Ben shows different techniques to quickly figure out what's the tempo of your track. You can either tap the tempo along with the song on your keyboard or use the identify beat function. Very useful if the tempo fluctuates throughout the song.
00:00:07 Hey! How's it going?
I'm Ben Lindell. Today, I'm gonna be
showing you how to find the tempo
of an audio track in Pro Tools.
00:00:13 Often when you're working with
pop or hip-hop artists,
what they bring in is just a stereo
track of the instrumental,
and they record their vocals
on top of that.
00:00:21 If you know the tempo of the track,
it'll make your life a lot easier.
00:00:24 You can easily copy vocals
from one chorus to another,
and you can also keep your delays
in sync, which is great.
00:00:29 Let me show you a couple
of different ways to do this.
00:00:32 The first way to find the tempo
of a track in Pro Tools
is to simply tap it in.
00:00:36 To do so, I'm gonna disable
the Conductor track...
00:00:41 and then select my tempo.
00:00:43 Now instead of typing it in,
I'm gonna tap it in.
00:00:46 To do so, I just press T on my keyboard
repeatedly in time with the music.
00:00:50 Sometimes you'll find with slower
tracks
it's actually easier to tap in
the 8th notes instead of the 1/4 notes.
00:00:55 It'll give you a more precise result.
Let me show you how to do this.
00:01:12 Ok! Now that I think I have the tempo
correct, let me zoom in
and just double-check that the waveform
looks like it's locked up to the grid.
00:01:22 That looks pretty good! Most of the
transients are right on the good lines.
00:01:25 The best way to double-check
that you're at the right tempo
is to actually skip further along
in the song
and make sure that the same holds true.
00:01:36 And there, look at that downbeat...
Right with the transient. Perfect!
Sometimes, tap tempo may just
not work for a track.
00:01:44 Maybe the tempo isn't a round number,
maybe it's 68.8...
00:01:47 73.2... you never know.
00:01:50 But also a lot of times with sampled
music,
the tempo may actually fluctuate
throughout the track.
00:01:55 So! How do I find the tempo and lock
a track like that to the grid?
I use the Identify Beat function
of Pro Tools.
00:02:01 Let me show you how to do that.
00:02:03 To do so, I'm gonna turn
the Conductor track back on,
and zoom in to the beginning of my song.
00:02:10 I can see that my waveform is starting
right at the beginning of my session,
which is great. That means that's
the downbeat of the first bar of the song.
00:02:17 So I'm gonna zoom out a little bit.
00:02:20 I'm gonna find the downbeat
of the second bar, by listening.
00:02:29 Alright. Now, I know that this is
the downbeat of the second bar.
00:02:33 I just need to tell Pro Tools the same
information. How do I do that?
I'm gonna make sure that
Tab to Transients is turned on...
00:02:41 And I'm gonna place my cursor just
a little bit before the downbeat,
and then press Tab.
00:02:46 Great. Now my Selector is right
on the downbeat of the second bar.
00:02:51 Then I press Command+I,
or Control+I on a PC,
to bring up the Identify Beat dialog.
00:02:58 Right now, Pro Tools thinks that
my selection
is at bar 2, beat 3, and 343rds.
00:03:05 I know that my playhead is actually
placed at bar 2, beat 1.
00:03:10 I can do that simply by pressing 2, and
Pro Tools clears out the rest for me.
00:03:14 Press OK.
00:03:16 And there, now I can see on my tempo
track Pro Tools has inserted
a tempo of 75.5009.
00:03:24 It's very detailed, but that's actually
really close to the tempo of the song.
00:03:29 A lot of times with sample-based music,
you may find that the grid doesn't
always hold true to the track.
00:03:35 So in that case, just add some more
Identify Beat markers
further along in the song.
Just zoom in...
00:03:42 Give yourself a little bit of playback...
00:03:47 Find another downbeat...
00:03:49 Use Tab to Transients...
00:03:51 And then place another
Identify Beat marker.
00:03:54 This one happens to be right on.
00:03:58 Then just go further along in the song
and keep on repeating.
00:04:04 Make that one 35... Great!
As you can see, Pro Tools is guesstimating
that my tempo between this point
and this point should be 75.4993.
00:04:16 I think it's pretty obvious that this
track was recorded at 75.5.
00:04:20 So a lot of times in this case,
I'll turn off Conductor mode
and just type in my tempo manually,
since I know what it is.
00:04:29 Today I showed you a couple of easy
ways to lock the grid
of your Pro Tools session
to an audio file.
00:04:34 Now whether you're using tap tempo,
or Identify Beat,
establishing a grid is a great habit
to get into,
and it'll make editing later on
a lot easier.
00:04:42 So, until next time!
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Ben is a NYC based producer/engineer who has worked with artists from MGMT to Soulja Boy, Bebel Giberto to Lloyd Banks, Ryan Leslie, Olivia, Tony Yayo, Red Cafe, Edie Brickell, Carole Pope and hundreds of other artists from around the world. He grew up in Iowa and then attended the University of Miami.
In addition to being a fantastic musician he is also a tremendous geek when it comes to anything technical, be it software, plug-ins, microphones or outboard gear. It's this marriage of musical creativity and technical know-how that makes him an in demand producer/engineer.
Ben is also the Director of Marketing at pureMix.net, feel free to reach out to him directly, ben@puremix.net
