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.

Watch this:
 
https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/all-star-orchestra/elements-of-music/v/lesson-1-note-values-duration-and-time-signatures
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature
 
First principle in time signatures:
1. The top number stands for how many beats are in each measure.
2. The bottom number stand for what kind of beat it is.
For example: 4/4
This means there are four quarter notes in each measure. The top number is 4 and the bottom number 4 represents quarter notes.
You cannot write a measure of 4/4 and have 5 quarter notes in it! 
 
2nd Principle:
Each measure that is defined by a time signature like 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, etc. cannot have the total notes and rests exceed the total value of the measure. 
In one measure of 4/4, you can have
1 whole note (because is equals 4 quarter notes
2 half notes because two half notes equal a whole note
4 quarter notes
8 eighth notes
16 sixteenth notes
32 32nd notes
 
Using match, you can mix up all the possible notes and rests in one measure of 4/4 as long as the total value does not exceed 4 quarter notes.
 
If you time signature was 3/4, you are not limited to 3 quarter notes.
 
Follow the links I provided and see if any of this helps. 
 

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.

OK. So can you count the 5 quarter notes to the jazz tune "Take Five"?
Can you count each 8th note in a 6/8 blues song?
Can you count the 7 quarter notes in "Money" by Pink Floyd?
 
Learning where the first beat is in odd time signatures is a good start. You will be looking for when the pattern starts over.

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
 
 

Thanks. Reference points are good. I can hear the count in Money just from memory so that's helpful and am going to dig into the other tunes and review some of my notes, the material provided and hound up some more stuff if I can.
 
Just need these boots in the right direction. I'm guessing this is going to be one of those things like tonal theory where I'll realize "shyyyyote... how did I miss that?!". Doesn't help that aside from straight up money math I suxxor at numbers. Fractions and shifting bases like what is done in music just hurts my noodle.
 
No excuse though. I appreciate the effort. Very helpful.

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

Take 5 can be counted 123 12. Spend some time playing with 5/4 this way. 12 123. In other words switch the feel.     bom bom ba domp pa dom

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.

Sounds like the kind of situation where the tap tempo function in the set time signature dialogue comes in handy.

Select a section of the project then tap along with it. See what tempo that tells Sonar it is. Repeat for other sections as appropriate then create a tempo map based off that.

It doesn't really matter if you set the tempo as X/4 or X/8, other than when syncing effects when you might have to set e.g. a quarter note instead of an eighth note to get the effect you want and the step sequencer can be a bit odd if the time sig is anything but X/4. Once decided on using 4 or 8 as the bit in the bottom half of the time signature it's probably best to stick with that throughout, less confusing.

For calculating things like delay times in milliseconds from a known bpm this little AnalogX calculator tool is rather useful.

http://www.analogx.com/co...dio/delay/Freeware.htm