All You "Track-Nudgers"!

[hduncan]

Say we are looking at a drum samplers kick track. Now, Depending on the sample (There could be a few ms of gap before the audible part of the sampled kick plays) It's not possible for that kick to ever come earlier than you expected. However, depending on the sample, it can be late.

This got me thinking (and getting paranoid that "perfect timing" might be out of my control), is there any effect that you employ that involves nudging tracks early or late? In my head, it would seem like a kick track that comes a bit early wouldn't sound good- but a kick track that is slightly late might sound more powerful/driving. What are your thoughts?

[Mike Brown]

All the time... There may be a point where visually the sample + regular kick LOOK/Sound (have the most low end) "in phase" but it sounds better in the context of the song with one of them nudged earlier / later.

All about serving the song.

[hduncan]

Yes, good points.

But do any of you prefer the sound of a later kick or early bass guitar or whatever in general?

[Mr. PC]

I don't consider myself an expert and there are no rules, but I think that as a general rule, the kick would be in the "on the beat" range, and a bass would snuggle in behind that kick. Think of them as one sound. You have the percussive boom/click of the kick drum with the bass providing a big-ass tone, coming slightly behind in order to let the kick drum provide the aural cue for what the beat is.


The kick is the count, the meter. The bass is the bottom of the tune. Rushed bass always sounds hyper.

Some swingy drummers play the kick a tad ahead, the snare behind. That way there is a big ass pocket in the middle.

PC

[hduncan]

Interesting. I wonder what the brain typically latches on to for timing? say you have a string quartet and a kick drum,

if there is a 5ms delay between the downbeat of the string quartet and the kick, which one do people generally perceive as being early/late?

do you always trust the percussion for timing? this would be an interesting test.

[Blast9]

Yeah a loop or a played part can sound really groovy when the kick and snare is a coupla ticks late - perhaps not in every bar - sometimes the groove happens in a 4 bar pattern.

Alternatively sometimes having the last hi-hat in a bar slightly late adds a bit of swing

sometimes a groove van be 100% quantized but varying the amplitude/velocity of inidvidual hi-hats/shakers at different points in the pattern can suggest swing/groove

[MJ Heck]

Good question - the book "Mixing with your Mind" postulates that the frequency of an
instrument/voice impacts how it sounds in time - that it takes longer to determine pitch
with lower frequencies and such. I think this was in relation to a discussion of how you can
enhance a song with poor timing by manipulating track level.

I'm sorry for the crummy recap, but suffice it to say, there does indeed to be something
very real about a perfectly gridded track sounding "off" at times.

MJH

[James Lehmann]

If you are into creating grooves from scratch with individual samples there's no other way of doing it other than by ear.

For me, this means nudging tracks in Logic by as little as 1/960th of a beat. It's a labour of love and takes many hours but it's utterly worth it, especially if, like me you like programming super-tight, deep-house electronic percussion as in this track.

Lining up beats to a grid will never cut the mustard for many reasons, not least the one you refer to about 'air' at the start of samples.

Of course - decent musicians have no need of any of this technological wizardry and can churn out grooves on a dime better than I can ever manage electronically!

[drBill]

If it sounds good it IS good. End of story. You can end up chasing your tail for days if you get too paranoid about it. That said, I definately nudge tracks around.

As far as drummers go, their "style" and "feel" is determined by how much they lead with the kick, pull the snare back a bit, etc. It's not unusual to have the kick ahead of the click and the snare behind. That will give you a particular "style" or "feel". Feel free to experiment, but don't forget about the music!

[crypticglobe]

Originally Posted by McGee

Yes in PT - it's called nudge. Don't get too paranoid, just get on with tracking everything else.

In cubase/nuendo... they have nudge also... but also a slider on EVERY track so that you can move it forward/back without having to touch the track on the timeline. VERY useful.

I actually use both nudging and the track delay a lot. I love the track delay for quickly putting a player that tends to play/sing a little too ahead or behind right in the pocket.

I also love to line the transients of the bass guitar up with the transients of the kick drum visually, and then use the track delay to move the entire bass guitar track back 6ms or so..... It's a love thing...

jmtc...

[crufty]

Logic has a sample delay which is sometimes used on one channel in the stereo mix.

I have nudged hihats forward, never thought about pushing kicks back. something new to try out!

[theblue1]

I'm with James Lehman and drBill...

In rhythm, the ear/body continuum is the final measure. If it doesn't tickle the ear and get the backside in motion, it's not a groove.

[A LaMere]

I pretty much never nudge drum tracks around myself... but...
I also VERY rarely work with any kind of sampled rhythm/drums...

I ALWAYS nudge electric guitars around in the mix... for whatever reason...
I want them to hit exactly where I want them I guess...
and end exactly where I want them to end sometimes too...

I'll move a bass part from here to there if it was played poorly or too early.... but I wouldn't necessarily call that 'nudging'. The only thing that I can think of that I nudge pretty often is the electric gtrs...

[hduncan]

I know the "if it sounds good, it is good" cliche applies as always, but I am asking about more concrete concepts, for ex. "nudging the kick/snare a little early make the song feel 'rushed'".

I don't know if thats true or not (seems like it could be), but track-nudging rules of thumb so-to-speak. Things that are not subjective but apply to generally everyone. Such as a longer predelay makes the wall sound further away.

Surely someone has these concepts boiled down to in a good article or something. I'd rather not reinvent the wheel if the wisdom is already out there!!

[hduncan]

crufty- I believe that logic has a channel delay like that as well!
James Lehmann- This is what I am doing- grooves/beats from scratch with samples. I am looking for a way to get more organicness into my drum patterns without using the "humanize" or "randomize" function for velocities. I think groove/nudging/trackdelay/and swing can help me.

[nickynicknick]

you'd be surprised at what you'd think would sound cool late actually sounds better early...of course it depends on the music and a thousand other variables...but i was shocked when I moved snares early ,kiks, claps (way early if there is a few tracks) drum fills....my only point is there is no perfect timing...it is all relative..you should really really try getting into this....beat detecting is boring and doesn't make for anything special musically...and anyone can do it....no one else can use your imagination.

Nick

PS contrary to popular belief...if you really listen to authentic (great) reggae, you'll notice that often times the drums and bass are very on top (ahead) of the beat. It's the guitars and keys that are pulling behind.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by DarkEcho

I know the "if it sounds good, it is good" cliche applies as always, but I am asking about more concrete concepts, for ex. "nudging the kick/snare a little early make the song feel 'rushed'".

I don't know if thats true or not (seems like it could be), but track-nudging rules of thumb so-to-speak. Things that are not subjective but apply to generally everyone. Such as a longer predelay makes the wall sound further away.

Surely someone has these concepts boiled down to in a good article or something. I'd rather not reinvent the wheel if the wisdom is already out there!!

Why ask?

Just try it and see what it sounds like in a given context!

[nickynicknick]

Originally Posted by DarkEcho

crufty- I believe that logic has a channel delay like that as well!
James Lehmann- This is what I am doing- grooves/beats from scratch with samples. I am looking for a way to get more organicness into my drum patterns without using the "humanize" or "randomize" function for velocities. I think groove/nudging/trackdelay/and swing can help me.

Oh..I just read this post...just disregard my last post...it doesn't apply to you...the only thing I can think of in response to the above is it'll take you less time to record a great drummer laying down different grooves with different feels at different BPM (probably a couple of days) than to try and make samples sound like drummer (probably never)...you can get a huge library of grooves over a couple of days...which you can edit for years to create alternates...anyway...I think I've relayed this info before...maybe there is somebody reading wih an open mind.

Nick

[EvilE]

nudging all the time. i do a lot of time correction for doubled vocals, rhythmic correction for drums and guitars, bass and kick drum relationships, entire band hits...etc.


i find that the kick/bass relationship varies. sometimes sounds good when they are perfectly in phase (really moves the speakers and works well for processed or electronic sounding stuff). other times a more organic relationship is better and that usually means kick slightly ahead of bass. only a fraction of a second. it's all about using your ears and feeling out the song.

i do this in grid mode and slip mode depending on the application. usually set nudging to samples/ticks as opposed to bars/beats.

werd

[XJR]

With something like Drumagog there is going to be some delay, however slight. I normally print the drumagog track to another audio track and then listen with that track and the original solo'ed .... If there is a timing difference then I will nudge to fix it.
As far as nudging drums for other reasons I'm not too sure. Some drummers need a bit of help and might thank you for it but others might be pissed you messed with their timing or their "feel"

In a computer nothings undo'able though so as long as there's an untouched copy of the session nice and safe, it doesn't hurt to use the playlist to try out some ideas.

[theblue1]

It might be worthwhile to make a side note:

I'd been nudging and sliding MIDI tracks back and forth for feel for years when I became aware of another important use of micro-adjustments: correcting system-induced time misalignment between tracks on DAWs.

The mismatch is often only a matter of milliseconds, oftentimes, but it is a misalignment and misalignments in overdub-heavy projects can cascade, as the 'temporal center' is blurred.

That's why DAW makers, who for years had waved off the problem as a hardware/driver issue, finally got real and started including track alignment offsets and ping looback calibration utilities in order to correct for poorly reported actual latency from converters.

No one who hasn't tested his temporal track alignment in his DAW should assume that everything is hunky dory.

If you have a need to nudge -- you might be subconsciously trying to adjust for system-induced timing misalignment between tracks.

A series of ping loop-back tests will let your know right away where you stand.

(A series simply to make sure that any such misalignment is always the same. I had a USB mic whose latency in various hosts was different from session to session -- and in the 30 ms range to boot! -- meaning it was virtually unusable for overdubbying without further compensation. Happily, I have the original version of Tracktion, which has an automated calibration utiltity, meaning I could recalibrate for each session or during sessions -- though I never saw any in-session drift).

Anyhow, one more thing to think about.

[James Lehmann]

Originally Posted by theblue1

If you have a need to nudge -- you might be subconsciously trying to adjust for system-induced timing misalignment between tracks.

This is almost certainly correct.

The question then becomes are timing delays offset by a consistent amount when you switch DAW's?

There's a big grey area in terms of what order different DAW's read tracks in, how they cope with frozen tracks, varied bus/aux software alignment, disk reading, access to plug-ins and a multitude of other variables. This may well even extend to soft/firmware updates on the same DAW.

In practical terms this means that you might spend weeks getting a track to groove correctly on one particular DAW, only to see the very same groove fall to pieces on another, rendering all your carefully adjusted timing delays useless.

There's a lot to be said for bouncing all your tracks as audio files before handing them off for a remix.

[hduncan]

Originally Posted by theblue1

Why ask?[/I]

I just said why- so I don't have to reinvent the wheel through experimenting if someone has already done the experiments!

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by DarkEcho

Interesting. I wonder what the brain typically latches on to for timing? say you have a string quartet and a kick drum,

if there is a 5ms delay between the downbeat of the string quartet and the kick, which one do people generally perceive as being early/late?

do you always trust the percussion for timing? this would be an interesting test.

bet 8-12 ms is usually the smallest delay time the majority of humans can hear