Inconsistent tempo of studio instruments in MC5

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znelson14
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2011/12/06 10:37:18 (permalink)

Inconsistent tempo of studio instruments in MC5

Hello everyone! I have been using MC5 for about a year now to record guitar tracks. Recently, I have gotten interested in adding drums and/or bass to my tracks to give them more life. For some reason or another, the playback of the studio instruments are not consistently in time. Here's the situation... I recorded 5 guitar tracks at 140bpm. These were recorded to the metronome inside of MC5. So I added a track to the project for drums. I then enter the Piano Roll View and try to make a simple beat to ensure everything is working properly. I lay down a kick drum with quarter notes for about 3-4 measures. The beat is not steady though...the first 4-5 beats will be in time and the next will have a very slight hesitation before the beat is played and this continues to happen sporadically throughout playback. It is very noticeable and happens no matter what kind of pattern I make or what studio instruments I use and I'm not sure how to fix it. I have been using the "Snap to" function with musical time (snapping to the beginning of quarter notes in the measures, hope I am wording that correctly. I have tried adjusting the beats with "absolute time" but this would take far too much work as it is more of a guessing game than anything. I searched the forum to see if anyone else had seen this problem but could not find an answer. Anyone know what the problem could be? I would appreciate any help very much!
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    57Gregy
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    Re:Inconsistent tempo of studio instruments in MC5 2011/12/06 11:14:27 (permalink)
    Anyone know what the problem could be?

     
    It's your sound card. If you're using the computer's stock sound card. Try Going to Options>Audio and increasing the buffers.
    Check out the help file section 'Dropouts and other audio problems'.
    The ultimate solution is to get an audio interface designed for recording.
    And welcome to the forum.

    Greg 
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    znelson14
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    Re:Inconsistent tempo of studio instruments in MC5 2011/12/06 11:27:49 (permalink)
     Thanks for the quick response!
    I will try increasing the buffer size when I get home this afternoon and see if that takes care of the issue. One more question though...if the soundcard is the issue, wouldn't the entire mix experience the problems instead of just the built in studio instruments? If anything, I thought it would be the other way around.
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    Beagle
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    Re:Inconsistent tempo of studio instruments in MC5 2011/12/06 11:32:04 (permalink)
    to me it sounds like your tempo is not set correctly in the project.  the audio will play the same regardless of what the project tempo is.  the only thing that the tempo affects for audio is the way it is displayed on the screen in the track view.  but tempo affects midi directly.

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    57Gregy
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    Re:Inconsistent tempo of studio instruments in MC5 2011/12/06 23:49:44 (permalink)
    Are you using a drum synth like Studio Instruments Drums or Cakewalk TTS-1? Or the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth in your sound card?
    Select the MIDI drum track then go to it's Event list to see if the notes are in fact placed at the correct spots.

    Greg 
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    Guitarhacker
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    Re:Inconsistent tempo of studio instruments in MC5 2011/12/07 07:39:12 (permalink)
    If you recorded the tracks, and they are audio ..... using the metronome inside MC, then came back and added drums manually, you should still be OK.

    I prefer to add the drums first, even if it's just a timing track to keep everything on the same beat. 


    I'm also suspecting it's the card in the computer. As you add more synths to the mix it has a harder time keeping everything running together with a factory card. 

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