tap tempo is doo doo

anyone else get irritated with the tap tempo? I realize its averaging your taps, but I've adjusted the the average 2,3,4 but I always still end up approximating - the actual tempo. it always seems to be off + or - 4 bpm. And I must say, i know my timing isnt that bad........

anyone with some tips? the sure way for me to find the tempo of a loop is to loop it in the sequencer and adjust bpm until it loops semlessly, but that only works on loops and is super time consuming.


any tips or thoughts would be appreciated? basically i'm just trying to get the tempo of phrases, sometimes they are half bars, or i do it to the original song to find tempo of song, then go about chopping parts out.

i never use it.

i find it quicker and more accurate to get a tight one bar loop, assign it (note off), main screen set the approx tempo, make a sequence, and then fine tune the tempo on the main screen. (i.e. the exact method you use!).


i often find that there are two tempos, about +/-1bpm apart, that will work. the slower will work for 1 or 2 bar loops, and will be tight to the metronome click. the more choppy your arrangement, the more you can raise the tempo.

for me it's about how the sample 'sits' on the sequence, and there is usually a bit of leeway, so i like to be able to adjust the tempo 0.1 up or down.

i don't find the initial process time consuming, as it's part of my mpc workflow, but adjusting multiple start points and fiddling with the tempo can be.....!

cyrus wrote:anyone else get irritated with the tap tempo? I realize its averaging your taps, but I've adjusted the the average 2,3,4 but I always still end up approximating - the actual tempo. it always seems to be off + or - 4 bpm. And I must say, i know my timing isnt that bad........

anyone with some tips? the sure way for me to find the tempo of a loop is to loop it in the sequencer and adjust bpm until it loops semlessly, but that only works on loops and is super time consuming.


any tips or thoughts would be appreciated? basically i'm just trying to get the tempo of phrases, sometimes they are half bars, or i do it to the original song to find tempo of song, then go about chopping parts out.

just use the detect tempo function. simple as that!

**** wrote:

cyrus wrote:anyone else get irritated with the tap tempo? I realize its averaging your taps, but I've adjusted the the average 2,3,4 but I always still end up approximating - the actual tempo. it always seems to be off + or - 4 bpm. And I must say, i know my timing isnt that bad........

anyone with some tips? the sure way for me to find the tempo of a loop is to loop it in the sequencer and adjust bpm until it loops semlessly, but that only works on loops and is super time consuming.


any tips or thoughts would be appreciated? basically i'm just trying to get the tempo of phrases, sometimes they are half bars, or i do it to the original song to find tempo of song, then go about chopping parts out.

just use the detect tempo function. simple as that!

yeah, ive tried that but for whatever reason it just seems to be hit or miss for me...I guess it does depend on the sample. I'm probably just complaining. and looking for others techniques with mpc or other gear.

sometimes im looping up stuff that isnt stuff normally looped and require a little chopping anyways. but the tapping always bugs me because Ive sort of figured out that i still have to average out the bpm even with tap tempo. Ill hit it once and it will be 83, then again and it will be 86.7, then again and its back down to 83.2, etc. etc..... so i end up guessing 85 and thats the true bpm. so then im like wtf is it averaging out? lolz.

disco technique wrote:i never use it.

i find it quicker and more accurate to get a tight one bar loop, assign it (note off), main screen set the approx tempo, make a sequence, and then fine tune the tempo on the main screen. (i.e. the exact method you use!).


i often find that there are two tempos, about +/-1bpm apart, that will work. the slower will work for 1 or 2 bar loops, and will be tight to the metronome click. the more choppy your arrangement, the more you can raise the tempo.

for me it's about how the sample 'sits' on the sequence, and there is usually a bit of leeway, so i like to be able to adjust the tempo 0.1 up or down.

i don't find the initial process time consuming, as it's part of my mpc workflow, but adjusting multiple start points and fiddling with the tempo can be.....!

thats true. I find depending on the swing of the drums i get a little room with the bpm... but sometimes if a chop has some percusion in it i have to get my chops accurate bpm wise first so the percusion makes sense then line up my stuff relative to that. know what im sayin?

Ya can be real tricky. I think I know what you mean about how the Tap Tempo reacts, but that said we got to keep in mind that the timing of the records (the musicians) we sample from is not allways 100% either. They're human too.. So if we detect a certain tempo, your prolly still gonna have slight inacuracys..
To be honnest that's actually the reason i prefer this type of stuff over "stiff programmed drummachine beats"..

i use tap tempo sometimes, but it is rarely accurate. once i have an approximate tempo i adjust it to the sample.

Use it all the time and it works fine. Always gets pretty close.

IK Obi wrote:Use it all the time and it works fine. Always gets pretty close.

cool thanks for the help guys.

but im gonna complain again. I got some perfectly looped up samples and using auto tempo (in timestretch edit window) is off. - manula seems to work ok, but auto is off.

1. Load up a perfectly looped sample.
2. open up timestretch dialog box
3. hit tempo f2
4.then press auto f3
5.take note of the calculated tempo
6.repeat, hit f2, press auto f3, notice a differant tempo is calculated
7.repeat again, get an entirely differant tempo
8.wtf. nothing changed in the sample length. but a differant tempo is calculated. something is broken in the auto detect.

SECOND ISSUE:

I also noticed on tap tempo, it will average 2,3,or 4 taps......however, it doesnt hold onto your previous taps, it resets. so for example, say you have your setting set to 2 taps. you play a sample thats like 4 bars. tapping the whole way through on the down beat (8 times total). after tap 2, tap tempo resets and starts averaging again from zero taps, reseting itself after every 2 taps. this is why the bpm is always so differant. You would think that if you tapped 8 times total for a given session, it would average all 8 taps. I guess what was meant for the setting was not clear to me until now. i thought it meant it will start averaging 'AFTER' 2, NOT average only the first 2 taps..............

HERE IS HOW I THINK IT SHOULD WORK:

if you use a bpm counter like this one: http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm

it averages out the "total" number of taps of a given session, only resetting itself if there is a large pause (2 seconds). take notice of the 3rd field timing taps on that page. it aggregates all taps for the given tapping session and averages them out. so if you tap 64 times, it will take the average of those 64 taps. i think this is how the tap tempo should work because it will give a more accurate result. this way gives you the choice to just tap 2 times, 3 times, 4 times, or as many times as you want and averages that out. it doesnt force you to tap a given number of times.

say i have an 8 bar drum loop and I tap on the snares. if the taps get reset every 2 times, then from bar to bar its going to be inaccurate, when my goal is to find the tempo of the entire loop. or maybe just the first 3 bars. since most music isnt perfect and strays, youll always get a differant tempo even if you tapping is perfect to the sample..... see what im saying?

This is not so important for those perfectly looped up drum loops and you just want the tempo for the whole loop and you can tap perfectly to the snare or hihat.......for those, this works. but what if you chop up a sample, tune it down, and press a pad and want to figure out the tempo of the first 3/4 of the sample? or what if its a sample with no percussion and you arent looping it up, its a fraction of a loop, and you need to tap to it several times to find approx tempo?

I'm not fuggin crazy!!!! tap tempo is doo doo!

cyrus wrote:I also noticed on tap tempo, it will average 2,3,or 4 taps......however, it doesnt hold onto your previous taps, it resets.

Yeah it works like that. That's why I keep on requesting a calculation with 8, 16 or 32..etc taps.

le rat wrote:

cyrus wrote:I also noticed on tap tempo, it will average 2,3,or 4 taps......however, it doesnt hold onto your previous taps, it resets.

Yeah it works like that. That's why I keep on requesting a calculation with 8, 16 or 32..etc taps.

I +1 that request. I would even go as far to say it shouldnt have to be a set number. just however many times you tap, then once you pause, it resets. maybe we could have the option to set the length of the pause. very similar if not identical to the link I provided in my previous post.

either way, if your request is used, I'd be happy with that too. but I dont like that it doesnt calculate until after you hit the threshold, it should do it as you add taps. know what i mean?

cyrus wrote:either way, if your request is used, I'd be happy with that too. but I dont like that it doesnt calculate until after you hit the threshold, it should do it as you add taps. know what i mean?

Yeah I understand, that makes sense. Plus, It would be hard to remind how many taps were done before "resetting" to the first count. From my short experience with manual tap tempo it s possible to get closed to the good bpm but 4 taps is not enough to have an average value that doesn't fluctuate too much.

Your idea is better indeed

i disagree and like it the way it is.

if you keep tapping for a short while (maybe 4 to 8 taps) and your timing is reasonably accurate for a while then the reading will be give-or-take the right tempo, i do this and continue from this point. it doesn't seem to be a big issue at all.

emceewhiterabbit wrote:i disagree and like it the way it is.

if you keep tapping for a short while (maybe 4 to 8 taps) and your timing is reasonably accurate for a while then the reading will be give-or-take the right tempo, i do this and continue from this point. it doesn't seem to be a big issue at all.

no doubt. i do this too and get it to work. im just thinking that it could be more accurate. nothing wrong with more accurate. the description i made above i "think" it would make it more accurate....but if not, I'm not sure if there is another option......

cyrus wrote:

emceewhiterabbit wrote:i disagree and like it the way it is.

if you keep tapping for a short while (maybe 4 to 8 taps) and your timing is reasonably accurate for a while then the reading will be give-or-take the right tempo, i do this and continue from this point. it doesn't seem to be a big issue at all.

no doubt. i do this too and get it to work. im just thinking that it could be more accurate. nothing wrong with more accurate. the description i made above i "think" it would make it more accurate....but if not, I'm not sure if there is another option......

i'm up for trying it out if it gets applied to the OS but if it isn't as good i will run crying to JJ. you wouldn't want to make me cry, would you?