Chapter 22: Beat Detective. Avid Technology Pro Tools HD 6.4, Pro Tools LE 6.4, PRO TOOLS MIX 51

Chapter 22: Beat Detective

Beat Detective (TDM systems only) is a powerful tool for analyzing, editing, and manipulating audio with an inherent rhythmic character.

Beat Detective analyzes an audio selection, identifies its peak transients, and generates beat trig-

gers based on the detected peak transients. From these beat triggers, Beat Detective can:

• Extract tempo and beat information to create

Bar|Beat Markers that can be used to define

the session’s tempo map. See “Generating

Bar|Beat Markers with Beat Detective” on page 341.

• Extract tempo and groove information as groove templates, called DigiGrooves. These templates can be used in Beat Detective to apply to audio (TDM systems only). DigiGroove templates can also be used with Groove Quantize for MIDI data (all Pro Tools systems). See

“DigiGroove Templates” on page 342.

• Separate the audio selection into discrete regions, and then conform (or “quantize”) separated regions to the session’s tempo map, or to groove templates (Pro Tools 6.x only). See

“Separating Regions with Beat Detective” on page 344 and “Conforming Regions with Beat

Detective” on page 346.

Beat Detective and Source Material

Beat Detective is most effective with rhythmic audio material that has strong percussive attacks

(including most instruments used in popular music, such as drums, guitar, or bass). Beat Detective will be less successful with audio material with soft attacks, or legato phrasing (such as strings and vocals).

While Beat Detective has intelligent analysis algorithms with extrapolation for detecting rhythmic material, some material may deviate too far from the rhythmic grid, or have tempo or meter changes that are too varied, to be useful with Beat Detective.

Uses for Beat Detective

Beat Detective can be useful in many situations, including:

Extracting Tempo from Audio Beat Detective can generate Bar|Beat Markers, from which it can extract the tempo—even if the audio contains varying tempos, or material with a swing feel.

Additionally, once Bar|Beat Markers have been generated, other audio and MIDI regions can be quantized to them.

Chapter 22: Beat Detective 333

Creating DigiGrooves (Pro Tools 6.x Only) Beat

Detective can extract groove templates, called

DigiGrooves, from an audio selection. Digi-

Grooves can be used to apply the groove, or feel of the captured passage to other audio selections

(using Groove Conform) or MIDI data (using

Groove Quantize).

Conforming Audio Regions Beat Detective can conform (“quantize”) audio with a different tempo, or with varying tempos, to the session’s current tempo map, or to a groove template

(Pro Tools 6.x only).

“Tighten Up” Performances Beat Detective can be used to improve the timing of some audio material by calculating and extracting its average tempo, and then conforming its rhythmic components—regions separated with Beat Detective—to the session’s tempo map.

Loop Matching Since Beat Detective can extract tempo and beat information from audio, and conform audio to an existing tempo map or groove template, this makes it very useful for aligning loops with different tempos or grooves.

If a loop is at a different tempo than the current session, Beat Detective lets you quickly separate each beat in the loop and conform them to the tempo map (as an alternative to time compressing or expanding the loop, which can alter the pitch and tone of the audio).

Remixes Beat Detective can be used for remixes or creating new rhythms. It can extract tempo from the original drum tracks, or in some instances the original stereo mix. New audio or

MIDI tracks can then be conformed to the original material, or the original material can be conformed to new drum tracks, achieving an entirely new feel.

Smoothing Post Production Edits Beat Detective’s Edit Smoothing can be used to automatically clean up foley tracks that contain many regions requiring trimming and crossfading, effectively removing the gaps of silence between the regions (thus retaining the room tone throughout the track).

Beat Detective Requirements

Beat Detective is only available on Pro Tools

TDM systems.

RAM Requirements for Beat Detective

Beat Detective operations can require a large amount of RAM, especially when working with multiple tracks and lengthy selections.

To avoid low memory situations with Beat Detective, do the following:

• If you begin to experience slower Beat Detective response, add more RAM to your computer.

• If your computer does not have the extra

RAM, work with shorter selections, or individual tracks.

• Set the Editing Preference for Levels of Undo

to a smaller value (see “Levels of Undo and

Memory” on page 220). Memory-intensive

editing operations, such as Edit Smoothing with Beat Detective, can use up a large amount of memory when in the Undo queue.

334 Pro Tools Reference Guide

The Beat Detective Window

The Beat Detective window appears as shown in Figure 18, below.

Figure 18. Beat Detective

To open the Beat Detective window:

■

Choose Windows > Show Beat Detective.

– or –

■

Press Control+8 (Windows) or Command+8

(Macintosh) on the numeric keypad.

Beat Detective is a floating window that can be left open while working. This lets you adjust the controls in real time during playback, while viewing the beat triggers that appear in your selection in the Edit window.

Groove Template Extraction Extracts the rhythmic and dynamic information from audio, and saves this information to the Groove Clipboard, or as a DigiGroove template.

Region Separation Separates and creates new regions based on transients detected in the audio selection.

Region Conform Conforms all separated regions within the selection to the current tempo map.

In Pro Tools 6.x, Beat Detective can conform audio regions to groove templates (such as Digi-

Groove templates) in addition to standard quantization.

Edit Smoothing Fills the gaps between conformed regions by automatically trimming them, and if you choose, inserts crossfades.

Beat Detective Modes

The Beat Detective window is divided into three sections: Mode, Selection, and Detection. Depending on the current mode, the other controls in the window change. The Selection options for Beat Detective are available in each of the modes.

The Beat Detective modes include the following:

Bar|Beat Marker Generation Generates Bar|Beat

Markers corresponding to transients detected in the audio selection.


Defining a Beat Detective

Selection

Whether you will be generating Bar|Beat Markers, extracting a DigiGroove template, or separating regions to be conformed, you must always define the audio selection to be analyzed.

The Beat Detective window provides tools to define and capture the selection range, time signature, and swing (sub-division) content for the selected audio.

To ensure the best possible results with Beat

Detective, make sure the selected passage starts exactly on the attack of the first beat.

Zooming in to the sample level to start the selection will help ensure there is no space before the first beat.

For Beat Detective to generate beat triggers that are metrically accurate, the length and meter of the selection must be correctly defined. In addition, the selection should not contain any meter or tempo changes.

Use Loop playback to check the accuracy of your selection.

To define a selection for Beat Detective:

1 In the Edit window, select a range of audio material in a single track or in multiple tracks.

To keep the Edit selection intact while playing or looping from any location, deselect

Operations > Link Edit and Timeline Selection.

Make sure the selection’s start and end points fall cleanly on the beat. To zero in on start and end points, zoom to the sample level and use

the Tab to Transients option (see “Tabbing to

Transients” on page 254).

Save and recall an Edit selection by saving it

as a Memory Location. See “Memory Locations and Markers” on page 324.

2 Choose Windows > Show Beat Detective.

3 You must define or capture the selection every time you make a new selection or change the tempo map. To define the selection range, do one of the following:

• If the tempo and meter of the audio selection do not match the session’s default tempo and meter, enter the Time Signature, and Start Bar|Beat and End Bar|Beat locations. For a four-bar selection that starts on beat 1, enter 1|1 and 5|1.

• If the tempo and meter of the audio selection do not match the session’s default tempo and meter, and you are unsure of the length of the material, enter the Time

Signature and the Start Bar|Beat location; then start playback, and click the Tap button repeatedly to automatically calculate the End Bar|Beat. When using Tap with long selections, continue to tap until the

End Bar|Beat stabilizes. Once stabilized, you may need to manually adjust the number to the nearest bar boundary.

Making an audio selection for Beat Detective


• If the selection’s tempo and meter match

the session tempo and meter (see “Calculating Tempo with Beat Detective” on page 337), and it aligns correctly with the

session’s bars and beats, click the Capture

Selection button. The correct Time Signature, and Start Bar|Beat and End Bar|Beat values will be filled in automatically.

Beat Detective, Selection options

As long as the audio material is correctly aligned with the session’s tempo map, use

Capture Selection each time you make a new selection or make any changes to the tempo map (such as changing tempo or meter).

Calculating Tempo with Beat

Detective

If you know the meter, and start and end points of the audio selection, use Beat Detective to calculate its tempo.

To calculate a selection’s tempo with Beat

Detective:

1 Make an audio selection in the Edit window and define the selection in the Beat Detective

window as described in “Defining a Beat Detective Selection” on page 336.

2 Select Bar|Beat Marker Generation mode.

3 In the Detection section (Normal mode), click

Analyze.

4 Set the Sensitivity slider set to 0%

The Selection definition is not retained when a session is closed and re-opened

4 To improve Beat Detective’s accuracy in analyzing swung notes, select the Contains option that indicates the smallest sub-division of the beat contained in the selection. The Contains options include eighth-note, sixteenth-note

(the default setting), thirty-second-note, and triplet modifier. In Pro Tools 6.x, the selected

Contains option determines the groove template grid locations for DigiGroove templates.

Beat Detective, Detection mode

5 Click Generate.

Bar|Beat Markers are automatically generated at the beginning and end of the selection, indicating the material’s tempo and meter.

Beat Detective generated Bar|Beat Markers identifying tempo and meter


Generating Beat Triggers

Once you’ve accurately defined the selection range, Beat Detective can generate beat triggers based on detected peak transients. The range and type of transients found can be adjusted with the Detection settings, allowing you to zero in on the bars, beats, and sub-beats in the material, while avoiding the non-rhythmic content.

6 Depending on the rhythmic content of the selection, set the Resolution to Bars, Beats, or Sub-

Beats.

7 Adjust the Sensitivity slider until beat triggers appear on the beats and sub-beats in the selection.

Bar triggers are indicated with thick lines, beat triggers with medium lines, and sub-beat triggers with thin lines.

Beat Detective, Detection (Normal mode) options

To generate beat triggers for the selection:

1 In the Edit window, make an audio selection.

2 In the Beat Detective window, select one of the following modes:

• Bar|Beat Marker Generation

• Groove Template Extraction (Pro Tools 6.x only)

• Region Separation

3 Define or capture the selection as described in

“Defining a Beat Detective Selection” on page 336.

4 From the Analysis pop-up menu, choose one of the following detection algorithms:

• High Emphasis, works well with high frequency, inharmonic material, such as cymbals and hi-hats, while avoiding low frequency material.

• Low Emphasis, works well with low frequency material, such as bass guitar and kick drum, as well as with most harmonic material, such as piano or rhythm guitar.

5 Click the Analyze button.


Beat Sub-Beats Bar

Beat triggers

8 In Pro Tools 6.x, you can zoom to the sample level and click the Scroll Next button to scroll to the next trigger within the selection. To scroll to the previous trigger, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Macintosh) the Scroll Next button

(see “Navigating Consecutive Beat Triggers” on page 341). This is useful to confirm that the beat

triggers are appearing in the appropriate locations. If false triggers appear between the beats or sub-beats (representing non-rhythmic material)

delete them (see “Deleting Beat Triggers” on page 339), or reduce the Sensitivity value.

9 To display the metric locations for the triggers, select the Show Trigger Time option.

10 If you cannot get the beat triggers to appear

at the right locations, repeat steps 4–9 trying the

other Analysis algorithm (High or Low Emphasis). In addition, see the following tips.

Tips for Getting Useful Beat Triggers

Use the following tips to verify beat triggers:

◆ To focus on a particular area in the selection, unlink the Edit and Timeline Selections and set the playback range by clicking or dragging in any Timebase Ruler.

◆ Check the thickness of the beat triggers to see if they align properly with the audio material.

Thick triggers fall on barlines, medium triggers fall on beats, and thin triggers fall on sub-beats.

◆ Select the option for Show Trigger Time and see if the (assumed) metric locations of the triggers align with the material. A false trigger should be moved or deleted because it can cause subsequent triggers to appear in the wrong loca-

tions (see “Editing Beat Triggers” on page 339).

◆ Consider whether lengthy selections should first be broken down into smaller selections, which could be more easily managed. For example, working in 8- or 4-bar sections might yield better results more quickly.

◆ For selections across multiple tracks, consider whether it may be easier to work with them in-

dividually, or in Collection mode (see “Detection (Normal) and Collection Mode” on page 349).

Editing Beat Triggers

Even though Beat Detective offers a great deal of flexibility in how transients are detected, there may be times when beat triggers must be deleted, moved, or manually inserted. Additionally, triggers can be promoted so they are retained at lower sensitivity settings.

Deleting Beat Triggers

False triggers, which do not represent an actual beat or sub-beat in the source material, may appear when raising the Sensitivity slider to detect quiet material. In these instances you can locate and manually delete any false triggers.

To delete a beat trigger:

1 With the Beat Detective window open, choose the Grabber tool in the Edit window.

2 Locate the false trigger you want to delete.

Transients for false triggers usually have smaller peaks than the other trigger points, and typically fall between the sub-beats.

Deleting a beat trigger

3 Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Macintosh) the trigger to delete it.

Moving Beat Triggers

You can adjust the placement of triggers to allow for the attack of their transients, or to compensate for an individual transient that is slightly ahead of or behind the beat.


To move a beat trigger:


2 Locate the beat trigger you want to move and drag it left or right.

Moving a beat trigger

Inserting Beat Triggers

If an important beat or sub-beat is not detected, because it is too quiet, you can manually insert a beat trigger.

To insert a beat trigger:


2 Click in the selection where you want to insert the new trigger. After inserting a beat trigger, you can drag it left or right to adjust its place-

ment (see “Moving Beat Triggers” on page 339).

If you click too close to an existing trigger, the existing trigger will be moved to the new location.

Promoting Beat Triggers

To ensure that important beat triggers do not disappear when lowering the Sensitivity value, you can promote them. This is useful if a selection has numerous false triggers (too many to bother deleting) at a Sensitivity level where crucial, necessary beat triggers are also displayed. If lowering the Sensitivity slider causes the needed triggers to disappear, simply promote them first.

To promote a beat trigger:

1 Raise the Sensitivity slider until the desired transient is detected and a beat trigger appears.

2 Control-click (Windows) or Command-click

(Macintosh) the beat trigger to promote it.

3

If necessary, repeat steps 1–2 to promote addi-

tional beat triggers.

4 Lower the Sensitivity slider to a value where the false triggers disappear.

Once beat triggers are promoted, they will only disappear if the Sensitivity value is set to 0%. To

demote all beat triggers in the selection—returning them to their original state—click the Analyze button.

Redefining a Beat Trigger’s Metric

Location

It is vital that beat triggers are accurately placed at the correct metric location. If a detected transient is slightly off the beat, Beat Detective may assign it, as well as other transients in the selection, to the wrong metric location.

For example, if you have a bass track where a note was intended to be a downbeat, but was played too early, Beat Detective may define its location as occurring a little before the down-


beat. If you then separate and conform the region containing this note, it will be moved to the wrong location. Subsequent regions may be moved to the wrong locations as well.

If a beat trigger is not assigned the correct metric location, relocate it using Identify Trigger.

To change the metric location of a beat trigger:

1 Double-click the beat trigger you want to relocate. The Identify Trigger dialog opens.

2 In the Identify Trigger dialog, enter the correct location for the trigger, then click OK.

Identify Trigger dialog

Navigating Consecutive Beat Triggers

Use the Scroll Next button to move from the currently selected beat trigger to the next beat trigger. To move to the previous beat trigger,

Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Macintosh) the Scroll Next button. This is particularly useful for editing consecutive beat triggers when zoomed in at the sample level.

Generating Bar|Beat Markers with Beat Detective

Once Beat Detective has accurately detected the peak transients in the audio selection and accurately generated beat triggers, the triggers can be converted to Bar|Beat Markers. Bar|Beat Markers generated by Beat Detective create a tempo map that can be used throughout the session.

Once beat triggers are accurately represented according to Bars, Beats, and Sub-Beats, other audio regions and MIDI notes can be conformed to the Bar|Beat Markers generated by Beat Detective.

If you want to match the audio material to the session’s existing tempo map or a groove template, do not generate Bar|Beat Markers from the material. Instead, use Beat Detective to separate

and conform the material (see “Separating Regions with Beat Detective” on page 344).

To generate Bar|Beat Markers with Beat

Detective:


2 In the Beat Detective window, select Bar|Beat

Marker Generation mode.



4 Set the Detection resolution to Bars or Beats, and configure the Detection settings so the selection’s peak transients are accurately detected

(see “Generating Beat Triggers” on page 338).

5 Click the Generate button.


Bar|Beat Markers are generated, based on the beat triggers, and appear in the Tempo Ruler.

Bar|Beat Markers generated at Bar resolution

Bar|Beat Markers generated at Beat resolution

Working with Sub-Beats

Tempo is derived from Bar|Beat Markers.

Groove, or feel, is derived from Sub-Beats—the deviation of subdivisions of the beat from the strict tempo grid determines the groove or feel.

To extract the groove from a selection, set the

Detection Resolution to Sub-Beats. This ensures that the inner rhythms within each bar (if they indeed exist) are represented when generating

Bar|Beat Markers. These Bar|Beat Markers can then be used to quantize other audio regions or

MIDI tracks, thereby conforming to the Bar|Beat

Markers generated by Beat Detective.

When quantizing regions or MIDI notes to

Bar|Beat Markers on sub-beats that represent a swing feel, make sure to use a straight quantize value (with the Swing option for Quantize disabled).

DigiGroove Templates

Beat Detective allows the fine timing nuances of a rhythmic performance to be extracted and saved as a groove template, called a DigiGroove template. DigiGrooves can be saved locally to the Groove Clipboard, or saved to disk as Digi-

Grooves.

Groove templates can be used to transfer the feel of a particular performance to:

• Selected audio regions using Groove Conform

(see “Groove Conform” on page 347).

• Selected MIDI data using Groove Quantize

(see “Groove Quantize” on page 385).

Groove templates are “quantization maps” derived from real musical performances. The rhythmic character of each performance is analyzed and stored as a groove template. Beat Detective analyzes an audio selection for transient peaks according to a defined threshold and maps the rhythmic relationships to a 960 parts per quarter note (ppq) template.

When create DigiGroove templates, Beat Detective also analyzes the dynamics of a performance. Accents and peak levels are incorporated into the groove template as velocity data, which can be applied to change the dynamics of MIDI tracks. Beat Detective translates amplitude to

MIDI velocity according to a linear scale. For example, a 0 dBFS signal equals a MIDI velocity of

127, a signal at –6 dBFS equals a MIDI velocity of

64, a signal at –12 dBFS equals a MIDI velocity of

32, and –48 dBFS equals a MIDI velocity of 1.

Capturing this information is very important to preserving the feel of a performance, and can add life to MIDI tracks that lack dynamics.

Beat Detective does not capture duration data.


To extract a Groove Template:


The selection should consist of one or more complete bars, starting and ending on downbeats.

When extracting Groove Templates, the captured selection must not include

Bar|Beat Markers. Otherwise, the accuracy of the Groove Template will be compromised.

2 In the Beat Detective window, select Groove

Template Extraction mode.



4 Configure the Detection options so the selection’s peak transients are accurately detected


5 Click the Extract button.

6 In the Extract Groove Template dialog, enter comments about the groove. You can enter a maximum of 255 characters to describe the groove. Comments can be viewed using the

Show Info button in the Beat Detective window.

Extract Groove Template dialog

7 Do one of the following:

• To save the extracted template for use in the current session, without writing the template file to disk, click Save To Groove

Clipboard. (This template will be lost when you close the current session.)

• To save the extracted template to disk in order to use it in other sessions or share it with other Pro Tools users, click Save To

Disk. Enter a name for the template and click Save. (Do not change the location of

DigiGroove template files and folders or they will not be available in your sessions.)

• Click Cancel to cancel without saving the template.

Use folders and subdirectories to organize

DigiGroove templates. However, be sure they are always located in

Applications/Digidesign/Pro Tools/Groove.

Groove template files located elsewhere will not be available in either Groove Quantize or Beat Detective).

Swing Content for Generating Groove

Templates

When defining swing content of the selection, select the Contains eighth-note option if the audio selection has a heavily swung eighth-note groove. If the audio selection has relatively straight eighth-notes, use the Contains sixteenth-note option. This lets the resultant Digi-

Groove template be applied more easily elsewhere. Although a groove might be based upon non-swung eighth-note material, you might want to apply the template to material that contains sixteenth-notes. If a template only has eighth-note resolution, but the material being conformed contains sixteenth-notes, adjacent sixteenth-notes will be mapped to the same eighth-note location.


Groove Extrapolation

Beat Detective’s ability to extract tempo data from a wide range of material is enhanced by its powerful “groove extrapolation” logic. Groove extrapolation automatically generates beat triggers for inclusion in groove templates even if a peak transient is not detected. For example, a drum loop might not have a hit on beat 3, consequently no peak transient is detected and no beat trigger is generated. Beat Detective will extrapolate from other beat triggers in the selection and create a trigger for beat 3 in the groove template.

In addition, extrapolated triggers preserve the feel of triggers generated from detected peak transients. For example, if a bar of kick drum detected three beat triggers, all of which were 20 ticks ahead of the beat, any extrapolated beat triggers will also be mapped 20 ticks ahead of the beat.

To separate regions with Beat Detective:


2 In the Beat Detective window, select Region

Separation mode.





5 Click the Separate button.

Regions are separated based on the detected beat triggers.

Trigger Pad

When separating regions, the Beat Detective window displays an option called Trigger Pad.

Separating Regions with

Beat Detective

Once beat triggers appear in your selection, they can be used to define start and end points for new regions that can be separated automatically. The new regions can then be conformed to the session’s existing tempo map, or to a groove template (Pro Tools 6.x only).

If you want to clean up the timing for the selection, without affecting the tempo, make sure to first calculate the tempo by generating Bar|Beat

Markers (see “Calculating Tempo with Beat Detective” on page 337).

Detection settings, Region Separation mode

Enter a value (0–50 ms) in this field to pad region start points—where the point of separation is located in relation to the beat trigger (transient). This creates a space between the region start point and the region sync point, thereby ensuring that the attack portion of the material remains intact.

Region start

(point of separation)

20

Sync point

(beat trigger)

Separated region with 20 ms Trigger Pad


When conforming separated regions, the region sync point, not the region start point, determines where the region is placed.

For more information on region sync points,

see “Defining Region Sync Points” on page 265.

Separating Multiple Tracks

You can use beat triggers from a single track, or subset of tracks, to separate a group of tracks.

In the following example, the defined selection is a drum loop consisting of two bars of 5/4. The kick, snare, hi-hat, and overhead microphones are recorded to separate tracks.

Analyzing the loop’s kick drum track, with Detection Resolution set to Beats, Beat Detective places beat triggers at the transients on beats 1

and 4 (see Figure 19).

Extending the selection to the snare, hi-hat, and overhead microphones tracks, and then performing the separation, results in separated regions in each of the drum tracks at the same location, based on the beat triggers from the kick

drum track (see Figure 20).

Figure 19. Kick drum track

Figure 20. Kick drum, snare, hi-hat, and overhead microphones tracks

The separated regions can then be conformed as a group.

You can also utilize Collection mode when working with multiple tracks. Collection mode lets you analyze and detect triggers on tracks individually, and if you choose, add only the unique triggers from the current track to the overall collection. For more information, see

“Detection (Normal) and Collection Mode” on page 349.


Conforming Regions with

Beat Detective

After regions have been separated with Beat Detective, the regions can then be conformed using one of two modes:

Standard Conform Uses the session’s current tempo map (Grid)

Groove Conform (Pro Tools 6.x only) Uses groove templates.

Beat Detective will conform any selected region, whether or not it was separated with Beat Detective. However, in order to successfully conform regions with Beat Detective, the region start points must correspond to the start of the material that will align with the session’s bars and beats. This should generally not be a problem if the regions were separated with Beat Detective

(rather than manually separated or trimmed).

Standard Conform

This is similar to using the Quantize Regions command, but with one important difference:

With a single operation, Beat Detective can adjust the position of all regions, whether they have a straight or swing feel.

Beat Detective, Standard Conform options

To conform regions using Standard Conform:


Conform mode.

2 In Pro Tools 6.x, make sure Standard is selected.

3 In the Edit window, if not already selected, select the separated regions you want to conform.

Make sure the selection’s start and end points fall cleanly on the beat.

4 In the Beat Detective window, define or recap-

ture the selection as described in “Defining a

Beat Detective Selection” on page 336.

5 To affect how strongly the regions are conformed to the Grid (tempo map), select the

Strength option and specify a percentage value with either the slider or by typing in a value:

• Lower percentage values preserve the original feel of the regions.

• Higher percentage values align the regions more tightly to the tempo map, with 100% aligning precisely to the tempo map.

To “tighten up” the original feel, while retaining it, set the Strength option to

85–88%.

6 To affect which regions are conformed, select the Exclude Within option and specify a percentage value with the slider or by typing in a value:

• Lower percentage values ensure that regions further away from the Grid are conformed, while those closer to the Grid are not.

• Higher percentage values ensure that regions closer to the Grid, as well as those further away, are conformed.

To “tighten up” the original feel, while retaining it, set the Exclude Within option to

10–15%.


7 To achieve a swing feel for the conformed regions, select the Swing option and whether the swing is based on eighth-notes or sixteenthnotes, then specify a percentage value with the slider or by typing in a value:

• Smaller percentage values yield less swing, with 0% yielding none.

• Larger percentage values yield more swing, with 100% yielding a triplet, swing feel.

• Percentage values between 100–150 move the regions beyond a triplet, swing feel, toward the next sixteenth-note boundary

(provided the Swing note value is set to eighth-notes).

If Beat Detective has successfully captured enough of the sub-beats from a selection before separating, you can successfully conform with the Swing option to change the groove from a “straight” feel to one that is swung. You can also import a groove tem-

plate containing a swing feel (see “Groove

Conform” on page 347).

8 Click the Conform button to automatically conform all regions in the selection.

Regions conformed with Beat Detective

9 Audition the new conformed regions by clicking Play in the Transport window.

10 If necessary, select Edit > Undo, and repeat

steps 4–8 trying a different set of Conform set-

tings.

– or –

If necessary, apply Edit Smoothing (see “Edit

Smoothing” on page 348).

Groove Conform

(Pro Tools 6.x Only)

Instead of using a grid based on the session’s tempo map, Groove Conform uses a grid based on a groove template, or DigiGroove. Digi-

Grooves can be used to apply the feel of a captured passage to the selected audio regions. For information about creating DigiGroove tem-

plates, see “DigiGroove Templates” on page 342.

To conform regions using Groove Conform:


Conform mode.

2 Select Groove.

Beat Detective, Groove Conform options

3 In the Edit window, if not already selected, select the separated regions you want to conform.

Make sure the selection’s start and end points fall cleanly on the beat.

4 In the Beat Detective window, define or recap-

ture the selection as described in “Defining a

Beat Detective Selection” on page 336.

When using Groove Conform, the captured selection must not include Bar|Beat Markers. Otherwise, the accuracy of the Groove

Template will be compromised.

5 From the Groove Template pop-up menu, select the Groove Clipboard or a saved groove template (for information on creating groove

templates, see “DigiGroove Templates” on page 342).


6 To see comments about the selected template, click Show Info.

7 To affect how strongly the regions are conformed to the groove template, select the Timing option and specify a percentage value with either the slider or by typing in a value:

• Lower percentage values preserve the original feel of the regions.

• Higher percentage values align the regions more tightly to the groove templates grid, with 100% aligning precisely to the template grid.

• If the slider is set to 200%, regions move to a location that is twice the difference between the original region location and the position of the referenced template event.

For example, if a note was played at Bar 1|1|060

(a 16th note), and the corresponding template event is at 1|1|073, a slider value of 100% results in the note being shifted to 1|1|073; a slider value of 200% shifts the note to 1|1|086.

8 If desired, enable the Pre-Process using Standard Conform option. With this option enabled, Beat Detective conforms regions to the current Standard Conform settings before applying the groove template. With material in which the performance was not accurate, Pre-

Process using Standard Conform can lead to better results by ensuring that the performance is accurately mapped to the correct bars, beats, and sub-beats before the groove template is applied. Experimentation is the best way to determine when it is appropriate to use this option.

When conforming an audio passage to a heavily swung groove template, enabling

Pre-Process using Standard Conform will often yield better results.

9 Click the Conform button to automatically conform all regions in the selection.

10 Audition the new conformed regions by clicking Play in the Transport window.


steps 4–9 trying a different groove template or

Groove Conform settings.

– or –

If necessary, apply Edit Smoothing (see “Edit

Smoothing” on page 348).

Edit Smoothing

After regions are conformed, there may be gaps between the regions. These gaps can cause the material to sound unnatural on playback.

Beat Detective, Smoothing options

Beat Detective can automatically fill the gaps between regions, and even add crossfades if you choose. This Edit Smoothing option can be used with regions that have been conformed, or with a track that contains many regions that need to be trimmed and crossfaded (such as in a sound effects track). This automated process of smoothing region edits can save many hours of tedious editing.

To use Edit Smoothing on conformed regions:

1 In the Beat Detective window, select Edit

Smoothing mode.

2 Select one of the following Smoothing options:


• Select Fill Gaps to trim region end points so that the gaps between regions are filled.

• Select Fill And Crossfade to trim region end points and automatically add a pre-fade (in ms) directly before each region start point.

3 In the Edit window, if not already selected, select the range of conformed audio regions you want to smooth. Make sure the selection’s start and end points fall cleanly on the beat.

4 Click the Smooth button to smooth the edits for the selected regions.

Regions before and after Edit Smoothing

5 Audition the results by clicking Play in the

Transport window.


steps 2–5 trying a different Crossfade Length.

Edit Smoothing Creates Sync Points

After smoothing edits with Beat Detective, sync points (corresponding to the material’s start point) are automatically created for the conformed regions. This allows you to later conform the regions to a different tempo map or groove template, or use different Conform settings. However, sync points are only created as they are needed: If gaps between regions are created during Region Conform, Fill Gaps in Edit

Smoothing mode will trim regions to fill the gap and a sync point will be created at each region’s original start point. If there is no gap between regions, no sync point will be created by Edit

Smoothing.

For more information on region sync points,

see “Defining Region Sync Points” on page 265.

Consolidating Regions after Edit

Smoothing

The process of separating, conforming, and smoothing with Beat Detective can leave tracks with many regions and many crossfades. If you are working with multiple tracks, the density of these edits may lead to system performance problems.

Once you are satisfied with the results from Beat

Detective, it is recommended that you flatten the tracks with the Consolidate Selection command. For all regions selected, Consolidate Selection creates a single, contiguous audio file to

reduce the session’s edit density. See “Consolidate Selection Command” on page 310.

Before consolidating a large selection across multiple tracks, make sure there is enough

RAM available. See “RAM Requirements for

Beat Detective” on page 334.

Detection (Normal) and

Collection Mode

In some instances, it may be difficult for Beat

Detective to successfully analyze multiple tracks with the same Detection settings. With Beat Detective’s Collection mode, you can collect a set of beat triggers from different tracks, each with different Detection settings, and use the collection of triggers to generate Bar|Beat Markers or


DigiGroove templates, or separate new regions.

Collection mode is the only way to analyze and create beat triggers on one track, and apply them to another track.

This method of selectively adding beat triggers from separate analysis passes on different tracks, until you get only the triggers you want, is potentially much more effective than manually deleting, inserting, or adjusting incorrect or false triggers.

Drum Tracks and Collection Mode

Suppose you have drum tracks for kick, snare, hi-hat, and overhead mics. If you analyze a selection across all of the tracks, you may get many false triggers when you raise the Sensitivity slider high enough to capture the hi-hat material (coming mainly from the tracks for the overhead mics).

However, if you analyze only the track for the overhead mics, the resulting beat triggers are slightly later than the material on the other tracks (since it will take more time for the sound to reach the overhead mics). If you then extend the selection to the other drum tracks and separate them, the regions from the kick, snare, and

tom tracks will be cut slightly late (see Figure 21

below).

tion, or you can choose to collect only the unique triggers from a track. The collection of triggers that results can then be used to generate

Bar|Beat Markers or a DigiGroove template, or separate new regions.

Using Collection Mode

Collection mode is available in Bar|Beat Marker

Generation, Groove Template Extraction, or Region Separation mode, and is accessed by clicking the Collection Mode button in the Detection section.

Beat Detective, Collection mode options

To use Collection mode:

1 In the Edit window, make an audio selection on a single track. Make sure the selection’s start and end points fall cleanly on the beat.

2 In the Beat Detective window, select one of the following modes:

• Bar|Beat Marker Generation

• Groove Template Extraction (Pro Tools 6.x only)

• Region Separation

Figure 21. Overhead mics generate late beat triggers

Using Collection mode, you can analyze each drum track separately, one at a time, optimizing the Detection settings for each track until you get the triggers you want. The triggers for each track can be added successively to the collec-






5 Click the Collection Mode button.

6 In the Detection (Collection Mode) section, click Add to add all the current beat triggers to the collection.

7 Click the Normal Mode button and move the selection to the next track you want to analyze.

Make sure to keep the selection range constant for each track.

Press Start+P (Windows) or Control+P

(Macintosh) to move the selection up, or

Start+Semi-colon (Windows) or Control+Semi-colon (Macintosh) to move the selection down.

With Commands Focus enabled, press “P” to move the selection up, or Semi-colon (;) to move the selection down. Hold down the

Shift key to retain and add to the current selection



9 Click the Collection Mode button again.

Beat triggers detected in Kick track added to collection

Unique beat triggers detected in Snare track added to collection

Unique beat triggers detected in Hi-hat track added to collection

Collected beat triggers applied to Overhead microphones track

Figure 22. Overhead mic track displaying a collection of beat triggers containing unique triggers generated from the kick, snare, and hi-hat tracks


10 In the Detection (Collection Mode) section, click Add Unique Triggers to add only the unique triggers from the track to the collection

(Pro Tools 6.x only).

– or –

Click Add All to add all triggers to the collection.

– or –

Click Clear All to clear all triggers from the collection.

Each new set of triggers added to the collection appears in a different color. If successive triggers in the collection are located closely together (for example, because of microphone leakage), Beat

Detective keeps only the earlier triggers (see

Figure 22).

11

Repeat steps 7–10 for each additional track

you are analyzing.

The beat triggers stored in the Collection mode are saved with sessions. Therefore, when a session is opened later, the previous collection material is still there (until it is cleared).

12 Once the desired beat triggers have been added to the collection, you can use them to generate Bar|Beat Markers or groove template, or separate regions. However, this must be done from the Collection Mode sub-pane (when the triggers are displayed in multiple colors).

To separate regions across multiple tracks, make sure to extend the selection to any additional tracks before separating.


No results