Is there a reliable alternative to Beat Detective?

[janefoyet]

Hi there,

I've been using Beat Detective for a while, and although it is a good transient detector, it is never consistent.

Example: many times when I am quantizing a drum loop from a sampler, many of the markers are not placed at the correct start of a waveform, it might be off by a few samples, which yeah, it's not terrible, but I wanted to have the transients to be as tight as possible, without having to manually zoom in to infinity, change the transient to the right place, and keep doing that for aaaalll of the hits.

Is there any plugin or app that is more consistent, or that can learn your style of adjusting the transients?

I have tried Live, Logic, and Recycle demo version only (which seems to be a good option, but don't want to purchase it before some feedback on it).

Thank you!

[JFreak]

Hi, welcome to the community.

As much as I hate to say it, Steven Slate Trigger seems to be the best drum replacement tool. Beat Detective has its own use though.

[thin ice]

Beat Detective was originally used for multitrack drum editing and is brilliant when you spend some time learning all the details. Of course, as long as the drums remain phase accurate, I doubt a few samples make much difference with a live performer.

If it is just a drum loop, why not do the work manually for such a short job?

[noah330]

I use Beat Detective to correct a performance once in a while. Isn't Trigger just for sample replacement?

[nednednerb]

Also, the exact digital time of a zero crossing is irrelevant. A 5 sample fade at sliced beat onsets would serve better perhaps.

Especially, the "beat" is a musical concept. Transient detection is related to the timing of the attack of a sound.

However, "where and when a sound is perceived to be occurring" is complex. As said above, Beat Detective used on a multi-track of phase coherent drum tracks, you'll be in a groove.

The kick or the hat or the snare, etc, have a different spectral and dynamic weight, not only an onset. The "beat" might be "felt" right, so maybe the "algorithm" is doing something there which is kind of mysterious.

At least, it might be as mysterious as how to exactly feel where you want the beat to land. Sometimes composing my electronic music, bars and bars are fine going by, then one impact or transition, I realize I have to get really precise with editing or record the performance without quantization to see where I was trying to go.

What is your "style of adjusting the transients"? By modifying by these sample amounts does it perceptibly change the result, or is it really a visual thing bugging you when editing that doesn't matter to the velocity of ear time?

((That said, if you find another plugin and you like it, do it!))

[skylar_battles]

It depends what you are doing, as Beat Detective has multiple uses. Bar | Beat marker generation barely works compared to something like Logic's automatic tempo mapping (I'm sure I'm using the wrong terminology), so if you are tempo mapping you pretty much should be using Identify Beat. On the other hand, the rest of functionality actually works quite well for me. I rarely have issues with detecting transients from a multitrack drum performance or loop. Cubase has something comparable to beat detective that detects transients and slices and crossfades for you, but I honestly think PT does what you are looking for. As far as I know other DAWs don't have a feature like this natively, but I'd be interested to learn if I'm incorrect

[shea]

Been there with the whole transient chaos, especially when dealing with drum loops. Honestly, I found Recycle to be pretty solid in terms of consistency. It's got a learning curve, but once you're in the groove, it's smooth sailing. Haven't regretted getting it.

[midnightrambler]

Any reason you're not using Elastic Audio instead of Beat Detective? Esp for mono or stereo loops. I know Elastic has its fair share of artefacts (many of which I've whinged about on here before now), but it can be pretty good on loops.

[DavidCaporale]

Check out Massey DRT. It's pretty accurate when detecting transients and then you can drag out a midi clip to an instrument track. I believe you can also load samples into it.