Need Help Setting Up Grid to Align with Click Track

[dyno]

Hello,

I'm needing some help to set up a grid in PT to edit some live drum tracks. I did not use the click in PT, but recorded a click track with my drum machine.
I have the tempos for each song written down.

So how do I align the grid to my drum machine click track?

[tope d]

Originally Posted by dyno

Hello,

I'm needing some help to set up a grid in PT to edit some live drum tracks. I did not use the click in PT, but recorded a click track with my drum machine.
I have the tempos for each song written down.

So how do I align the grid to my drum machine click track?

Check if your grid is set to Bar And Beats

[Robruce]

Originally Posted by dyno

Hello,....

So how do I align the grid to my drum machine click track?

Not sure if this will be helpful

To do it manually, without using Beat Detective etc., just enter the correct tempo at 00:00
Be sure to group the drums of course, and be in 'slip' mode.

Now zoom way in to find the very first beat of the kick drum or whatever drum is at the top of the first bar.
Not referring to 'first audio', instead you're after bar one, beat one of the actual song/drum part.

Grab/drag/nudge that first beat and bring it, and along with it the entire drum group to a bar line. It's good to make some room well past 00:00 so move that first audio beat of the drum track to bar 3 or 5 or thereabouts.

Last, take a listen/look at the end of the song to be sure it's still lined up. If not, adjust the conductor track instead of relying on a static tempo. hth

[dyno]

Originally Posted by Robruce

Not sure if this will be helpful

To do it manually, without using Beat Detective etc., just enter the correct tempo at 00:00
Be sure to group the drums of course, and be in 'slip' mode.

Now zoom way in to find the very first beat of the kick drum or whatever drum beat is at the top of the first bar of the song/drums.

Grab/drag/nudge that first beat and bring it, and along with it the entire drum group to a bar line. It's good to make some room well past 00:00 so move that first audio beat of the drum track to bar 3 or 5 or thereabouts.

Last, take a listen/look at the end of the song to be sure it's still lined up. If not, adjust the conductor track instead of relying on a static tempo. hth

Thanks for your help, I will try this tonite. Can beat detective find the tempo from my click track? Ive noticed that drum machine BPM's can vary from machine to machine slightly.

[_JJ_]

Show the Tempo ruler.

Double-click the red diamond at the very beginning of your session and set the tempo to match that of the first song. Now with the grid in Bars and Beats, switch to "Slip" mode and drag that red diamond to the right until the grid lines line up with your drum machine's recorded clicks. You can zoom way in on the first clicks to get it as close as possible. Hopefully PT's and your drum machine will be a close match to not drift apart by the end of the song...

That should work for the first song. But for the next one you'll need to add a tempo change and do some finagling to make the new tempo's grid line up with the audio of song 2. Pick a gridline downbeat near the beginning of song two, click the + sign to the right of the word Tempo on the Tempo ruler and input the BPM for song 2. Then perhaps select "All" in groups, make an edit just before the 2nd song starts, and slide all the audio (Slip mode again) to line it up with the new grid.

Sorry if that's confusing. There are probably 875 different ways to achieve what you're trying to do but this is the one I know...

edit: Robruce types faster than I do - similar ideas though.

[Robruce]

Originally Posted by dyno

Thanks for your help, I will try this tonite. Can beat detective find the tempo from my click track? Ive noticed that drum machine BPM's can vary from machine to machine slightly.

Yep, BD is designed to calculate tempos etc. and may be the easiest way to generate an accurate tempo map simply using the recorded click.

I was uncertain if you were familiar with BD workflow since you were asking for help. In any case, particularly if you have several songs it would be worth learning/using it.

[dyno]

Originally Posted by _JJ_

Show the Tempo ruler.

Double-click the red diamond at the very beginning of your session and set the tempo to match that of the first song. Now with the grid in Bars and Beats, switch to "Slip" mode and drag that red diamond to the right until the grid lines line up with your drum machine's recorded clicks. You can zoom way in on the first clicks to get it as close as possible. Hopefully PT's and your drum machine will be a close match to not drift apart by the end of the song...

That should work for the first song. But for the next one you'll need to add a tempo change and do some finagling to make the new tempo's grid line up with the audio of song 2. Pick a gridline downbeat near the beginning of song two, click the + sign to the right of the word Tempo on the Tempo ruler and input the BPM for song 2. Then perhaps select "All" in groups, make an edit just before the 2nd song starts, and slide all the audio (Slip mode again) to line it up with the new grid.

Sorry if that's confusing. There are probably 875 different ways to achieve what you're trying to do but this is the one I know...

edit: Robruce types faster than I do - similar ideas though.

Thanks for trying to help. I'm a bit of a dinosaur with PT!
I was able to grab the red diamond and put it on the first beat, set the known tempo to 52. Even confirmed the tempo with beat detective. I still cant get the grid to line up with my click track. looks like the grid tempo is wrong.

Screen Shot 2024-02-25 at 8.27.05 PM.jpg

[_JJ_]

A little blurry but I believe your grid is showing minutes and seconds. Top "ruler" left edge, popup to select Bars and Beats.

[take77]

If you know the drum machine tempos of each section you can quickly align clips to the grid by using the tab to transient function to snap the cursor to the very first click or kick transient in slip mode (if it falls on 1).
Then split the clip(s) at that point then delete the portion before the transient if any.
Now change to grid mode to drag and snap the clip to the very beginning of the new session and set the tempo to match the drum machine tempo.

[dyno]

Originally Posted by _JJ_

A little blurry but I believe your grid is showing minutes and seconds. Top "ruler" left edge, popup to select Bars and Beats.

That did it! The grid is pretty well aligned with the drum machine track now, but does get off a tiny bit as the song moves along. I’ve tried by trial and error to change the tempo which is 52 to something like 51.990 but can’t get it to perfectly at the end of the track. I think the post below adresses this, but I’m having trouble understanding. I tried hitting the tempo + sign and creating a tempo change marker, slipping it to the click transient, but the grid won’t realign. Need a little more help please….thank you!