It's Surprising What a Difference Small Tempo Changes Can Make

I've been working on a song that felt like it dragged a little bit. So, I bounced all the tracks to create a new track for mastering. Then, I did the "ctrl+click-drag on the end of the clip" time-stretch function and dragged leftward to shorten it a bit, thus speeding up the tempo. Surprisingly (at least to me!), shortening the song from 4:27 to 4:22 put the "feel" where it needed to be. I bounced to clip to do offline rendering for optimum fidelity, then did the mastering.
 
I would have thought that 5 seconds out of a 4:27 song would be insignificant, but that definitely wasn't the case. In fact cutting a few more seconds off it felt really rushed.
 
Seemed interesting enough to merit a post here.
 
 
 

Craig,
 
I agree.
 
I did a cover of Like A Rolling Stone at 95BPM that when I bumped it to 100BPM it had movement that I liked. I kept it simple and only bumped the final mix (at mastering).

Let's face it, playing live (without a click track) is never 120BPM for three to five minutes straight. There will be fluctuations of at least 1BPM.

I'm just working on a song that feels right starting at 109bpm. When I finished the basic backing tracks I moved the choruses to 110, dropping back to 109 for the verses and things now feel just right.
 
I always experiment with changing tempos. Some songs I've done sounded great with a 1% or so increase every verse and every chorus, so ramping up a fair bit by then end.  There's no formula, I just experiment and listen to the feel. But it's surprising how such tweaks can really make a difference to the groove.     

the same can be said for slowing a piece down as well.
just a few seconds.
 
you can hear a lot more in a song with a slower tempo than a song with a faster tempo
this does not apply to all situations but I think you know what I mean.

bitflipper
SONAR's tempo map can help, though. Where I start is with very small tempo changes between each verse and chorus: up going into the chorus, halfway back down going into the next verse. Each chorus is then slightly faster than the preceding verse, each verse is slightly faster than the previous verse, and each chorus is slightly faster than the previous chorus. The overall song slowly ratchets upward in tempo until the finale is perhaps 3 bpm faster than the intro.

Tempo maps are great, and one of the reason I used Acidized files so they follow tempo changes. I'm also a big believer in the "+/- a BPM here and there" within a song, but was surprised at how such a small change could change the feel so much on the entire song.
 
However the 2% figure mentioned earlier rang a bell...back in the days of tape, I often sped up the two-track master by 2% but I didn't think it was so much about the tempo "feel" as about the timbre. In retrospect, it probably was just as much about the tempo.

I have a song that I wrote to be a West Coast Swing for ballroom dancing. I was told that it's just slightly slow for that dance style, so I need to speed it up. I tried a few method that were suggested in another thread, but they didn't yield acceptable results. It never occured to me to click/drag the end to shorten it. Is it simply done by holding Ctrl down while click/dragging the end to the left (shorten song), then applying bouncing-to-clips? If there are any more steps than that I would appreciate it if someone could give me that information.
 
When I first tried speeding this song up I spent quite a bit of time reading through the help files and looking through Scott Garrigus' book, but couldn't find any simple clear method for speeding up (or slowing down) a WAV file.     

@thread title:
This is why I want easier time-stretching (like the one in S1) in Sonar. After recording all temporary guitar takes, I sometimes realize the song is a bit fast or slow. Until the day I re-record the takes (takes to be used in the mix), which is normally more than a month later, I won't be able to change the tempo of the song (because my version doesn't include Audio Snap). In S1 (any version), it onlys take a single scroll of the mouse to change the tempo of the song as well as all audio clips in it, and it produces a great result (no artifacts even if stretched heavily). 

Anderton
I've been working on a song that felt like it dragged a little bit. So, I bounced all the tracks to create a new track for mastering. Then, I did the "ctrl+click-drag on the end of the clip" time-stretch function and dragged leftward to shorten it a bit, thus speeding up the tempo. Surprisingly (at least to me!), shortening the song from 4:27 to 4:22 put the "feel" where it needed to be. I bounced to clip to do offline rendering for optimum fidelity, then did the mastering.
 
I would have thought that 5 seconds out of a 4:27 song would be insignificant, but that definitely wasn't the case. In fact cutting a few more seconds off it felt really rushed.
 
Seemed interesting enough to merit a post here.
 
 

 
 
There are several ways to get the right musical "feel".  One way, as Anderton points out, are slight changes and variations in tempo.  Every musical passage has a certain range of tempos in which the passage works best.  Beyond that range, the passage will sound too fast, particularly if the harmonic rhythm is quick.  Or, on the other side, too slow and it will drag.   In more sophisticated music with much orchestration and counterpoint, many tempo changes are necessary to get the best phrasing in certain instances, but not all.  Sometimes a rock solid mono-tempo is exactly what is called for, it depends on style and aesthetic awareness. 
 
Another method of getting the best musical feel is by shifting a part very slightly ahead of, or behind, the beat.  I'm talking about 10-30 ticks or so.   I finished a composition a few months back that used this technique.  I had the Z3TA-2 playing a complex ostinato in which the harmonic content was dynamically changing over time using LFOs and filters, but in a way that has a very distinct rhythmic feel.  When I was orchestrating the strings, I knew I had the right notes and the right rhythms, but something didn't feel right relative to the synth.  By moving my string lines slightly before the beat I got the exact feel I wanted.  Attack times are essentially all shifted a tiny bit early which solved the "feel" problem.  Here's the piece (1st track on player, Raga):
 
www.jerrygerber.com
 
Jerry
 
 

bitflipper
The click track has done more to harm recorded music than any other innovation short of 100% quantization and auto-tune. 

Yeah, but you've got to admit it's also given birth to umpteen subgenres.   
 
My best bud is adamant (anal)about playing his own drum tracks on keyboards and he's damned good at it.  He quantizes at 100%.  I don't get it.
 
"Autotuning" is an art form that many botch badly but it's become so omnipresent that I'd bet we don't hear it when it's done well 90% of the time.  Besides you always subjectively put out what sounds "best" anyway, so I'd argue the worst thing about it is our ears have been so sensitized to not really hearing a live singer the same way we used to.  So I guess I'm saying Cher wasn't really responsible for destroying vocals: Russell Crowe was.
 
The click track, well I'm a guitar player and I usually edit a drum groove and record to that, but I'll admit when I'm playing keyboards I want it when recording 100% of the time unless I have pretty polished drum, bass and maybe guitar tracks done first.
 
That being the case I completely agree with everything you said. 
 
 
 

jsg
Another method of getting the best musical feel is by shifting a part very slightly ahead of, or behind, the beat.  I'm talking about 10-30 ticks or so.

Yes, this is a very useful technique. A lot of rock drummers will play the snare behind the beat when they want to sound "bigger." I think this makes us tune into the "if a sound is far away, we hear it later" training we have.
 
Here's a pop music-oriented experiment that's fun. Record a bass and a kick. Try slipping the bass a little later than the kick, then try it a little earlier. With the former, the vibe will be more rhythmic and the bass will seem softer. With the bass earlier, the vibe will be more melodic and the bass will seem louder. As Jerry points out, the amount of "slip" can be very small and still make a noticeable difference.
 
If you analyze the playing of a top studio drummer like Steve Gadd, they can control their timing to hit a consistent number of milliseconds ahead of or behind the beat to create the desired emotional impact. For example, a lot of jazz drummers will hit slightly ahead of the beat on the ride cymbal bell to "push" the song. John Bonham, on the other hand...listen to "When the Levee Breaks," and where the snare falls in relation to the kick.

I usually follow a "click" track of sorts just to get the tempo down. Then I manually form a basic drum track note by note tweaking it as I work on the song adding bits here and there. For me it actually goes quicker than you might think. Complex drum bits can be challenging but in the end it's really hard to tell the drum track wasn't played.
 
Steve

If you import files from outside Studio One you do not have to stretch them manually at all. They do not need any special tempo info embedded in them either.  All you have to do is simply figure out what the tempo is of any external imported files (which you may know anyway) and simply let Studio One know that info.  The moment you do that the files stretch to the session tempo and to any other tempo changes as required.  When you import a file that does not have any tempo info in it when you look at that track and its inspector you will see the words 'Not Set' in the tempo window.  That is where you add the tempo info and once you do that it will respond immediately.  So if you are working at say 130 BPM and you drag in a file that is at 112 BPM (and the window says Not Set) all you have to do is type 112 in the Tempo Window.  The file will instantly change now to 130 BPM.  Because Studio One now knows the imported file tempo and knows where it has to stretch it to.  Slightly magical.
 
Acid files are read correctly so no work is required to get them to work either.  I have found many loops and things from remote sources already have the tempo in the tempo window and they just work.  Every now and then you have to manually put that value in.  It stays with the file forever too so if you include it in a Sound Set or just in the browser you never have to fiddle it again.
 
You have to allow them to stretch of course. You can always tell any files not to stretch as well. But it is usual to allow it.
 
The whole session tempo can simply be changed by changing the tempo setting on the transport bar.  It is as magical as that.  It is very nice to be able to play the whole session slightly faster or slower without any fuss.  The stretch algorithm is a lot better than most including Pro Tools.  Files can be stretched a long way before they fall apart.  I still prefer to get that right though at the start.  It is cool for complex film cue and they suddenly want it 2 seconds or so longer or shorter then the tempo change thing can be very handy.
 
The key of the whole session can be changed (transpose) just as fast too on all the audio as well as midi tracks.
 
Drummers have a very fine sense of tempo.  It is our job after all! I can feel a change of 1 or 2 BPM even if the tempo is around 120 and higher or so. I found after years of playing though that it is nice to breath in time with the groove you are playing. Like 4 beats to breath in and 4 to breath out etc.
 
BTW when Steve Gadd lays down a groove to a click it still sounds killer. But yes I do also think as soon as you turn it off too magic happens. But only when the musicians are really really really good. Like the guys in Chick Corea's Elektric band for example or an incredible African percussion ensemble. But when the players are ordinary though things often fall apart as soon as the click goes away and then it can be a saviour!
 
There is nothing wrong with practicing to it, but once you go out live and it is not there then the music can be better. What the click practice does though is teach you to be more constant and NOT SPEED UP OR SLOW DOWN which many ordinary drummers do all the time. Click practice strengthens your internal clock. You can still have that elasctic tempo approach going on and create excitement but the trick is it to end roughly at the same tempo as you started!

All I know is that it if takes syncing my heart up to the Bee Gees to keep me alive, I would rather explicitly write it into my living will to not revive me.
 
Bob Bone
 

bitflipper
The click track has done more to harm recorded music than any other innovation....

I wonder if they said the same thing about the metronome? You know, that little wind up box that only kept one tempo until just before total unwind.