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Hello Indaba family! I posted this as a blog as well, hopefully word gets around!

I am a drummer that is working on a few sessions here with some great friends. I need to ask a favor of everyone that records tracks to upload. The best thing that you can do to end up with a professional sounding product is to figure out what tempo you are using and record your part with a click track set at that tempo. Then when you start your session and upload your files put that tempo in the notes or even post it as a first post in the session to get things going.

As a drummer there is nothing more frustrating than trying to play steady time to a guitar, vocal or bass track that is NOT at a steady tempo. Again, if you are uploading tracks for drummers to add drums to, you NEED to record your part to a click or metronome and post what BPM you recorded it at.

Thanks again and keep rockin!

James Babcock

www.thevisualtimekeeper.com

I guess nobody is concerned with good meter here......lol!

i hear you! lol Music that makes you want to NOT MOVE haha

Hi,
you are 100 % right ! I have here the same opinion.The tempo information is a must be as info on a Session,
In the past a very clever had tell me that there are tools in Daws to find out the tempo self but this sucks.I like the easy and fast way when i want work and so it would be fine when it gets one day here modern to bring this info on all the Sessions.
In the last month it was a little bitty tricky to bring this information in the Session Overview but i think there are other ways to tell the tempo as only there.Everyone can write down the Tempo in a comment and so on !
The click track on the Start of a track is also a must be when you want work in an easy and fast way.I have a blog about the latency on tracks in the mp.3 format.Here the big problem is that self when everyone works in the right tempo latestly after you have convert the tracks to mp.3 and have bring it in the Session all the right tracks are wrong because they have all different start points.People who not know about this little thing will think that no one can play in the right tempo.That s not cool and so i hope one day this little thing gets here a little bitty more attention.
http://www.indabamusic.com/people/812094721/blog/2108-bad-silence

Oh and before i forget :-)
For these who think this is Unbelievebale.Test it self.Create a track in your DAW with a Bassdrum only on the 1/4.Record this in your Daw for a minute or two.Then do a mix down.After this convert the mixdown audio (aif/wav) to the mp.3 format.Now get this mp.3 file and import it in the daw to this project where you have also the orginal bassdrum.After the import you have now two tracks,One is the orginal and the other was the mp.3.Press play ,listen to both tracks at the same time and oooops..........there is someone a little bitty out of time :-)
But on a Session this is much more bad because every single file had his own latency (startpoint) and this SUCKS.........ok ok when you have big luck you can get also interested grooves in this way but normally NOT ! Then longer the song is then more bad the timming goes and after 4 minutes it sounds so as the musician who have play it have never hear about the thing with the tempo.Hmmmm,people who not know about this little tech thing will believe that all the other can not play.But that s wrong.This tech thing can bring here and there some big frustating and at the end everyone will wonder that the activity on the Sessions get s more and more down.This is sad and must NOT be.

Sorry for my bad english but i had think it s better then NOTHING !

Mineme c.

I totally agree with you that the conversion process to MP3 messes up the tempo. Even if someone has done the recording on their end at a tempo of 120BPM for example, when the converted MP3 file is uploaded, then downloaded and syncronized in a DAW the 120BPM click within the program will not be syncronized the further you get into the song. Does anyone out there have a method they use for avoiding this issue?

Hi James,
yes i have a method.I have do a blog about it with some pictures but my english is not that good but i hope it helps.I think that s the best way to get out of this problem.I know this is a change to work so and also a little bit more work but when someone tests it out and gets a routine with all this he/she will get happy at the end and the Session ready song will be much better.
Feel free to read this blog and when there is somewhere a point what is silly why i had not use the right words post a comment and i worlk on it and i search for some other words .

http://www.indabamusic.com/people/812094721/blog/2108-bad-silence

This is an interesting thread. In many forms of music, a very strict tempo will make the music sound not human--too much like a machine. On the other hand, sometimes a strict tempo is exactly what is intended by the composer. But in many successful tunes, the tempo varies, sometimes widely.

In a good DAW (I use Cubase), it is possible to "stretch" time, so that audio tracks will conform to midi, or vice versa. The changes in tempo are recorded in a tempo track, and the clicks for a click track will be heard properly according to the current setting of the tempo track.

Changes in tempo can be sudden, or they can ramp up and down gradually, depending on what is necessary for the music. It certainly is important for a collaborator to know when the tempo changes are going to happen! Sometimes the intent of the composer (or director) is difficult to imagine and predict. That is one reason why written music is important. It will help the performer to remember when the tempo is supposed to change.

Tempo alignment is also very important in work for video and film, because the audio cues must align properly with the images on the screen.

Ya, that is a big issue. And I agree as well. Just an fyi, there is a great feature in "Sony Acid Pro" called "Beat Mapper" and it detects the tempo for you. It's pretty awesome, and it's completely accurate. I use it often times to detect tempo's in A Capella's I'm making remixes for.

Bob,

Yes I fully understand that tempos vary within a some songs depending on the feel required. What I am speaking of is complete lack of attention to the pulse of the song, to the point of actually displacing beats. I prefer to use a click as a guide just to make the sessions easier to load into various DAW's and line up with whatever click that persons DAW has. It's quite easy to set up if everyone is on the same tempo settings. At the very least if it is a guitarist looking for a drummer........I feel it should be using a click as a guide when recorded. Then it is easy to find the groove and how it is played in relation to a perfect click.

As a drummer I'd have to agree. For this kind of collaboration unless you start with a drum track played in free time it's almost impossible to play along well with any kind of groove to a pre recorded guitar or synth track that's not constant. I think you need to make that choice of style fluid (drums first) or rigid record with a click - each has it's advantages.
As to avoiding the problem of displacement because of mp3 conversion, a possible workaround would be to record loops of the drums and very time the new loop kicks in you get snapped back to the grid - not very fluid but it works.