i've been using a Pro Tools TDM system for about 2 1/2 years now, and never wanted to attempt Beat Detective until recently.

over the last couple months i've messed w/ it here and there, but it seems to make songs worse, if not totally messed up.

how can i learn how to use BD right? or are the 17 year old punk rock bands that come in unfixable in their wavering tempo blast beats and half-time breaks.

maybe i'm confused on what it really can do.

There are a few rules in BD . be sure you have a click track . zoom in the first click to the very attack of the sound and make "identify beat" to a round value (ie 1/1/00) . go to midi-->change tempo and enter the tempo of the song from that beat you just entered . When you're in BD always select the grid mode and no smaller grid than 1 beat . first thing you do in BD is "capture selection"and check if the bars entered by BD are the same as your selection . Then when you analyse, check the points to see if there are not "false triggers" . To delete a point put yourself in "grab mode"(the hand) . If you pres alt you can delete the unwanted hits . I love beat detective ,been using it since the beta version and i've done great things with it,like changing the tempo of a drumtrack to adapt it to another song (this is were the "capture selection" is great) .

You are going to love PT 6 then, there are a lot of groove functions in it for Beat Detective.

seems easy enough, but 75% of these drummers can't play to a click track, or try it once, get pissed off cuz they screw up, then give up on it all together.

is it a lost cause w/out a click?

also. . .generally, do you use BD part for part (a verse or chorus, etc.) or on the full song (minus some intro/outros)??

ps-thumbs up to the speedy replies before!!

You have to have a click track cause BD aligns the hits to a grid (tempo track).I usually don't do the whole song but part by part . depending on the playing I vary the strengh and don't align some of the fills .
Jules , I saw the PT6 demo at AES and yes I'm gonna love it .

I've noticed that if the drummer is ballpark to a click track that it's extremely easy to beat detective the drummer to a perfect clock. I'm not a huge fan of this, but in the pop world, most of my clients want that kind of crap. I prefer using PT like I would a tape machine snipping and splicing. The groove stuff in version 6 might change all that though. I hate the though of me beat detectiving all the feel out of a drum track. I normally do beat detective no more than 8 bars at a time, and usually bar by bar as some bars I don't feel require any edits.

Out of curiosity, how long are you guys/gals setting your fill and crossfade MS's too? The biggest problem I have is getting pops on my kick drums (edits not the on zero point) so I tinker with my fades and fills accordingly.

Wow, in my experience with those kids it's more like 95%. I usually use BD only for parts that are super ****ed. Sometimes with no click I'll just use it to cut up the hits for me and I move them manually from there. Like e-cue, I'll also use PT as a tape machine and maybe get another one or two takes of a problem part (like a half time bridge that's not so half time) after the song, then splice 'em in like we used to do with tape.

BD can be a real timesaver even without a click, especially if your tracks are pretty well isolated (a must for fast punk IMO).

Hope this helps.

yeah, that does help.

last question, hopefully i'm not being totally thick.

BD is used on drums almost all of the time, right?

and it needs to be used on the drum tracks before guitars and everything else are on top of it? in other words, what if a band was well isolated, but recorded live? tempos vary, but eveyone speeds up and slows down together. can it work on all the tracks or should i BD on the drums and redo guits?

thanks

With these kinds of bands I like to concentrate on drums first and then redo the guitars. Usually the gtr and bass will be ****ing up like crazy anyway, and I like to get them in the control where I can see if they're bending strings out of tune and playing the right notes in the song!

Usually not the kind of music that you can lay down killer live band tracks, however, sometimes you can get lucky...

Hey all...here's my little primer on Beat Detective. I posted this already on MixerMan's forum at PSW, and all it got me was a another stupid flame-war from a bunch of tired-bitter-hack-wannabe-hacks. It's just a tool (and a really cool one at that). If used sparingly and/or when necesarry it does the job.

e-cue: If you use a "buffer" of around 5ms it will make the "edit" ahead of the trigger point and it will still make it's calculations based upon the transient (very cool). I't took me a couple of songs to figure that out (alot of zoomin' and fixin' to get those kick "clicks" you mentioned...now no more).
Also I use a 1ms crossfaed w/ my fills.
Play with the swing to keep it sounding groovy.
Palying to a click raelly makes it fast...but I have repaired some pretty horifi roboto drum tracks as well...so the following assumes that there is no click (worst case scenario):

I hope this doesn't beget another philosophical debate amongst the spritually pure amongst us
--------------------------------------



If you need to Fix drums (i.e. edit them) in PT here's some tips,(for a TDM rig w/Beat Detective that is):
1. In the groups window select ALL, and then duplicate palylists so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

2.in the groups window, se;lect ALL and then Considate All tracks afetr youve clened up ypour punches (so that you hera no pops, clicks, etc)...this makes it easy to move every one.

3. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

4. If this wasn't done to a click, you need to find an average tempo. their are sveral ways to achieve this.
[ I personall use Virus on an aux send as my click, driven by PT midi.]
Go to grid mode/bars . Make an empty new audio track near your kick & snare track. in manual mode (on your transport "window") move the manual slider so that you can see the bar lines move untill a bar of grid line up with a bar of the drummer, You'll have to experiment, and it'll probably be differrent and differrent points in the song,,,that's why we're here, right? When you are getting close, Trim ALL play list's up to th downbeat of the song and drag/snap them to bar 1 or 3 ect. ( I usually put it to bar 3 and then renumber bar 3 as bar 1...)
when you pick this tempo...really try it a verious points in the song NOT JUST THE BEGGINING. Pooe drummers usually settle in to a tempo aftre the top, so the top is typically faster/slower than most of the tune.

5. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

6. Ok, So now your whole session is on a grid at a tempo in bars&beats. You now need to do gross edits.
[hit raelly helps to have a click generated by the session]
Beat Detective like you to be close. so Make a group of the drums. Go along the song and when ever you come to a bar where the downbeat is too early and before 1 make an edit across all drum tracks and lay it back (moving it to the right) so that this downbeat is jsut after (or on) 1 of the bar it should be in.

[as you are doing this...if the drummer does a 2/4 bar or a 5/4 bar at the end of a section (pretty common and good for proper song arrangemnet to craet space or tension between sections) make sure you add this in the meter ruler...so that 1 is on and does not become 3, etc]

So...you go through the whole song this way. When you are done you will have the drums close to a click with obvouis gaps.

7. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

8. Open up Beat Detective (Apple+8). Start with the first 4 or 8 bars. Use the Region Separate window. Select Low Emphasis. Capture Selection.
[you must work in whole/half or qouter note inrements in your edit selection]
Analyze. Select sub-beats and move the slider till you see a line on all of the amjor beats. Doing the gross edits that we prevouisly did will make this a breeze. THE REAL TRICK TO MAKE B.D work fast is to enter (say) 5ms in the little box that say somethind about where the edit takes place (I don't have it in front of me...but it's reall obvious). If you don't do this...there will be instances of edits cutting off the transiensty of kicks/snares/ect, and then youll get clicks/ect. BD moves things reletive to where oit palces the "beat markers" but the extar 5ms places the actual edit safelly in front of the beat. This along with our gross ppre-edit means you can fly through the dong fast. Go through and Edit the whole song this way, first, before you do ANY conforming.

9. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.
I and a suffix to the previous playlists like this /BDrs/ which to me means "Beat Detective region seperate". The next playlist (which we jsut made) I call /BDcm? or "BeatDetective conform" [that's when you let Beat Detective move or "conform" your regions] Ther reason I make so many palylists is that you can move fast, and if you get in a pickle or are over zealous its really easy to select the region of qusetion and go back to the poper palylist, apple+C (to copy), select the palylist your workig on, and apple+V (paste) and then redo just that section . Follow me?

10. Now. Go through the entire drum pass now (usually you can do this in bigger chunks, but start small with 8 bar sections till you get the hang of it). Select the Conform wiondow in BD. Capture selection (remenber: whole/half or quater bar increments only). Adjsut the sliders (good starting points: strength 87%, within 10%, swing 10-50%-and 1/8 or 1/16) the trick is to experiment. Conform and play back that first selection, listening to the drums against the click. If it sounds stilted just undo (apple + Z) and adjsut sliders. If it's too robotic add some more swing to lay it back...if it's topo layed back let up or don't use the swing. Listen to it with the swing on the 1/8's or 1/16's. Once you find a particular setting this will probably work across most of the song, with some variation.

once you are done conforming:
11 Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.
12. Listen down. If it sounds great then you can gpo to the last windo of BD. This smooths and fills the gaps. I usually do ,it with crossfades at 1ms..but try it a;so with out crossfades.
Now it sounds raelly good.
13. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.
Consolidate the whole drum track. If you have other keeper instrumenst (like Bass & Rythm gtrs) that you must keep, then do the gross edits, to ALL tarcks so that when your initially moving the drums your also ballparking the other stuff to. If your fixing a really bad drum performance I always then recommend to recut the other stuff. That's the best thing to do, but we all know that we're stuck fixing instead. So.......

-Hope this helps a little.
-rm

Hey all...here's my little primer on Beat Detective. I posted this already on MixerMan's forum at PSW, and all it got me was a another stupid flame-war from a bunch of tired-bitter-hack-wannabe-hacks. It's just a tool (and a really cool one at that). If used sparingly and/or when necesarry it does the job.

e-cue: If you use a "buffer" of around 5ms it will make the "edit" ahead of the trigger point and it will still make it's calculations based upon the transient (very cool). I't took me a couple of songs to figure that out (alot of zoomin' and fixin' to get those kick "clicks" you mentioned...now no more).
Also I use a 1ms crossfaed w/ my fills.
Play with the swing to keep it sounding groovy.
Palying to a click raelly makes it fast...but I have repaired some pretty horifi roboto drum tracks as well...so the following assumes that there is no click (worst case scenario):

I hope this doesn't beget another philosophical debate amongst the spritually pure amongst us
--------------------------------------



If you need to Fix drums (i.e. edit them) in PT here's some tips,(for a TDM rig w/Beat Detective that is):
1. In the groups window select ALL, and then duplicate palylists so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

2.in the groups window, se;lect ALL and then Considate All tracks afetr youve clened up ypour punches (so that you hera no pops, clicks, etc)...this makes it easy to move every one.

3. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

4. If this wasn't done to a click, you need to find an average tempo. their are sveral ways to achieve this.
[ I personall use Virus on an aux send as my click, driven by PT midi.]
Go to grid mode/bars . Make an empty new audio track near your kick & snare track. in manual mode (on your transport "window") move the manual slider so that you can see the bar lines move untill a bar of grid line up with a bar of the drummer, You'll have to experiment, and it'll probably be differrent and differrent points in the song,,,that's why we're here, right? When you are getting close, Trim ALL play list's up to th downbeat of the song and drag/snap them to bar 1 or 3 ect. ( I usually put it to bar 3 and then renumber bar 3 as bar 1...)
when you pick this tempo...really try it a verious points in the song NOT JUST THE BEGGINING. Pooe drummers usually settle in to a tempo aftre the top, so the top is typically faster/slower than most of the tune.

5. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

6. Ok, So now your whole session is on a grid at a tempo in bars&beats. You now need to do gross edits.
[hit raelly helps to have a click generated by the session]
Beat Detective like you to be close. so Make a group of the drums. Go along the song and when ever you come to a bar where the downbeat is too early and before 1 make an edit across all drum tracks and lay it back (moving it to the right) so that this downbeat is jsut after (or on) 1 of the bar it should be in.

[as you are doing this...if the drummer does a 2/4 bar or a 5/4 bar at the end of a section (pretty common and good for proper song arrangemnet to craet space or tension between sections) make sure you add this in the meter ruler...so that 1 is on and does not become 3, etc]

So...you go through the whole song this way. When you are done you will have the drums close to a click with obvouis gaps.

7. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.

8. Open up Beat Detective (Apple+8). Start with the first 4 or 8 bars. Use the Region Separate window. Select Low Emphasis. Capture Selection.
[you must work in whole/half or qouter note inrements in your edit selection]
Analyze. Select sub-beats and move the slider till you see a line on all of the amjor beats. Doing the gross edits that we prevouisly did will make this a breeze. THE REAL TRICK TO MAKE B.D work fast is to enter (say) 5ms in the little box that say somethind about where the edit takes place (I don't have it in front of me...but it's reall obvious). If you don't do this...there will be instances of edits cutting off the transiensty of kicks/snares/ect, and then youll get clicks/ect. BD moves things reletive to where oit palces the "beat markers" but the extar 5ms places the actual edit safelly in front of the beat. This along with our gross ppre-edit means you can fly through the dong fast. Go through and Edit the whole song this way, first, before you do ANY conforming.

9. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.
I and a suffix to the previous playlists like this /BDrs/ which to me means "Beat Detective region seperate". The next playlist (which we jsut made) I call /BDcm? or "BeatDetective conform" [that's when you let Beat Detective move or "conform" your regions] Ther reason I make so many palylists is that you can move fast, and if you get in a pickle or are over zealous its really easy to select the region of qusetion and go back to the poper palylist, apple+C (to copy), select the palylist your workig on, and apple+V (paste) and then redo just that section . Follow me?

10. Now. Go through the entire drum pass now (usually you can do this in bigger chunks, but start small with 8 bar sections till you get the hang of it). Select the Conform wiondow in BD. Capture selection (remenber: whole/half or quater bar increments only). Adjsut the sliders (good starting points: strength 87%, within 10%, swing 10-50%-and 1/8 or 1/16) the trick is to experiment. Conform and play back that first selection, listening to the drums against the click. If it sounds stilted just undo (apple + Z) and adjsut sliders. If it's too robotic add some more swing to lay it back...if it's topo layed back let up or don't use the swing. Listen to it with the swing on the 1/8's or 1/16's. Once you find a particular setting this will probably work across most of the song, with some variation.

once you are done conforming:
11 Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.
12. Listen down. If it sounds great then you can gpo to the last windo of BD. This smooths and fills the gaps. I usually do ,it with crossfades at 1ms..but try it a;so with out crossfades.
Now it sounds raelly good.
13. Duplicate palylists again, so you can easily get back to a version of things as they are now.
Consolidate the whole drum track. If you have other keeper instrumenst (like Bass & Rythm gtrs) that you must keep, then do the gross edits, to ALL tarcks so that when your initially moving the drums your also ballparking the other stuff to. If your fixing a really bad drum performance I always then recommend to recut the other stuff. That's the best thing to do, but we all know that we're stuck fixing instead. So.......

-Hope this helps a little.
-rm

By the time you do all of the above, I'd have finished editing ( the "old fashioned way"...cut, move, extend...going deep) a rock drum track ...each kick, snare and tom to the beat (plus tom automation), fully consolidated...top to bottom in an hour.
BeatDefective (Matt Hyde's name for it) is too wonky.

well...the above may read long. But it isn't. I'd have beat you in way less than an hour...with better results. And It shows that Matt dosen't know how to do this(nor whomever is using PT for him...last I saw, and it was a couple of years ago...he has someone else use it). I'm not suprised.

Besides...this lets you keep (believe it or not) some humanity in it. Putting every hit ON the beat is what makes everyone complain about PT, etc. And tom automation....what's that? Beat Detective is to massage less than stellar groove. Tom automation leads one to conclude that the recording is equally wrong.