Tempo map with slowdown
- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I recently learned the basics of customs making to chart an additional instrument to an existing song and decided to try my hand at charting a song from scratch. I managed to come up with a suitably easy song to do save for one detail. In the ending the band intentionally slows down the tempo so that each beat unit inside the measures gets noticeably longer.
I tried to look if there is a tool in Reaper to calculate the tempo between two set points without involving measure breaks but didn’t manage to find that. I’m sure I’ve seen this sort of thing charted neatly in other songs, so I’m wondering if somebody here would know how it’s done and would be willing to help a rookie out.
Manually create a tempo map point and choose a BPM rate that makes the notes snap on beat. Repeat for each beat of the measure.
If you are talking about syncing up beats* I can help you with that (along as you can do at least beats, anything smaller like 8ths and such are going to have to be manual). My system will allow you to tempo map to the beat if you like, as opposed to only measures. This is very useful if the “measure” mark is to difficult to sync up. You can use a snare on beat instead, ect.
1) Open up your reaper, and make sure you are on the main window (with the midi tracks). Go up to “Actions” on the top bar, and select “Show Action List”
2) Go to “New” (next to Custom Actions). Name it whatever (mine is “Quick BPM”) and place the actions in the action list in this order
– Time selection: Set start point
– Markers: Go to next marker/project end
– Time selection: Set end point
– Markers: Create measure from time selection (detect tempo, net time signature)…
*note* There are based off of REAPER 3.78. If you are using REAPER 4.xx they may be named slightly different
3) Assign this to some shortcut that makes sense (I use Shift+Q, as standard Q is a C3 shortcut).
Alright, this works similar to the C3 tempo shortcut of Q, but has more possibilities. Basically, you are going to want to place down markers (move cursor to where you want, and hit ‘m’ to drop a marker), and then go back through and it will create the tempo based on marker locations. However, the main ability here is the base from time signatures.
I’m going to create this guide assuming a new file, but it will work the same with an exisiting map.
4) Find the initial BPM, and make sure the first measure lines up correctly at 3.1 or wherever you have it.
5) Set the INITIAL time signature to 1/4 (assuming your using a x/4 signature. If it’s something different, use the “1/x”)
Now, you can set markers at whatever beats you want. The shortcut will go through and map it out thinking that it’s a 1/4 signature (so, it’ll treat every beat as a measure). This way, you can drop tempo markers at ANY beat in the song.
To actually use this, you have to put your cursor at where you want to go from, and the shortcut will automatically move to the next marker, and create the tempo map from that distance. If you go through a whole song and drop markers, you can go back to the beginning and spam shift+q until it goes through the song. This will also work on an existing map, just erase the off sync parts, drop markers, go back to the last “good” tempo marker, and correct the map.
I’m planning on making a video tutorial showing this off soon to help people, I’m just waiting to get a mic and then a decent capture to record the video without lag. Might just stream it and have someone record or something.
If you need help with this (I know it was a lot of info), send me a PM and I’ll try and walk you through it!
May seem like a lot of work at first, but once it’s in place, it’s what I use exclusively, and it makes slow downs or live songs (which change tempo on many beats and not measures) incredibly simple to deal with. Just remember to change the initial time signature back when you are done, and add back in any signature changes you song needs.
Thanks for the huge post. I seem to have gotten the idea.
I wonder if you’ve ever tried using that in a sort of reverse manner? Another song I considered doing simply had so loud mastering and prominent vocals that I could very rarely distinguish any clear waveform peaks on the first downbeat but a fairly consistent tempo (at least compared to the song I’m now working on). Maybe this method could be used to set the tempo for longer periods based on the more pronouncedly visible beat units or does it get too sensitive unless you’re able to properly mark all or most of the peaks.
Mine gets as sensitive or as vague as you want. It treats each beat* as a measure, so any beat you can create the tempo to.
You can drop a marker every beat and you’ll have 4 tempo changes in each measure in the finished product.
You can drop a marker every other measure and i’ll justify the tempo based on the 2 measures.
The more space you leave, the more chance there is a missed tempo change and the beat will be off inside of there. I personally feel you can never have too many, but it could become a problem is large files due to the size (likely not though). Also, too many drastic tempo changes will look/play weird, but most song’s won’t have drastic ones. if you see huge jumps mid measure, you’re likely determining the downbeat (and the time signature wrong).
I find mine really useful for songs with no strong bass hit on the measure down beat. There is usually a snare hit on 2 and 4, and I drop markers on those so that the snares line up. After that, the downbeat and 3 beat usually hit close enough to not be detected if they aren’t perfect.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.