... a while back, i think it was Machinate that created a really cool template for turning off/on all the separate notes of an arpeggiation running through a delay. it was a cool idea, and well-thought out and flexible,, but bottom line is that the simplest way to do the same thing (using just one track instead of 12 with plug-ins), would just be to PLAY the arpeggiation on the keyboard, varying to taste as you go.
you say when you improvise, your tempo is all over the place, but is this what you want?? changing tempos in music can obviously be used to great dramatic effect, and good live musicians will subtly change tempos during different parts of a song to accentuate the feel/mood of the tune.
but the question goes back to:: do you want/like your changes in tempo?
if so, just record without the metronome (and tap your own toes). yes, it makes it a little tricky to match tempos if you're doing a lot of multi-tracking yourself, but making good music isn't easy.
anyway, tiny variations in speed, attacks, etc. is what gives music played or recorded live its organic feel. and it tends to make tracks sound "thicker" because everybody's downbeat occurs at a slightly different time. if you were then to go back into a computer and try to make each attack on each different track match, then all you'd do is destroy the natural feel of what was recorded.
sorry if i went a little off-topic, but, practice and play a lot. If you want natural tempo changes in live-recorded music, then just play/record without the built-in metronome and just use LIVE like you'd use a tape deck -- just record until you get a performance you're happy with.
If you don't want any tempo-changes or variations, then just practice and practice until you can play your parts on the beat (or just program the parts in in the midi piano roll). anyway, standard recording practice is to record many takes of a part and then edit out the bad stuff and keep the best things and then move 'em around as necessary.
computer recording software is not a replacement for good musicianship.
that reminds me... a while back, i think it was Machinate that created a really cool template for turning off/on all the separate notes of an arpeggiation running through a delay. it was a cool idea, and well-thought out and flexible,, but bottom line is that the simplest way to do the same thing (using just one track instead of 12 with plug-ins), would just be to PLAY the arpeggiation on the keyboard, varying to taste as you go.
cool.
Thanks for all your ideas and thoughts.
You folk rock.... and stuff.
Just to be clear, yes, I sometimes compose music that's more fluid w/ respect to tempo, and not rivited to a one or two BPMs.
The question came a the feeling that when I work w/ computers I usually DO stick to strict tempos, but when I play piano and simply record then I get some (all modesty aside) evocative and human-sounding material. Neither one's better or worse, it's just that I'd love to be able to take advantage of sequencer editing etc. when I do the "all over the place" stuff.
So here's a question for ye:
Can I assign tempo to a foot pedal, and then have THAT define tempo as I record into Live?
And thanks once again for not making me feel like a dork.
(Which I am, but that's another tale... heh)
>>but making good music isn't easy<<
no it ain't... but it is better.
You folk rock.... and stuff.
Just to be clear, yes, I sometimes compose music that's more fluid w/ respect to tempo, and not rivited to a one or two BPMs.
The question came a the feeling that when I work w/ computers I usually DO stick to strict tempos, but when I play piano and simply record then I get some (all modesty aside) evocative and human-sounding material. Neither one's better or worse, it's just that I'd love to be able to take advantage of sequencer editing etc. when I do the "all over the place" stuff.
So here's a question for ye:
Can I assign tempo to a foot pedal, and then have THAT define tempo as I record into Live?
And thanks once again for not making me feel like a dork.
(Which I am, but that's another tale... heh)
>>but making good music isn't easy<<
no it ain't... but it is better.
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DeadlyKungFu
- Posts: 3603
- Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 8:26 pm
Re: cool.
Click the MIDI learn button, the tap tempo and BPM buttons light up, they're both MIDI assignable.SlowX wrote:Can I assign tempo to a foot pedal, and then have THAT define tempo as I record into Live?
If you assign an encoder to the BPM, consider what range of cc values will cover what range of BPM, IOW if you're encoder puts out CC #s 0 - 127, it might be a good idea to go into Live and's preferences and set the BPM range to cover a BPM spread of 128, ie 64 BPM to 192 BPM, so every encoder tick gets you one bump in BPM and things stay a bit more sane. I haven't applied this but it's been talked about before.
I think the only option is to use session and have pedal control to tap tempo and "record next clip" . It cant really work in the arragement. Get midi pedal board and experiment, I am sure you will find a way to suit your needs. You may have to adjust yourself to some technical limitations but in the end you will succeed. Just have the technical side well set , Live midi learn function really allows everyone to set things to their particular needs and only you know what you want.
Example: you could have some "groove" clips drums, perc, whatever in various tempos to serve you as musical metronomes, you could activate them with your feet.
Example: you could have some "groove" clips drums, perc, whatever in various tempos to serve you as musical metronomes, you could activate them with your feet.
tap tempo doesnt really work.
It's too tempo-ramental ...
argh,sorry.
here's me asking the same thing but with different words
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34107
Unfortunately this is one of those areas that will separate 'electronic' music from 'real' music for a long while yet. It's a very complex problem - how to capture the dynamism of a real players (intentional) tempo fluctiontions and tricks like adding an extra beat to the bar, etc . How to record this into a sequencer and get all that info in?
Audio analysis seems out of the quastion - any software will hear a bar of 4/4 with an extra note note and assume the next bar will be 5/4 .. if you see what I mean.
Perhaps an enhance tap-tempo would be smart enough to cope in some situations if you could 'pre-warn it' that certain things may happen and how to respond.
It's too tempo-ramental ...
argh,sorry.
here's me asking the same thing but with different words
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34107
Unfortunately this is one of those areas that will separate 'electronic' music from 'real' music for a long while yet. It's a very complex problem - how to capture the dynamism of a real players (intentional) tempo fluctiontions and tricks like adding an extra beat to the bar, etc . How to record this into a sequencer and get all that info in?
Audio analysis seems out of the quastion - any software will hear a bar of 4/4 with an extra note note and assume the next bar will be 5/4 .. if you see what I mean.
Perhaps an enhance tap-tempo would be smart enough to cope in some situations if you could 'pre-warn it' that certain things may happen and how to respond.
