JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Recording Tempo Changes

It's a lost art, online anyway, I don't think I ve ever heard an Internet song with tempo changes.

Cause it's all about click tracks, and it's much easier playing same tempo all through. Even online drummers can't record tempo changes I guess cause of the click too.

Just wondered if anybody has attempted it? It's easy enough to change tempo for a few measures, the hard part is leading into it, and getting out of it

Like if your tempo is 135,:and you want 80 for a section, how would you approach that?

It's one of the reasons online music seems stale, no tempo changes...

Maybe not stale, but limited as to idiom. IOW you don't hear a lot of Prog Rock or Zappa-like eclecticism getting made on DAWs, I don't think. The medium influences the genre.

For several years I struggled with this same conundrum: the tempo changes are easy enough to put in the same project, but it severely limits how one can then edit, past the point of the tempo change. IOW, locating specific points past the tempo change becomes a tedious process of trial and error.

My personal solution has been to treat each tempo as a separate project, joining the finished sections together in final simple project involving the finished work in each tempo. I have a few like that in the vault. Been awhile, though.

Let's consider going double time or vice versa NOT a tempo change since all the beats still fall in the right places.

Now...if the two tempo's relate at a low ratio like 3 to 2 (120 to 80) one can foreshadow the tempo change with a 3/2 triplet lick BEFORE the change. This kinda thing happens all the time in most jazz idioms. It makes for natural easy transitions. There's even a word for it in classical music 20th Century music theory, "metric modulation."

Higher ratios like 135 to 80 (27 to 16 ratio or 27/16) would seem to demand more creative approaches, cuz the two tempos don't relate to each other in a way we can physically or mentally feel. Usually I don't try to force any foreshadowing since it'll just sound like the performance is wrong or outside. I just modulate directly, keeping each part as separate. Then, to a listener, it makes a storytelling "narrative" kind of sense: like one has hopped to a different place--a "meanwhile back in the jungle" kinda thing...

There are occasions to simply ignore a tempo change that occurs in one's project, especially if it comes late in a piece (like a "ritardando" slowing down at the end), or if it drops back into the original tempo neatly into the piano scroll on the beat. I think I've done this a time or two, as well. IOW, one does not attempt to change the tempo in the DAW, just change the music, and use your ear, on these occasions.

Thanks Mike, yeah that's the kind of thing I was looking for, a formula to gradually getting there.

See a live band, they just need to look at each other and nudge into it.

Diy on software much different.

I use cut time often, which creates the illusion of a tempo changes, but if not changed, is still the same tempo.

Yeah I'm not recording a yes track, or a rush track, but tempo changes are in and should be in all genres,.

I did have succes once. What I did was use a drum fill fir a whole measure, and split the one measure into 4, each split fit 4 bpm slower, until the next measure which was slower again. Getting out wasn't as easy.

But live music fluctuates in tempo, that's how I can impress your friends in knowing what's real and what's not

Btw, try recording this in your daw lol.

The who maybe mt favorite band if all time, this song came after noon, but in my opinion is one of the finest pop songs ever recorded, it just has everything you need in a song. When I was a kid this was a sing that meant the world to me, I discovered their older stuff after.

But aside from being one of the top pop songs ever, there must be 5 to ten subtle and nor so subtle tempo changes in it,

Sing makes me smile from ear to ear, great lyrics too

Enjoy!

A tempo change for effect is cool, but... too much of it gets a little weird lol

https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14555144

That's fuckin cool man. Your stuff seems to come so close, just needs some polish, but your ideas are great.

Here is a galfu g example of tempo changes in pop music ..

You just don't hear much of it any more, another reason why modern music sucks.

Then, of course...

Yuo, and while on subject of Queen

This song blows my mind every time, time sig and tempo changes, not to mention music that sounds like a bicycle....

Genius

Little heavy for me but some talented dudes

But really all music played by human beings changes tempo often measure by measure

FD,

Its not hard recording tempo changes on a grid using bars/measures--I would not recommend it using "seconds" for your recording time settings. Basically with Studio One DAW, you just set (automate) when/where you want to change tempo for a section then set the bpm to what you want. Before doing so, you need to experiment with bpm to find what you are looking for and like. You can still do it without setting the grid to change the tempo if you are all on the same page recording, but if you are using or getting tracks from different sources, you should to let them know what the tempo changes are bpm so they can adjust their recording accordingly in sync with your scratch track you sent to them. I've utilized a few tempo changes with Bridges and outros for effect.

If you slow somthing down twice as slow, or speed up twice as fast........you can keep your bpm and just double-time or reduce double-time without changing or automating the grid speed.

steady-eddie.

Hey thanks Eddie, I agree it's not hard to actually set and record a tempo changes. Just slice your drum track, and slow down the sliced part.

Ez drummer I dint even have to use the daw, I can do it in the stand alone unit.

The hard part is, making the changes seem natural. You wouldn't abruptly go from 130 to 80, without a gradual decline. I believe the musical term would be retardando...

The downside to changing tempo is the way the industry is now, you lose universal usage production wise, nobody online wants to work with time changes.

Unless you do a zoom session with live musicians.

I'm not actually sure I should record tempo changes, maybe just record sings that I don't need them.

But it's a part of music

Yes a tempo change generally needs a break/pause/launch to make the transition work so that its noticeable, yet seamless. They are effective and dramatic IMO if musically done well.

steady