Is there a plug in that fixes time?

[Hollow Body]

I have recorded 3 tracks for one song by an artist. Stereo acoustic guitar and one vocal. (all recorded in one live take - so there's bleed.) There are some time fluctuations - not bad at all, but enough to make recording drums challenging. Artist has difficulty playing to click, so no click.

I'm on PT 9. Is there a plug in that will take those 3 tracks and "quantize" (or whatever word) all of them to the nearest bpm? (without phasing etc..)

I'd also be willing to mix those 3 tracks to a stereo file first and then do it, if it would be easier.

Or is there something already in PT that will do that?

Okay thanks!

-Doug

[Top Jimmy]

What I would do is build a tempo map of the current set of tracks. Then, if your drummer is good at following tempo changes with the click, he can track his drums without you needing to "fix" the tempo. Otherwise, once the tempo map is built, you could then switch the tracks to tick based, enable elastic audio and quantize the tempo to your hearts content.


Parroted on my iPad with Tapasquawk.

[sw rec]

One thing I've found is, that the majority of people that have a lot of trouble playing to a click, have little or no problem playing to a sqeuenced drum track. You're of course going to replace it later, but it works for me every time. (Might not solve the immediate problem, but worth a try next time.)

[albee1952]

No plugin can do this, but Elastic Audio could(but read on). What you are referring to is called "quantize" which is fairly easy to do to a single track, but would likely be a nightmare with 2-3 tracks, and made much worse by the bleed, because, when you start pushing and pulling the timing, you will introduce all kinds of phasing issues, which will sound awful. Look at youtube.com and search for something like quantize audio in pro tools. If you want to experiment, make a group of the 3 tracks before enabling EA on all 3(since guitar is a polyphonic instrument, you will need to use the Polyphonic EA option). If nothing else comes from this, you can and should use it as a learning experience

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Hollow Body

I have recorded 3 tracks for one song by an artist. Stereo acoustic guitar and one vocal. (all recorded in one live take - so there's bleed.) There are some time fluctuations - not bad at all, but enough to make recording drums challenging. Artist has difficulty playing to click, so no click.

I'm on PT 9. Is there a plug in that will take those 3 tracks and "quantize" (or whatever word) all of them to the nearest bpm? (without phasing etc..)

I'd also be willing to mix those 3 tracks to a stereo file first and then do it, if it would be easier.

Or is there something already in PT that will do that?

Okay thanks!

-Doug

I'd go in search of a good drummer and have him or her do the recording to what's already recorded. If the tracks that are recorded have a good performance on them save for a little wandering time then don't blow it and ruin the feel. Unless you really want a robotic every beat on the click type of thing Too much music has the feel and emotion quantized out of it.

[SpinningDisk]

Quantize the bass drum and snare first and see where that leaves you.

[sw rec]

Agree with MusicMan...find somebody that can play!

[SpinningDisk]

Nothing like the Human feel.

[DC-Choppah]

This is exactly what beat detective is for. One of the key feature of PT that separates it from other DAWs. Beat detective will align the audio to a grid, or an extracted groove template.

[Bob Olhsson]

Click tracks began in the movie and jingle businesses where a music cue needed to precisely match the length of a picture. The problem with clicks is that finding the ideal tempo for a singer can be very challenging. My experience has been that a one tick change can be way too coarse.

Musical time is all about tension and release against totally relaxed meditative time. This affects the heartbeat, breath and metabolism of both the performers and the listeners. Musicians playing together with singers as an ensemble will generally find the right tempo however it often does not match the count-off! Likewise when music is properly phrased, the beginnings of notes will rarely come down right on a grid. This is why phrase long loops are much easier to play with.