Quantizing drums

[wwittman]

I don't understand why the click ISN'T on the grid to begin with.

Do you have the tempo set correctly?

[alphajerk]

ditto that.

sounds bizarre...

[dillweed]

a little more explaination.
I guess the best way to do this would be have the have the click on the grid first, then record drums to that.

this project was recorded in RADAR then drums were bounced to nuendo. when i lock to a grid it moves the drums to the nearest 1/16 note on the tempo map.

maybe there is a way to make the original click the grid then lock to that? but i'm not sure how to do this.

thanks!!!!!!!!

[Winey]

You need to line up your original click to the Nuendo grid, then quantize.

[wwittman]

Well YES!
The grid isn;t any use if it's only arbitrary!
it needs to be based on the click.

I don't know Nuendo enough to tell you how to do it but I can describe the ProTools method and maybe you know enough to extrapolate to Nuendo.

I would select on bar of click near the top.
Edit so that the ins and outs are perfect... right up to the front wave and out on the start of the 5th front wave.. a perfect 1 bar.

Then ProTools has a command called Identify Beat...
You select 4/4 (assuming your track is in 4's) and give it a bar number say start at bar 1/1 and end at bar 2/1... so you are telling it that it's in 4's and you are showing it one bar.

that's it.
it determines the tempo and creates a grid from that point to the end of the song with that map.


Since you came form another digital source, there is no tape drift, so if the original click generator was stable, you should have a perfect grid for the entire song.

The only thing you might need to adjust then is if the drums don't start on beat ONE of the click.. you can do the same thing starting with the click on drum beat one... calling that bar 7 or whereever the drums start, so that one is one.. if you know what i mean

hope this helps.

maybe there is a Nuendo wizard lurking
I'm sure there is an equivalently easy method in that programme.

[redroom]

Use Nuendos Timewarp tool to make a tempo track that follows the kick snare hits.

[wwittman]

If you're going to use a click, you really want the grid to be based on the click.

Then you can make the drums conform to the grid more or less as you chose... but the grid is "right"

[maxim]

i guess this answers my question about using clicks

[alphajerk]

well if one and the next one are fairly consistant and its just hits within that... i would imagine a little more organic grid could be devised.


in DP you can set about importance markers and it can derive the grid from that. never use it tho, nor ever use a click track....

[espasonico]

I´ve worked with some producers that decide to quantize drums after bass and guitars have been overdubed and usually it sounds worst to me. Now I try to tell the producers that if they want to quantize drums it´s better to do it before any overdubs because then, the bass player is going to play listening to a good drum and the rest of the overdubs are going to be in time ( well, sometimes )

[Stick]

Originally Posted by espasonico

I´ve worked with some producers that decide to quantize drums after bass and guitars have been overdubed and usually it sounds worst to me. Now I try to tell the producers that if they want to quantize drums it´s better to do it before any overdubs because then, the bass player is going to play listening to a good drum and the rest of the overdubs are going to be in time ( well, sometimes )

True... but often bass and drums go down together. I actually do plenty of bass "fixing" as well. Beat Detective does pretty will on bass too.

Back to the original post... depending on what your click source was, it may not be constant enough to lock in tight with one tempo setting at the beginning. In Protools it's easy to set up a new bar and beat grid based on an audio file. (I use this sometimes to quantize keyboard parts to drums not cut to a click.) Not sure how Nuendo would deal with that though.

[jerdude]

um.....

this seems kinda simple to me....

#1. it would be extrememly helpful to know the original click tempo... this eliminates any guess work.

#2. set nuendo's tempo to original click tempo.

#3. zoom all the way in looking at the click track and cut or put a snap marker right at the first click... on the click track file itself... in the project window.

#4. select all the tracks in the whole project.

#5. turn snap on and move them all together so that bar 1 beat 1 of the click lines up to bar 1 beat 1 of the grid...(or bar X beat X).

now you have your whole project lined up to the click and the grid.

quantize to the grid until the cows come home!

[Farview]

Since you need to keep the audio on the smpte timeline, you are going to have to set up your Nuendo session so that the grid conforms to your click. Not the other way around.

Find out the exact smpte time that the first click of the song happens. Start the NEW project at that exact time. Set the tempo to the tempo of the click. Transfer your tracks. It should be right on. If it is a little off, figure out how much and add or subtract that from the time the project starts.