Is there any easy way of tempo mapping (for beginners)
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Hello, I am just starting to make customs, but the only issue that’s keeping me away from making them is tempo mapping. Is there any easy way of doing this?
I use sheet music and tabs. Find a song on something like songsterr.com you want to work on. It should give you an approximate BPM and tells you where the notes lay. I would practice with that first. It’s what I still use to map customs.
Give EOF a try. You can have it display a waveform graph of the audio and correcting the position of individual beats is as easy as clicking and dragging. My understanding is that this is easier than using Reaper to beat sync. Most of the veteran chart authors would recommend bringing the MIDI that EOF creates back into Reaper to do editing, but you can use it for as much or as little of the authoring process as you want.
Reading the docs, finding an outside source like tabs, sheet music or a midi file as reference for tempo and time signature, having a basic understanding of music theory.
Use a tab or MIDI, as others suggested. Then do the drum chart first.
The source material will give you a rough idea of the BPM and time signatures. Let’s say it is 4/4, 110. So the drum beats are located correctly on your tab or MIDI, to that beat.
No look at the audio and the peaks in Reaper. Line up a peak that should correspond to a drum beat in each measure, and change the BPM for that measure until is lines up correctly. A good tempo map will often need a correction for every measure.
I am lousy at drums, and often farm out drums to a better charter. Even so, I always make a (crappy) drum chart first, and use that to tempo map the song.
Give EOF a try. You can have it display a waveform graph of the audio and correcting the position of individual beats is as easy as clicking and dragging. My understanding is that this is easier than using Reaper to beat sync. Most of the veteran chart authors would recommend bringing the MIDI that EOF creates back into Reaper to do editing, but you can use it for as much or as little of the authoring process as you want.
Where can i find this software?
Where can i find this software?
I fail to see how using a different software will help you tempo mapping, seems like a perfect false premise fallacy case, but have fun trying to cut corners that way. And Reaper shows you the waveform of your audio as well, and creating a measure requires the excruciating task of pressing a key on your keyboard.
I fail to see how using a different software will help you tempo mapping, seems like a perfect false premise fallacy case, but have fun trying to cut corners that way. And Reaper shows you the waveform of your audio as well, and creating a measure requires the excruciating task of pressing a key on your keyboard.
By personal experience, using EOF to tempo map is more accurate and a lot easier.
The tempo map is ON the waveform, so you can see the beats directly on where they’re supposed to go. And to move the tempo map, it’s just dragging it to where it’s supposed to go, and is much better/easier to control.
And I don’t know if you were talking down on EOF, but please don’t do it if you haven’t tried it. It is easier and faster to tempo map than Reaper, with a just as good, if not better result.
Where can i find this software?
By personal experience, using EOF to tempo map is more accurate and a lot easier.
The tempo map is ON the waveform, so you can see the beats directly on where they’re supposed to go. And to move the tempo map, it’s just dragging it to where it’s supposed to go, and is much better/easier to control.
And I don’t know if you were talking down on EOF, but please don’t do it if you haven’t tried it. It is easier and faster to tempo map than Reaper, with a just as good, if not better result.
EOF has long been basically not compatible with any kind of Rock Band authoring because of how it used to deal with time signatures. The amount of songs with tempo map spikes added to make measures fit into the wrong time signature is overwhelming. Now, raynebc explained that it was fixed a few versions ago, but any song mapped with any version prior to the one with the fix probably has issues if it has time signature changes. I’m taking at face value that this was fixed, btw, because I never used EOF, but I have no reason to doubt raynebc of course.
With that said, it doesn’t matter what you (not you you, you as in any author) use, provided that it works for you and that it’s compliant with authoring rules. I have to say, I wouldn’t use EOF if the only reason is tempo mapping. You can do that in Reaper and not relying on tapping is definitely better: aligning the cursor to the correct waveform spike is as precise as it’s needed, way better than tapping. However, if the whole authoring process works for you in EOF, I see no reason not to go that way, provided that you export in Reaper and finalise there.
By personal experience, using EOF to tempo map is more accurate and a lot easier.
The tempo map is ON the waveform, so you can see the beats directly on where they’re supposed to go. And to move the tempo map, it’s just dragging it to where it’s supposed to go, and is much better/easier to control.
And I don’t know if you were talking down on EOF, but please don’t do it if you haven’t tried it. It is easier and faster to tempo map than Reaper, with a just as good, if not better result.
I could care less about talking EoF up or down to be honest (I even found amusing than raynebc recommended it on this very thread
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” /> )I have used it maybe once or twice for specific purposes, played with it a little and didn’t found it easier to use than Reaper, especially for tempo mapping. But I started doing customs with Reaper, you worked on FoF so you used EoF a lot I guess, so we’re both biased here. I just think that adding the learning of a different program to the tedious process of creating a custom tends to make things harder and more confusing, especially for starters.
Anyway, my point was that since EoF doesn’t do your tempo mapping automatically, you NEED to understand the whys and hows before actually doing it, hence the advices given. What’s the point in using an (arguably) easier program if you have no idea where you’re supposed to start and end your measures ? There’s no “easy way” in tempo mapping, unless you’re working on a song with a fixed BPM, you go at it one measure at a time…
Anyway, my point was that since EoF doesn’t do your tempo mapping automatically, you NEED to understand the whys and hows before actually doing it, hence the advices given. What’s the point in using an (arguably) easier program if you have no idea where you’re supposed to start and end your measures ? There’s no “easy way” in tempo mapping, unless you’re working on a song with a fixed BPM, you go at it one measure at a time…
Well said.
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />There is no one “best” way to do something, but I suggested EOF for the sake of offering multiple alternative methods of beat syncing. It offers a spectrogram, tempo estimation using the rubber band library, the ability to imported estimated tempo maps created by Sonic Visualizer (admittedly this program only seems to observe #/4 time signatures) or to import beat timings made for syncing guitar tablature in Go PlayAlong (which includes features to estimate tempo changes based on waveform). And of course, the tried and true waveform graph. All else one needs is mostly enough knowledge of music theory to tell where measures should start and end, where time signatures occur, etc. but that was always the case no matter what method is used.
Use a tab or MIDI, as others suggested. Then do the drum chart first.
The source material will give you a rough idea of the BPM and time signatures. Let’s say it is 4/4, 110. So the drum beats are located correctly on your tab or MIDI, to that beat.
No look at the audio and the peaks in Reaper. Line up a peak that should correspond to a drum beat in each measure, and change the BPM for that measure until is lines up correctly. A good tempo map will often need a correction for every measure.
This!
IMHO, it is easiest to tempo map using the audio peaks that correspond to the snare drum (Red) hits.
For example, if you have a song where the snare normally hits on the second beat of a measure, go ahead and populate the entire drum track with red gems on the second grid line of each measure (you will correct for non-standard instances as you go). Place a tempo marker half a measure before the first snare peak occurs in the audio waveform and adjust that marker up or down to align the first gem with the audio peak.
Once you have the first snare gem lined up with the audio, look for the next snare peak that is out of alignment. If you’re lucky, the next four or five snare peaks might hit dead on the corresponding grid lines, but more often than not, you will have to make corrections maybe every other measure. Wherever you see the alignment start to drift, place a tempo marker on the snare hit in the previous measure and use that marker to line up the snare hit that is off. Then just keep repeating this process to the end of the song.
For non-standard instances or spots where the drum peak is masked by loud vocals or other instruments, pick out the snare hit location by ear. In these cases, the speed slider in Reaper will become your new best friend (slow playback down to about 0.6 and it becomes much easier to pinpoint the sound of the snare on the audio waveform).
A couple of recent “duh” realizations that held me back for a year and a half:
1) In Reaper, the tempo markers are actually vertical sliders that affect all of the grid to the right of the marker: UP compresses the grid (i.e., shifts the grid to the left) and DOWN expands the grid (i.e., shifts the grid to the right). You adjust the tempo marker to alter the grid so that it aligns with the audio.
2) If you have to go back and make corrections to an early part of a tempo map, it does NOT permanently screw up everything that follows. The markers are relative to each other, so changing one will throw the following notes out of sync. However, as you readjust each marker after the change, the correction becomes smaller and smaller each time. After three or four measures, the entire rest of the song will usually fall back into alignment.
there is no easy way though I would suggest picking an extremely easy song first. I chose my favorite song to start with which had different time signatures and it was a disaster. The easy songs will have very definitive drum patterns that will help you get the hang of mapping. Once you get comfortable you can move on to harder and harder material.
there is no easy way though I would suggest picking an extremely easy song first. I chose my favorite song to start with which had different time signatures and it was a disaster. The easy songs will have very definitive drum patterns that will help you get the hang of mapping. Once you get comfortable you can move on to harder and harder material.
Ouch, I feel your pain.
And yeah, the most valuable advice here is to start with something really easy like electronic music to learn the basics of tempo mapping, even if you don’t intend to chart the song. Then move on to some basic 4/4 100 bpm song with a few variations here and there, then moving on to something more complex, and so on.
You can also rip open HMX songs or high quality customs to import the mids in Reaper and have a better view of time sig, bpm changes and the like.
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