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Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 3:55 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:In order to do this method, you need to have a (relatively) consistent anchor instrument, whose timing is allowed to change, but have to be in the pocket.

Rhythm guitars fit that bill.

macrae11 wrote:All of these steps require meticulous attention to detail all the way through for this method to be viable.

So no assistant.

macrae11 wrote:Option #2 Quantize the guitars and replay the drums yourself.

Not ethically possible.

macrae11 wrote:Take that part and create a tempo map from it. The more the tempo floats, the more finely you'll have to identify the beats. If the part is very consistent, I can usually get away with every 2-4 bars, if very inconsistent, as little as every 1/4 note.

Let's go with this method as a starting point. Rhythm guitar is in good shape from where I sit. How do I create a tempo map from it? Can I simply create a tempo map of the entire song from the guitar a marry the drums to it? I realize that might be a bit into crazy territory but... a man can dream can't he?

in the end... I will edit this whole thing by hand if that's what it takes.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:08 pm
by macrae11
Mathieu Benoit wrote:
macrae11 wrote:Take that part and create a tempo map from it. The more the tempo floats, the more finely you'll have to identify the beats. If the part is very consistent, I can usually get away with every 2-4 bars, if very inconsistent, as little as every 1/4 note.

Let's go with this method as a starting point. Rhythm guitar is in good shape from where I sit. How do I create a tempo map from it?

warning: counting is required. Go to the downbeat of bar 1. Hit Command+I for Identify Beat. Punch in Bar 1. Repeat as often as necessary. This will automatically calculate the tempo and adjust the grid for you.

Mathieu Benoit wrote:Can I simply create a tempo map of the entire song from the guitar a marry the drums to it? I realize that might be a bit into crazy territory but... a man can dream can't he?

That's the idea. You could try it on one song and then see if your assistants would be capable of all or part of the job.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:16 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:
Mathieu Benoit wrote:
macrae11 wrote:Take that part and create a tempo map from it. The more the tempo floats, the more finely you'll have to identify the beats. If the part is very consistent, I can usually get away with every 2-4 bars, if very inconsistent, as little as every 1/4 note.

Let's go with this method as a starting point. Rhythm guitar is in good shape from where I sit. How do I create a tempo map from it?

warning: counting is required. Go to the downbeat of bar 1. Hit Command+I for Identify Beat. Punch in Bar 1. Repeat as often as necessary. This will automatically calculate the tempo and adjust the grid for you.

Mathieu Benoit wrote:Can I simply create a tempo map of the entire song from the guitar a marry the drums to it? I realize that might be a bit into crazy territory but... a man can dream can't he?

That's the idea. You could try it on one song and then see if your assistants would be capable of all or part of the job.

Basically that sounds like what I want. I want the rhythm guitar to be the "grid" that everything else can snap to. Sounds time absorbing so I might just do the one track and get the intern on it. Good exercise for both of us methinks.

If I can make this work it will be an invaluable tool for these cases in the future.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:13 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
PITA.

I'm going manual. I can do a song manually in less than 30 minutes.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:39 pm
by macrae11
Yeah situations like this are lose lose. I bet if you fine tuned it you could get it a bit less than that with the method I described, but not by much. What were the issues you were running into?

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:48 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:Yeah situations like this are lose lose. I bet if you fine tuned it you could get it a bit less than that with the method I described, but not by much. What were the issues you were running into?


Dealing with identifying beats with distorted guitar is annoying. It would feel like we'd nail them but it requires a fair amount of precision and that takes time.

I want a way to be able to tap out a tempo map. I'd play the friggin performance I want to hear right on the keyboard and quantize the drums right to it. Of course this is very wishful thinking...

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:00 pm
by macrae11
The way I do it is listen to the song and hit the down arrow on the downbeat, hit command+I and punch in the bar number. As long as my timing is good I can usually give results that are close enough 90% of the time, and just fix up the rest. I only need to listen to the preceeding two bars, and if the tempos slow enough I can do it in real time. Takes some practice though.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:11 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:The way I do it is listen to the song and hit the down arrow on the downbeat, hit command+I and punch in the bar number. As long as my timing is good I can usually give results that are close enough 90% of the time, and just fix up the rest. I only need to listen to the preceeding two bars, and if the tempos slow enough I can do it in real time. Takes some practice though.


It's exactly how we did it. Maybe we underestimate the clusterfuck I've been dealt. I'll give it one more go tonight while Alain and Blaze tear apart the control room around me.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:25 pm
by macrae11
Yeah there's only so much you can do.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:41 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:Yeah there's only so much you can do.

As is implied in my new signature.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:50 pm
by macrae11
Faux show.

It's one of those things you get with using a particular piece of software extensively. There's usually 12 different ways of doing things, but knowing which one's going to give you the best results in the least amount of time is probably what takes the most time. Literally years.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:25 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
Found a solution. I'm identifying beats one measure at a time based on the drums and I'm using that grid to smooth out the internal syncopation in the groove which is where 90% of my problems are. He's landing most of the down beats with the guitarist so this will be a good compromise.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:34 am
by Mathieu Benoit
I had to take a break last night while we were tearing apart the control room. The aurora is now hooked up to the HD Core card.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:53 am
by macrae11
FUN!

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:31 am
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:FUN!

Anyone wanna buy a lightpipe patchbay? There was so much crap removed from the racks last night...

Image

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 4:51 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
What does it mean when the name of a plugin or a send is highlighted in red?

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 9:18 pm
by macrae11
Clipping. Option+c to clear.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:16 am
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:Clipping. Option+c to clear.


Ahhh... Neat. I noticed it happen when I was messing with the EQ before I got my gain stage back in order. The EQ highlighted red and so do the plate send on that channel. First time I've seen it do that. That is an HD only thing?

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:43 am
by macrae11
It's not HD only but it's much more difficult to do in LE since it runs in 32 bit float.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:10 am
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:It's not HD only but it's much more difficult to do in LE since it runs in 32 bit float.


I've never seen the names highlight red before in all the time I've used Pro Tools and it's not the first time I'm overloaded the output of the EQ while trying to suss out trouble frequencies.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:31 pm
by macrae11
Oh well maybe it's HD only. I hardly work in LE anymore, so I could just be getting forgetful.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:41 am
by Mathieu Benoit
Hi Andrew, how are things? Great, glad to hear it.

I'm looking for your advice on allocating resources now that I'm using the HD TDM playback engine. How would you devide up the resources in my case? I guess I'm not overly comfortable with how Pro Tools acts with the TDM playback engine, so any clarity you could offer on that would be great. For example, I've heard on the DUC that one should try to avoid RTAS plugins on Aux busses but it's not clear to me why. Basically I want a crash course in when to use TDM and when to use RTAS. I've only ever used RTAS up until now, but now certain sessions are giving me trouble because there's too much RTAS apparently.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:46 pm
by macrae11
Ok. This is one of those things that seems totally foreign, but will become second nature over time. All of this is a balancing act with many factors, and it probably won't feel comfortable until you find the sweet spot for your system, with your style of mix. There are two main factors, voices and DSP. Voices are how many tracks you're capable of playing back simultaneously, but voices are also stolen in certain situations, such as putting RTAS plugs on aux's or masters, as well as switching from RTAS to TDM on the same track. Now I actually run several RTAS plugs in those places because they don't have a TDM version, so I just have to be aware of the extra drain. You can get more voices in the playback engine, however it will use some of your DSP.

Now since you're on an HD1, a good chunk of your DSP is going to be eaten up just with the standard mixer, so I would stay away from TDM plugins for the most part, except where necessary, or near the end of a mix, when most of your DSP is assigned. That way you'll have the maximum amount of headroom. I would start by setting your HW buffer, host processors, and CPU usage to the max, and your voice allocation to the minimum. These don't affect TDM plugs, but will give you more RTAS instances. Delay compensation also takes up more DSP, if you need it that has to go into account as well. If you Command+click on the volume indicator at the bottom of each track it will tell you the delay inherent in that track. That and your ears will tell you if ADC is necessary for your session.

After that, it's just allocating on an as needed basis. If you run out of voices, add more. There are also some tricks to squeeze some more voices out, but there a bit more advanced, so I'll have to show you in person. Also getting rid of old sends you aren't using, say from tracking will free up a small amount of DSP.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'll post more ideas if they come to me.

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 1:54 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
Thanks... that helps me understand it a lot more.

I think for now I'll only use TDM plugins on my auxes and masters. Since there aren't many of them it shouldn't affect my DSP too much, and should help with the voices (which is the problem I'm having.)

Re: Matt's Pro Tools learning thread...

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 1:58 pm
by macrae11
Is there are specific session you're having trouble with? I could open it up and take a look.