tempo & timing workflow

[notehead]

I've got PT8 sessions where the drums were recorded using a MIDI kit, and bass and rhythm guitar were also recorded. Unfortunately, there was no click track used, and the tempo does wobble a bit. I'd appreciate suggestions for how best to tighten up these tracks (short of re-recording everything), as the PT8 documentation doesn't seem to quite have the answers I'm looking for. I want to:

Set the session tempo to the optimum tempo for the song (say, 122 bpm)

Quantize the midi drums to that tempo, which is usually a bit slower than the original live tempo. Can I somehow quantize the entire track, and then go back to manually adjust busy (read: ambitious) fills and flams?

Once I get the midi drums to sound nice, natural and steady at the desired tempo, what is the best way to fix the bass and rhythm guitar tracks so that they are rhythmically nice and tight with the drums? Can Elastic Audio functionality be used to make these tracks conform to the new drum track?

Many thanks for your suggestions! I'm gonna urge the drummer to record future tracks to a click.

[Keybeeetsss]

Why not just pocket the areas that need pocketing instead of forcing it into a locked tempo... that sometimes can really take the natural & steadiness from it even if it wasn't played with a click... Thatz just what I'd do, or I guess I should say what I do in those situations... Just me though...

[ondruspat]

"Identify beat" is your friend. Use this command to mark out the bars of your song. It might be a pain because you'll have to mark out every bar (if the tempo fluctuates within a bar you might have to mark every beat).
"Tab to transient" can help make the process quicker. Oh, don't forget to switch the timebase of all your tracks to samples before you start marking or the notes of the MIDI tracks will start sliding around.

After your done marking out the beats enable Elastic Audio on your audio tracks and switch the timebase of all your tracks to ticks. Now you can quantize your MIDI drums and your audio tracks will follow along.

Even if you follow Keybeeetsss suggestion and just touch up a little area here and there it will be easier with a beat map written out like this.

I've also used this method to write out a beat map to a free jam (with many tempo changes) so that I could have a sequencer follow it.

[daeron80]

I'm with Keybeeetsss on this one (no surpise :-)). Quantizing everything is likely to kill the musicality of it.

1. Listen through from the top, trying to stay in a state of mind that is not too overly analytical, just casual listening. If you listen too hard, expecting to find things wrong, everything will start to sound wrong, and then you're screwed. You might even try fiddling around with something mindless while listening. I sometimes play Solitaire or Freecell to keep the analytical part of my mind occupied.
2. When something jumps out at you as sounding out of time, hit the down arrow, then the space bar. That will place your cursor a second or two after the problem, so you can more easily find it. Alternatively, you can set your prefs for the cursor to follow playback.
3. Listen carefully to the area just before where you stopped to discover which instrument is causing the problem. Nudge a note a little here and there until it sounds good. You might sometimes need to time-compress or -expand a single note, but not usually. Crossfade if necessary.
4. Listen on from there to the next place that sounds out of time. Rinse and repeat.

Sometimes I find that after going through the song once like that, I need to leave it alone until the next day, go through it one more time. Then it sounds like music, only good. :D

[Keybeeetsss]

1. Listen through from the top, trying to stay in a state of mind that is not too overly analytical, just casual listening. If you listen too hard, expecting to find things wrong, everything will start to sound wrong, and then you're screwed.
What a SOOO true statement... One u get started, u won't be able to stop & then ur like, Awwwwwwww mannn:o

[ondruspat]

While I too am one that likes the natural ebb and flow in music, no one asked notehead. Maybe his/her desire is for the song to be "natural and steady at the desired tempo" with a militant adhereance to that desired tempo.

The method I described could be used to tighten up the general tempo with out quantizing within the bars, hence maintaining the general "feel" of the song.