Beat Mapping not finding "right" transients (?)

Does it happen when you invert the phase of the sample?

No, I meant inverting the phase of the signal - making positive signal negative, and negative positive. You can do this in the sample editor.

I was just wondering whether the transient detection might be thrown off by a negative initial transient.

Doesn't make that much sense, though, since 200 ms late (on the upswing of the waveform) would mean a frequency of about 10 Hz, which probably shouldn't be on the recording at all.

I do a LOT of beatmapping in Logic and I know what you mean. Sometimes there's even a clear transient in the track and Logic misses it entirely, or it finds one but is off. I just have to use the key command CONTROL SHIFT to drag the line to where it SHOULD be rather than where Logic says it is.

It gets a lot of things right on, but sometimes you want to scratch your head, yes.

TH

nearly none of the transients that get generated are on any sort of strong beat

I used to run into this problem a lot, and then I noticed that Ableton Live does a much better job of locating the strong beats. So now sometimes I use Live to assist in the process of Logic beat-mapping. The neat thing about the technique I use is that it works well even if you only have the demo version of Live.

I grab the track and open it in Live, and I set it as the Live tempo "master." Live has automatically found the beats, and the Live grid will now follow those beats. It's just like beat mapping, except that it happened inside Live.

Now I use Soundflower to send Live's audio to Logic. I turn on the Live metronome, and I record that metronome onto a track in Logic. Now I have a click which represents the varying tempo of my track.

This click track is the equivalent of what Logic calls "a self-recorded metronome region." I can now follow the instructions Logic provides on p. 1045, "Automatic Beat Mapping of Regions" ( pdf).

What I've done is use my original track to create a tempo map inside Live, and then I've sent that tempo map from Live to Logic. So I've used Live just for the part that it handles better than Logic: accurately finding the downbeats in a complex signal. And then once that click track is inside Logic, Logic does a nice job of reading that and using it as the basis for automatic beat mapping.

If anyone needs more details, just ask.

That's a nice technique - thanks for posting.

Live is such a useful collection of audio tools, and makes a great partner for Logic, as it's really strong in areas where Logic is weak at, and vice versa. I just wish they'd figure out how to keep the plugins in Live working when it's a rewire slave...

Hi Bee Jay, thanks for the compliment. Yes, it's too bad about ReWire and Live plugins. A partial workaround in some circumstances might be to use Soundflower instead of ReWire.

I greatly enjoy both Live and Logic. But with the features added to Logic lately (especially Flex), I use Live much less than before. I used to prefer Live for loop-oriented work, but now I prefer Logic. Logic has some advantages in that area that I find irresistible, generally regarding Apple Loops.

Take a simple, important thing like sorting Apple Loops by tempo in the Loops Browser. Live has no ability to search/sort loops by tempo. Likewise regarding pitch. Also, Live has no ability to auto-transpose a loop during preview.

On the other hand, Live can preview any audio at the project tempo, even if it has never seen that audio before. It detects the tempo in real time, a very helpful ability. With Logic, this (i.e., previewing at the project tempo) happens only if the file has been saved as an Apple Loop. A comparison of these features can be roughly summarized as follows: Live's loop-related features emphasize tempo rather than pitch, and Logic does the reverse. That's oversimplified, but it captures part of what's happening.

Oops, I guess I'm going off-topic. But not really, because I bet the technology that allows Live to detect tempo in real time (when previewing audio) is the same technology that allows it to beat Logic when it comes to finding beats properly for the purpose of beat mapping.

Indeed, agree with a lot of what you say. I like Live for futzing about with - either generating ideas, or I'll sometimes move a basic Logic arrangement over to Live to jam around with, before moving the improvised arrangement back to Logic for final polishing.

Welcome over here from that "other place" 45rpm... nice to have to here! 😉

I stuck with Live 6 which is getting abit long in the tooth now. I didn't think that L8 had much to make me want to upgrade, but the automatic analysis of tracks on it's own is very cool and much much better than it was in older versions, so I might have to upgrade...

Welcome over here from that "other place"

Thanks, I figured you would recognize me. I decided I might as well see what things are like in this other neighborhood.

Live 6 which is getting abit long in the tooth now

Yes, I used Live 6 for a long time, and then was disappointed to discover that 10.6 broke it, badly. I think Ableton could have issued a fix, but they would rather sell you Live 8, which I suppose is understandable. But I wish they had made a different decision. I know 8 has some nice new features, but I was pretty satisfied with 6.

Yeah. I first became aware of it when I updated some Spectrasonics instruments, particularly RMX, which all of a sudden broke heavily in Live 6 (their GUI's no longer worked at all).

On contacting Spectrasonics, I was told that they no longer support Live 6 anymore... Still, it's £200 to update from 6 to 8, which is not a small amount of money, especially considering I haven't been getting a lot of use out of it of late... I can probably put that £200 to better use.

What's the deal with Live 6 and Snow Leopard then? Anything major?

Yes, it's definitely major. Totally unusable. Trying to close one project and open another usually results in "Live quit unexpectedly." Lots of other actions also lead to that result.

Live 6.0.11 was working flawlessly with 10.5.8. Solid as a rock. I used it constantly. Then I installed 10.6, and it fell apart. Very disappointing. And I have a feeling it's Ableton's fault, not Apple's fault.

And it's not just me, a bunch of other people reported similar issues:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=123041&start=0

I have very mixed feelings about Live vs. Logic. In many areas, Logic is far ahead. On the other hand, Live's Session view is pretty addictive. I keep trying to simulate it in a Logic Arrange window, but it's really not the same.

Just been having a quick play to see how it's performing for me - I have Live 6.0.10 and 10.6.2, and I've not managed to get it to crash yet, it seems stable, I can open/save projects fine.

(I'm not doubting what you say at all, just seeing how it behaves here...)

I'm not doubting what you say at all

As usual, you're being very courteous. On the contrary, I'm grateful that you're trying it, and that you're speaking up. I was assuming it was a universal problem, because I had seen reports of other people having the same experience I had. But it's entirely possible that there's more to it, and there are other factors that influence the problem. Now you're encouraging me to test it some more, to see if I can get it to work. I had more-or-less given up. I'm very happy to hear about your experience, because it makes me hopeful. Thank you!

I have Live 6.0.10 and 10.6.2

Previously, I had 6.0.10 and 10.6. And then I think I tried it again with 10.6.2. And then I tried it again with 10.6.3, and 6.0.11. Always lots of problems. But now I think I need to look more closely, and see if there's some other ingredient here that's influencing the situation.