Getting a static bpm

Could anyone tell me if there is a way to use cue markings to make the bpm constant?  For example, I have a track with a human drummer that varies dramatically in his bpm (10-20 bpm).

By playing the song and pressing F8 on the downbeat of each measure I can calculate the bpm and the changes, but I was wondering if would be possible to take the first measure's length and make all the other length's between the cues the same as the first.  That way I could create a constant bpm, assuming my timing on the f8 key was perfect, to a song with a messy bpm.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks  

I suppose it's easier to make a loop if you use cep2. Then you can easily do this in multitrack view. Just select the part you like in edit view for example and copy it. Then you can paste it into multitrack view and make a loop out of it. Just right-click on the waveblock and look for 'loop properties'. Then enable looping. You'll be presented with alot of options which are covered in the manual and a bit too long maybe to cover here.

But don't forget that a very strict measurement can make the music sound robot-like and sterile. Being a little (note, a little ) untight often makes a performance feel more dynamic and interesting.
Well, I assume techno-like music or rap needs a constant beat but I was talking about rock, jazz, country, metal,etc.

I don't want to chop up the song copying and pasting, rather I want to change each measure to make it a constant length of time.  I assume I could resample the music at a slower or higher speed without affecting the pitch, thereby making the change as unnoticable as possible.

[TROGDOR!!!]

In theory, it might work, but I doubt the sound quality would be convincing, and my guess is that you would have to fight tempo fluctuation within individual measures.  It might be alot less work to simply re-record the track, if that is at all possible.

Let us know what you come up with.

Josh

I don't want to chop up the song copying and pasting, rather I want to change each measure to make it a constant length of time.  I assume I could resample the music at a slower or higher speed without affecting the pitch, thereby making the change as unnoticable as possible.

As 3js stated...this would be A LOT of work and the results would probably not be very satisfying.

What you want to achieve is something that usually gets fixed by copying, pasting and/or looping. Why changing every measure like you stated by altering the tempo (with the risk of it starting to sound artificial) if you can loop a good part? I understand that you don't want to start to copy and so on. I don't like doing this either. But to me it seems the best solution for what you want to achieve.

[Stretch]

You could do it manually by selecting each measure and using Stretch with preserve pitch checked.  Set the length to that of the target bpm you want.



Does anyone know if it's possible for a script to select between cue markers automatically?

[Stretch]

You could do it manually by selecting each measure and using Stretch with preserve pitch checked.  Set the length to that of the target bpm you want.

I still think this method would leave you with problems since, generally speaking, drummers don't suddenly change tempos between measures--they fluctuate tempos within measures.  You could still make every measure the same length, but consider a scenario where a drummer is increasing tempo steadily over a period of 8 measures.  After stretching, each measure would begin with him playing slightly slower than the desired tempo and end with him playing slightly faster than the desired tempo.  This would result in a rather jerky rhythm track.

Does anyone know if it's possible for a script to select between cue markers automatically?

I don't know a dang thing about scripting, myself, but I believe I saw younglove mention that this cannot be done recently.  As I remember, it did seem to give him some (dare I say mischevous) idea though...

Josh

[TROGDOR!!!]

Younglove's comment that I referred to is here.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for or not...

Good luck!

Josh

I see your point.  It would only work if the drummer had gradually sped up or slowed down throught the song.

[TROGDOR!!!]

Well, it would certainly be less of a problem if the speed up/slow down was very gradual, but you would still have a sudden tempo change from slightly too fast to slightly too slow at the beginning of every measure.  The only way to avoid this would be to align every beat... and unless your song is ridiculously short, I'd say that's waaaaay too much work.

Think of it as a singer who is trying to hold a single note for 8 measures, but over that time he/she gradually increases pitch.  So, to fix it, you split the track up by measures and use the same function to change pitch, but not time.  You play with it until the average pitch of each measure is correct, but when you're finished, you would find that at the beginning of each measure there is a sudden drop from slightly above the desired pitch to slightly below the desired pitch... which would make the entire recording sound fake.  The correct tool for the job is an auto-tune plug which can track and correct pitch along the entire length of the note.

Unfortunately, no such plug-in exists for tempo... unless you're using MIDI, in which case you might be able to quantise.

Josh


Josh

...I still say, copy a good part and loop the damn thing, hehe