Woah

thomasross20

I spent a few weeks doing drums on a tune through my new headphones. For the first time in a while, I listened to it through the PC speakers.... And the tempo suddenly seems very fast for the track!! Not good. An eye-opener.. Really starting to see the use for proper monitors

thomasross20

Panic over. 

After sitting down to watch The X Files it all magically seemed ok again......

.... I think I'm just experiencing some serious listening fatigue!! I was doing it for 3 hours, right enough..!

steamabacus

More important than good monitoring is differentiating between what you hear and what you think you hear.

I thoroughly recommend this critical listening course  ....

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/critical-listening-for-studio-production

It takes a fair bit of concentrated effort but, having done it in the past, I can guarantee it will improve your critical listening skills.

thomasross20

Wow, lots of free courses there, and that one looks good.

It may sound a cop-out but given everything going on right now (plus starting a 12-week speech course at work) I don't have the time for it right now - but I'll try to remember it for future..

Hmmmm, so I tried to get back into this just now and it's so weird. With headphones on things seem ok, without the songs sound a lot faster than I remember. I don't know what's going on... It's like my head is totally zonked out, and not in a good way. I've been listening to a lot of slower stuff in the car recently... that may have had an effect. And I had just been doing 3 hours worth of drum programming with tight headphones on. 

--> It's no joke, it's like I've totally lost track of tempo!! Very strange. Probably need a few days break from this..

Cirrus

Generally the more complex a rhythm, the slower the tempo is perceived - or if you're doing a simple kick snare groove, adding 16th hi hats will seem slower than 4th note hi hats, because there's more going on for your brain to pick out in any given unit of time. Maybe in the headphones you're able to pick out more complex subdivisions of the groove and on speakers you're mostly hearing the louder more obvious parts?

thomasross20

I think I've just been doing it for so long without a proper break (and by break, I mean a couple of days) that I've just c0cked it up. 

Listening back to these tracks (the ones with rubato guitar parts where I'm manually adjusting the timing of every single note..!) I think the drums are just too fast. I need to slow the beat down a whole lot. 

Unless I wake up tomorrow, listen back and feel completely different about the whole thing... If not then I've done damage here. Months and months of work... At least the beats are there, I'd just have to bring down the tempo in general. It'd be a LONG process. And I'd save the present tracks just in case (I always save the backups!). 

Disheartening. Aaaargh!! I'd have been faster re-recording the guitars to a click but I'm too involved now... 

horse

It probably is just change in perception - if the original guitar recording tempo was ok then adding drums won't have changed that, although as said above, how busy the drumming is and whether the drums feel like they are pushing the tempo can make it feel faster.

Definitely give your ears a break.

I find that tempo can seem to feel very different after booze, or after a break

thomasross20

I'm giving music in general a break for about a week. I'm run ragged what with girlfriend's cancer, getting a new project at work, band etc

octatonic

This is where drum arranging is key and programmed drums are usually what lets down a production because people don't learn to think like a drummer.

Thinking like a drummer means taking small chunks of information and reusing them, displacing elements of the beat slightly and getting as much mileage from those small musical 'words' as you can (and a whole lot of other stuff as well).

Compare these two examples of 4/4 playing.

The first one is a basic 4 on the floor, hi-hatt 8th's, snare on 2 & 4 type of groove.

http://www.jamesrichmond.com/moved/44/Basic 4.4.png

http://www.jamesrichmond.com/moved/44/Basic 4:4.mp3

Then compare it to this, which is more complex- basically 2 bars of 3/8 and then two 8th notes afterwards to fill out the bar.

http://www.jamesrichmond.com/moved/44/Complex 4:4.png

http://www.jamesrichmond.com/moved/44/Complex 4:4.mp3

All you are doing is subdividing the bar differently to the first example but the groove completely changes, it feels like an odd time but it isn't.

This is an extreme example of what drummers learn to do all the time.

Most of it gets missed by the audience (and many musicians) but you certainly notice the lack of it.

It could be something obvious and extreme like this, or something simple like pushing the tempo, of pushing the hiatus slightly against the kick and snare to create a more driving pulse.

If you want to post examples of what you are talking about then I can take a look and make some suggestions.

It is usually something simple, like an overly strict pulse, a lack of variation over time, particularly in the hi-hat's or fills that aren't part of a drummers vocabulary. Impossible drum parts are a problem too- frequently I hear programmed drums where it wouldn't be technically possible for a drummer to play unless they had 6 limbs.

thomasross20

Problem is I'm pushing the tempo. 

I definitely try to create some "pocket" and luckily jamstix doesn't allow me to do anything a real drummer couldn't. 

Honestly I'm just going to give this a break for a while as feel burnt out. Appreciate the post, lots of good info !

octatonic

thomasross20 said:

Problem is I'm pushing the tempo. 

I definitely try to create some "pocket" 

What do you mean here?

A 5bpm reduction in tempo can dramatically affect the feel of a song.

PolarityMan

Without hearing the tracks but based on your previous posts my guess is the problem is that what you did is trying to butcher the drums in free time to a guitar stem which isnt working to a DAW's strong points. If you're not working to a click then a better approach would be to record your guitar scratch track, use that to map the tempo, then program your drums, and then finally replay the guitar over the programmed drums.

I think getting everything in time any other way would be a total ball ache.

PolarityMan

octatonic said:

This is where drum arranging is key and programmed drums are usually what lets down a production because people don't learn to think like a drummer.

Thinking like a drummer means taking small chunks of information and reusing them, displacing elements of the beat slightly and getting as much mileage from those small musical 'words' as you can (and a whole lot of other stuff as well).

Interesting, you might remember my comment in another thread that I use a similar approach in odd meters but in 4 or 6 i rarely think like that either when I'm drumming or programming. Instead I think of where the accents are and build from there.

It might jsut be that because 4 and 6 are so common that I've internalized alot though.

thomasross20

I mean the drums are ahead of the "beat" (not for the whole song, just sections.. thank god!!!!) - my mistake. 

I wonder if Tracktion is able to take a guitar part and map out the tempo. I don't think so but that would be handy and would have been MUCH preferred. In fact I MUST check this out....

Yes, this is the biggest ball-ache in the world, ever.

thomasross20

Looking into it a little it seems there is no function for this and is a shortcoming of Tracktion (supposedly... I don't know if other DAWs allow auto tempo mapping from a guitar track). FOr my own reference:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=456973

Large parts of the track are actually A-ok, it's just that I greatly misjudged the tempo at some parts. I was totally zoned out last night. I don't recommend this way of working to anybody but I'll get there...

octatonic

thomasross20 said:

I mean the drums are ahead of the "beat" (not for the whole song, just sections.. thank god!!!!) - my mistake. 

Are they? Or is everything else behind?

What I mean is, the drums usually give the musical pulse.

If you are playing behind the drums then yes it will feel weird and off kilter.

With drum orchestration a little change can go a long way.

PolarityMan

thomasross20;965389" said:

I mean the drums are ahead of the "beat" (not for the whole song, just sections.. thank god!!!!) - my mistake. 

I wonder if Tracktion is able to take a guitar part and map out the tempo. I don't think so but that would be handy and would have been MUCH preferred. In fact I MUST check this out....

Yes, this is the biggest ball-ache in the world, ever.

So it's been a while since I did this but at least in reaper it wasn't fully automatic. Instead you basically assigned a hot key to drop a marker, then tapped this key along with the guide track. There is then an option to modify the tempo so that the markers fall on the beat. I think it was this method, although it was several years ago I last did it, there days i do my tempo map first before laying down a guide getting gthe tempo changes from live recordings. http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=14737

Nerine

I'd maybe consider tempo mapping the guitar part and then drawing the drums in to the resulting grid.

thomasross20

All is not lost.. Large sections are still OK. Just listened back and I think I was just in a drum frenzy in my head - totally spaced out from over-listening. What I've been doing is going over 5-10s sections at a time. Now I'm looping each and every bar and it seems to be getting better results. Have to be careful with that, though, I reckon, in case I lose sight of the overall thing.

Nerine

I have to say, what you are doing sounds like the most complicated thing ever.

p90fool

thomasross20 said:

I spent a few weeks doing drums on a tune through my new headphones. For the first time in a while, I listened to it through the PC speakers.... And the tempo suddenly seems very fast for the track!!

Whatever your programming method, this sounds to me like one or the other is making the hihats more prominent, making everything seem busier.