Its kind of an instigating question cause I know almost nobody here uses tempo changes. The main reason is home recordings by oneself, you dont have a band there to look for tempo cues to speed up or slow down. ANd really, it takes a lot of the life of songs without tempo changes. All the great bands, and even modern ones use varying tempos throughout. I wonder how you can achieve this using a daw?
In cakewalk, there is the ability to use a different bpm for select measures. But you kind of really have to know your numbers. I know how to slow something down for myself, but Im not a machine so I dont know what the gradual exact rpm would mean. If you slow it down from 130 in a chorus to 120 in a bridge, you have to have a way of dropping it lower and lower as you get to that bridge. Its difficult, and whats more, if the goal is to use live musicians say on fiverr, they are not able to do tempo changes. They have to play to a click. Maybe some can, but they are then forced to go by a machine oriented slowing. Just wondered if any have had some success. Ive had modest success with it

I was just listening to the whos You Better You Bet, one of my favorite pop/rock songs of all time, imagine how stale it woulda been without all those tempo changes. Dynamics makes songs great. And home recording kills them!

Listen to the tempo changes in different sections. Cant beat a drummer in the same room with you'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LEF2xltgtY

I use Studio One. Tempo changes in that are easy. You pick a point on the timeline and set the change.

What I have found....

When I am playing and singing, I change the tempo a lot. But usually when I listen to tempo changes in the DAW, they are not of enough benefit to bother with and I end up sticking with a single tempo.

BIAB has a very nice feature. You can load an audio track into it and then go into the AUDIO CHORDS WIZARD where the wav form shows up. You can set bar markers at a few transients then tell BIAB to find the rest of the transients that fall on the 1. Then with a click BIAB will set the bar markers to the beginnings of the bars...in time. It is really good for taking a GV done with no click or loop and then fixing its timing pretty well.

Studio 1 has the bend tool and quantize functions which accomplish the same thing but I have found it to be more tedious and time consuming than BIAB.

As for dynamics...you can go back in and do tempo changes is S1 after an audio track has been set to a single beat. The algorithms protect the timbre of a sound...probably to a point.

Sounds like BIAB is getting very advanced. Its easy enough to do a temp change with a daw, whats not easy is doing it right,,,lol

You dont just go 130 bpm, to 120 bpm, usually one measure or half a measure is gradually slowing. Ive done it and used a rolling drum fill so that I knew when it was starting, happening, and then ending. When your with a live band, you just look at each other, nod heads and use body language to change the tempo. Much easier and natural

Usually cant do very exciting endings to songs because of clicks and tempo.

Im sure there must be drum machines, daws, software that you can press an "auto-slow" button and it would do it for you, maybe have a few variations of temp changes. But I havent seen one or worked with one.

Everything today is click, If you try to attach a click track to a Beatles song, it wont match. It will fall off kilter quickly.

Thats why even the best drum software can still sound robotic, no human plays exactly same speed throughout a song.

As I'm sure you know, EZD has a humanize function which throws the hits off slightly to mimmick a human.
You can also go into a midi editor and do it yourself.
I believe that Studio1 can do it as part of the quantize function.

For me it, depends on the mix. If the mix is thick and the drums are back aways, I'm not too concerned with the hits being perfect. If the drums are real up front, and delivering a mood, I'll look at time shifting them. If you take them into Melodyne you have a lot of control over time shifting.

Listeners are mostly primarily listening to the lyric. I think a lot of stuff is well below their typical awareness. A great deal of the time, I would not notice some "humanization." The various softwares are delivering such a true sound now, that getting rid of the cheesey midi drum sound is not the issue that it was a few years ago.

Depends what kind of music. youre funny with your "ahh good enough reasoning" EZ does have humanizing but that refers to how hard the drum is hit. If the drums were slightly slowing or speeding in a song, you couldnt get.the other instruments to match it. Im talking fractions of seconds. When you record at home you kind of have to go with the same speed all the way through

I remember the old days of quantizing, some people said I dont want to quantize, and they would intentionally play things off time so to try to emulate a real band. I remember one guy playing me a demo, and the kick and crash cymbals were off timed, and when I questioned him he said it was cause he didnt want it to sound robotic. Instead...it sounded like [naughty word removed]! LMAO

Its one thing trying to sound like a real band, its another sounding stupidly so. Drummers dont miss a kick and crash by much, its fractions, and what ends up happening the band catches each other throughout the song. But unless everybody is doing that, then your better off going with precise timing.

We do different kinds of music, we like some of the same kinds of music, but not all of it. You dont seem to get that the sound of a rock band is everything...its not about letting the drums fade in the background so they can hear a vocal....

The sound is so good today you can hear everything in the mix. I remember when cds came out, i said man, i never noticed that bit in the mix before.

But your not doing great rock music by willie nillying the drums. or guitars. But you can make nice demos

No. At 68, I dont write rock music or contemplate what is important to that genre. So the lyrics and vocal being clear and forward matter the most in what I do.
As far as humanization and timing...it's often akin to adjusting a compressor by 1 db. It too subtle for me to even realize. Along with 99.9% of everybody out there.

And if I am dealing with thick mixes, a lot of individual aspects dont break a threshold of notice-ability.

I have a hard time recording balllads, you can get quiet passages of drums, but sometimes it just sounds like a loud rock drummer trying to play softer.

I think I can use EZ successfully for my stuff, im not a hard rocker, and you dont need to be Keith Moon or Jon Bonham to play for me.

I think the trick is not letting the software be the star. Some people think if you put a professional killer sample in your song that makes you better. Alot of times it makes you worse, cause it doesnt seem authentic.

Dont overplay, or over sample cause your probably not that good yourself.

Everything should be a compliment to YOU.

FD

The strings in my DAW sound real "midi." Ive got to get something better but I dont want to spend a lot for the little usage that I have.

In my price range, (150-200), I am down to Analog Strings by Outlook and East-West-Hollywood Strings. Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks

Ps...Never mind. I got a good deal on Hollywood Strings through Sweetwater. Went with that.

Sorry I didnt see it sooner dude...

I tell ya with strings I never worried much, usually you can play a pad of strings without needing to be a great piano player lol. So i always considered them an afterthought, i dont use them much, although I did when I was trying to write commercial songs.

I dont kow much about the strings market to be honest, perhaps John LS does..in fact im sure he does