Hi. I have recently worked through the excellent Logic 201 tutorial section on beat-mapping and I have a question regarding its application. I posted this on the Sonikmatter forum a couple of days ago but have so far had no response so I thought I'd post it here and see if anyone might have some insight. I hope that's cool. I am working on a piece which is based on a long, picked acoustic-guitar track. That track was recorded to the click and lasts about 4 minutes. The recording sticks fairly well to the click for the most part but not perfectly. I want to add some other tracks to it, drums and bass included. The drums are based on an initial midi loop which will be varied throughout. When I played the drum track over the guitar, it really showed up the imperfections in the guitar in terms of it wandering on and off the grid. So I tried quantizing the guitar track in the sample editor using the "Guitar picked" setting, which turned out pretty hopeless. Then I went back to the original (thankfully I'd backed it up!) and beat-mapped the whole thing. Now it's pretty good, much better than before. Obviously the drums now lock to the new grid and play in sync with the guitar. However, as the tempo goes through its multiple changes at some places this is really noticeable, mostly where the snare falls just a little too late or it audibly picks up the tempo just a trace etc. Now it's not too bad - I think I did a reasonable job of the beat-mapping in that there aren't too many very radical tempo changes - but the result is not really good enough. I'm wondering if there is a way to neaten this up in the places that need it (or all the way through). I've tried shifting the drum hits a little at those points as well as choosing different nearby transients but that throws the groove out in a different way. Also, is what I have described above the best way to proceed or would it in fact be better to quantize the audio track, obviously using different/better parameter settings than I did before? Any help appreciated.

My apologies if the lack of any replies to this was due to the fact that I had posted the question to another forum as well. I'd rarely do that; it was just that I was really stuck on this issue. I have recently purchased most of the Logic tutorials available on this site and find them absolutely brilliant; I am learning a huge amount from them. I am saying this just to register that I am a serious user of this site and also that I do hope to post other questions and so on if they arise (yes, here only). The lack of replies may of course be nothing to do with all this; it may be just that nobody has anything particular to say about the issue, which is fine. In that case, just consider me certifiably paranoid!

Hi bd and thank you very much for your informative and helpful response. These are great suggestions. Some thoughts on them: 1. I have gone through it before, increasing the number of transients and linking them to sub-beats as you suggest here. It seemed to make the tempo a little wilder in my case with shorter but more noticeable shifts. I'll try again with your idea of 'gradual accelerations'. 2. I considered doing this but would that not throw out the whole existing beat mapping, which is fine in general? Or does cutting/pasting sections leave the existing mapping intact? I'd rather not have to go through it all again. 3a. Good idea. Again, I wonder how the newly quantized sections would fit in with the rest of the file in terms of audible artifacts and timing issues? Guess there's only one way to find out.. 3b. Yes. I'm not sure Logic is the best at this sort of thing. I have been considering trying out Melodyne. I'll look into these others you mention. All-in-all I have gone ahead and built on this track in terms of adding other instruments. It sounds okay and the tempo changes are not too noticeable as the piece fills out but with this new info I'll go back and see if I can tidy it up some more. Thanks again bd for your help. Mark

I have a song with a beat-mapped grid. I want to copy an audio track from one section and put it into another one. The audio track was recorded live over the beat-mapped tempo via the click. Obviously the section that I want to place the copy of that track over is beat-mapped slightly differently, although it is a later part of the same sequence and therefore the same pattern musically. So the copy doesn't play in sync over it because it was recorded over the earlier section and conforms to the beat-mapping of that earlier section. I hope that's clear. My question is how do I quantize the audio file copy so that it will play properly over the new section, or is there a better way of doing this? Does quantizing an audio file in the normal way make it conform to the tempo shifts of a beat-mapped grid? Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Rounik and thank you very much for your reply. Yes I could re-record it but I was hoping to avoid that. Also, I am interested in improving my knowledge and this sort of thing crops up for me from time to time so I would like to discover an effective way of doing it. The material is probably monophonic but it is not a single line (a contradiction I know). It is a rhythmic, fairly staccato electric guitar part using octaves, so there are two notes at once. Now that you say it Strip Silence might work given it is fairly percussive so there are distinct breaks between each chop or 'hit'. I didn't think of it because I haven't used it before! I will definitely try that. On the other hand, given how I've described the part, do you think quantizing it could work? I presume once a region/file is quantized it automatically plays in time with the grid rather than to an absolute fixed tempo? I appreciate your help with this. Mark

Hello again Rounik. I just wanted to say that I tried what you suggested and used Strip Silence on the track. I then quantized the individual regions collectively and with a few subsequent manual adjustments to their positions relative to each other, the overall track fitted the grid really well and now plays back in time with the rest of the song. Just in case anyone else is interested in learning about this process. Thank you very much again for your help. Mark

This is a big surprise. Looking forward to it, and to hearing what the 'experts' make of it. I very recently bought all the Logic tutorials MPV have available. When the ones for L9 come out, I'm jusy wondering will their be any sort of discount available to 'upgrade' to the newer versions of the tutorials? Mark

That's great news Martin and Rounik about the tutorials. Yeah I'll buy anything new that you guys do but it's good to hear that what I've already bought will still be relevant and can mostly be updated for no extra cost. Of course, Flex Time, the guitar stuff and Mainstage 2 all look excellent. Thanks, Mark

Um, did I miss something? What is all the fuss about? It seems perfectly obvious that this is merely a revised version of the old tutorial with a little extra content to bring it in line with the new release, although it is still obviously a L. 8 tutorial. New buyers have to pay the full amount of course; it is still a very relevant tutorial. But those of us who already own it - $2.00? Can people really be upset about that?! C'mon guys. Let's get a little perspective here.. Edit: Oh, it seems to be gone. And I never got a chance to download it. Was that because of the reactions here? Still, I'll leave the post intact because I think there were some real over-reactions.

Just wanted to add my voice to this. I too would have no problem paying $5 for any upgraded tutorials - but I would have a problem paying for upgrades where there was no new content. My list of possible upgrades includes the entire Logic range (the Megabundle) so the total payable is substantial. I would appreciate knowing in advance which tutorials are worth upgrading, i.e. which have new content, and which are not. Many thanks.