click track and Grid mode, help !

[glockopops]

hallo everybody,
I just did a transfer from 2" to Protools and now I wanna do some edits on drums, in order to do that I wanna have my click track matching the grid..... is that possible?

thank you
cheers

[s2n]

Using BeatDetective, create a tempo map by analyzing the click track.

[glockopops]

can anybody guide me to this thing step by step?
thank you

[Eric Bazilian]

I'm not sure that this is the Manual-Approved method, but here's what I do:

Once you've done the transfer and grouped all the tracks, make sure you're in Conductor Mode (you'll find this in the Transport Window, just make sure you're seeing the MIDI Functions as well). Then zoom in to the first discernable downbeat and Identify this as Bar 1 Beat 1. Do this by either going into the MIDI menu or pressing Command-I. Then go through the track, periodically defining downbeats every eight or sixteen bars until you get to the very end of the track.

At this point you will have a rough sketch of a manually-generated Tempo Map. You now have two choices: either manually go through the entire performance and Identify every single hit (which was the ONLY option available before PT 5.2), or use Beat Detective.

Assuming you'll go for Option 2, here's what you do: First, select the region between the first two Identified Beats. Go into the WIndows Menu and open Beat Detective. Click on "Capture Selection", then, "Analyze Selection". You have the choice of High or Low Emphasis...I usually find High Emphasis more sensitive to the sub-beats within the selection, but you will want to experiment. Once you've done this, drag the Threshold slider to the right until you see lines defining each drum hit. You also have a choice here between defining bars, beats, or sub-beats. This will depend on factors such as how steady your drummer's time is and how critical you need to be. There are also check boxes for triplets as well as 32nd notes, if these are present in the performance.

Now that you've got all the trigger points defined, click on the "Generate" button. This will create a tempo map for the defined region, interpolating between trigger points. Go ahead and repeat this throughout the entire performance and you've got your tempo map.

Personal tip: since there is some delay between close-mic'ed tracks and overheads/rooms, you can get a more accurate analysis by manually aligning the tracks. I usually go into Sample mode, zoom way in, and find the average delay between kick and snare and their positions on the overhead tracks. Make a note of this value, then shift the overheads forward by this amount. Do this again with the room tracks. Beat Detective will now have a much cleaner view of the performance. Doing this will be less critical if you're creating a tempo map than if you're separating and correcting regions, where the edits across time-delayed tracks can get kind of messy.

Logic would dictate shifting the shifted tracks back to their original time relationships after you've done all your defining/editing, but you might actually want to try leaving them all aligned (this is certainly All Wrong from a Common Audio Practice perspective, but sometimes it actually sounds better...). You never know.

You'll find this all in the Manual, probably, though I must admit I've never read the Manual. Shame on me.

Good luck.