I admit it. I suck at Musical Time, Time Sigs and math in general. Looking for tuts...

I've been playing by feel and ear for my entire 25 years as a musician. I can play, learn and write in all sorts of crazy time sigs but I have absolutely no idea what it all means aside from the basics like 2/4, 3/4, 4/4. That's all well and fine when just jamming with a band but it really gets annoying when trying to do stuff in a DAW. I need to learn how to a) identify what time sigs a piece may be using by ear/logic, b) write into/for time sigs and c) just generally become as comfortable with musical timing/math as I am with modes/keys/chords/general tonal crap.
 
It's not only frustrating it's an embarrassment especially considering I played freaking drums in a crazy progressive metal band and tonally I can dissect and analyze pretty much any gatdamned thing you put in front of me. I do truly suck at general math as well so I won't encourage you guys to try to explain it to me yourselves. I likely won't get it. What I need is preferably some good, preferably free and online, tutorials dealing with this subject with examples and exercises.
 
Essentially I need to be able to have hard and fast rules, procedures and equations on how to sit down with a pen and paper and/or a calculator and solve musical timing problems... like a freaking 6 year old learning how to add, subtract, muliply, divide, etc.
 
If you have any educational suggestions toss 'em my way. Doesn't matter what instrument they apply to or how basic/advanced it is. I just want to read and absorb and hopefully/eventually understand so I can work with the DAW and things like time based effects/instruments more proficiently.
 
Time for this severe defiency in my skills to end. It's no longer tolerable.
 
Thanks in advance and of course, as always, anything I learn gets paid forward so you would not just be helping me. Cheers.

Thanks, Rimshot. I guess I maybe have understated my knowledge a bit and should have added that I do understand the idea of "top number = beats per measure/bottom number = beat length"... at least as it pertains to the more normal time sigs and I can generally follow along with basic sheet music (but once we start getting into dotted this that's or the others fuggedaboutit).
 
However really any good tut (that will help me) is gonna start there. Just wanted to say my knowledge ain't quite THAT bad but... yeah, pretty bad. Just don't want to waste anyone's time unnecessarily.
 
IDK... I can't explain it any better than that. I know and can recognize all sorts of stuff... like I have no real problem screwing with the PRV or coming up with ultra complex beats/riffs/etc. I just... man I can't even explain it. I just suck at trying to squish it all into musical time.
 
Anyway, that's why I just need to study and study and study until I can nail it. I need to be able to take those complex riffs and translate them to my timeline so it doesn't turn into a clusterfart as I work.
 
Currently I am forcing everything into 4/4 and that just does not work for some stuff... obviously. lol
 
Thanks again.

And check out "Happiness Is a Warm Gun"

This complicated song, which involved various different time signatures, (the 6/8 middle section was made more convoluted by Ringo continuing to drum in 4/4), took 15 hours and over 100 takes to nail. The first half of one take was combined with the second half of another to form the complete song.
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=154
 
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTU2Y0VFH0E
 
 

I can't help you with Tuts. The only one I Am aware of lived in Egypt a few years back but I can help with compound time. 
Odd time signatures are a combo of two or more groupings of 2 and 3 beats. Take 5 is 3+2. They may be disguised with 8th notes etc. but can be simplified to basic down beats. The more time you're exposed to odd meter the easier it gets. Watch this video from the beginning to end please. 
 
TIME

Thanks, Bill. I'll check out the vid in the morning. Brain's better at mathamatizing earlier in the day.
 
The one thing in particular I need this for and got me all urgent about it again is this old album I've been needing to fix up for ages. It needs some serious time fixes. I wrote most of it but not all and some of the stuff I didn't write... well it ain't fitting into my timeline how I like. Even some of the stuff I wrote has weird breakdowns that veer into weirdo land (but are mostly 4/4 or 2/4 otherwise). I think there are going to have to be multiple time sig changes to get a useable/snapable timeline. Quite challenging for someone who's not used to it.
 
So I kind of have to take raw recordings which have wildly fluctuating tempos (no click used) and try to break it all down section by section, sig by sig, tempo by tempo, reconstruct it on a proper time line then do all the time adjustment on the tracks from there.
 
Oof.
 
These suggestions and examples of counting to other sample material will be very useful.
 
Cheers.

Thanks, tlw. There's definitely going to be some Tap Tempo tomfoolery as well but mostly to get an approximate tempo to set the project to. What I'm attempting to do is actually manually time stretch everything into proper time because it just fluctuates too and then I can do more finite work like getting individual drum hits and guit/bass start/stops lined up.
 
What I'm thinking so far is this.
 
a) Get the project timeline map with the right sigs and tempo for the material (and I may do some tempo map tricks for dynamics... like intentional speed ups and what not).
 
b) Snip up all the tracks of each song in sections (there are two takes of each song both recorded without a click so they are nowhere near matched up). These cuts will be made across all the tracks so I can keep everything sync'd up as I stretch. The cuts will depend on the material but they may occur at measures or at the ends of full riff sections.
 
c) Then I'd link all the clips by section. The first clip would obviously start on the 1st beat and lined up to a measure. Time stretch the end of clip section one (so all linked clips for that section follow) so that the end matches up with a measure. Drag clip section 2 (and all clips linked to it) to but up against clip1. Rinse repeat for the whole song.
 
d) Go back through and make sure it all sounds normal and do any x-fading that needs to be done between the clip sections and bounce.
 
Now I've got an in time song that matches the timeline. I can then do the finite audio snap work to correct off hits and instruments played out of time.
 
Because there is a second set of tracks for each song I can then match those up with the now time corrected versions and raid them for overdubs or created doubled parts.
 
I've done some experiments on other material and I think this should work but it's going to be an epic feat and I definitely need to make sure the timeline/project is set up properly or it'll get real f*cky real fast. lulz... I know because I tried this a couple years back using the TOTALLY wrong method and it was a nightmare that ended up in shreiks and further hairline recession.
 
Of course I have many other reasons for wanting to know this stuff (like I claim to be a musician) but this has definitely been on my mind.
 
Cheers.