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Speeding up the "tape"
Posted: Mon May 24, 2021 12:36 pm
by Burnzy
A company I am working with (thanks to some TAXI forwards) is asking me to re-submit a couple ballad tracks that are currently 72BPM or so and bump the tempo up to 80-85BPM. They were recorded all on live instruments. Is this doable via technology without affecting the pitch or overall sound too much, or is re-recording the only route to go? They liked the instrumentation, performance, everything, just want it faster.
Thanks in advance for your input.
Re: Speeding up the "tape"
Posted: Mon May 24, 2021 12:50 pm
by RPaul
Burnzy wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 12:36 pm
A company I am working with (thanks to some TAXI forwards) is asking me to re-submit a couple ballad tracks that are currently 72BPM or so and bump the tempo up to 80-85BPM. They were recorded all on live instruments. Is this doable via technology without affecting the pitch or overall sound too much, or is re-recording the only route to go? They liked the instrumentation, performance, everything, just want it faster.
Most modern DAWs have the possibility of making these sort of changes in audio tracks as well as MIDI tracks. You'll probably need to first make sure your existing tempo map is accurate, and that the audio tracks are in whatever the specific DAW calls the types of clips that move with the tempo map (instead of being locked to absolute time). For example, in Cubase, there is musical mode, which moves things based on measures, beats, etc. and time mode, which locks them to absolute time. If you need to adjust the tempo map first (e.g. if you tracked without a click), then you'd first lock all the tracks to absolute time, then adjust the tempo map to match the reality of what was played, then change the tracks back to musical mode, then do the tempo changes. For audio tracks, you may also need to do some other settings (such as detecting transients) before you make the tempo changes.
The big question is, with a tempo change of that magnitude, will the faster track still sound good enough. Because it is getting faster, rather than slower, you probably get better odds. Really, though, the best you can do is try it and see how it sounds. (It's also worth noting that most DAWs have multiple algorithms for doing audio quantization and stretching/condensing, so you may need to experiment to find the best algorithm for individual tracks.)
Rick
Re: Speeding up the "tape"
Posted: Mon May 24, 2021 1:24 pm
by Burnzy
CTWF wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 12:41 pm
Burnzy wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 12:36 pm
A company I am working with (thanks to some TAXI forwards) is asking me to re-submit a couple ballad tracks that are currently 72BPM or so and bump the tempo up to 80-85BPM. They were recorded all on live instruments. Is this doable via technology without affecting the pitch or overall sound too much, or is re-recording the only route to go? They liked the instrumentation, performance, everything, just want it faster.
Thanks in advance for your input.
There are good quality plugins for tempo changes while leaving the pitch unaffected, but 72 to 80-85 bpm is quite a jump and I doubt you can just speed it all up and it will still sound as good as the original. Maybe some tracks of your project can be dealt with that way, and you should try, but this sounds to me as if most of it will need to be re-recorded. I'd say, try it out and take it from there.
Tom
Thanks, Tom. I guess it is worth a try.
Re: Speeding up the "tape"
Posted: Mon May 24, 2021 1:28 pm
by Burnzy
RPaul wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 12:50 pm
Burnzy wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 12:36 pm
A company I am working with (thanks to some TAXI forwards) is asking me to re-submit a couple ballad tracks that are currently 72BPM or so and bump the tempo up to 80-85BPM. They were recorded all on live instruments. Is this doable via technology without affecting the pitch or overall sound too much, or is re-recording the only route to go? They liked the instrumentation, performance, everything, just want it faster.
Most modern DAWs have the possibility of making these sort of changes in audio tracks as well as MIDI tracks. You'll probably need to first make sure your existing tempo map is accurate, and that the audio tracks are in whatever the specific DAW calls the types of clips that move with the tempo map (instead of being locked to absolute time). For example, in Cubase, there is musical mode, which moves things based on measures, beats, etc. and time mode, which locks them to absolute time. If you need to adjust the tempo map first (e.g. if you tracked without a click), then you'd first lock all the tracks to absolute time, then adjust the tempo map to match the reality of what was played, then change the tracks back to musical mode, then do the tempo changes. For audio tracks, you may also need to do some other settings (such as detecting transients) before you make the tempo changes.
The big question is, with a tempo change of that magnitude, will the faster track still sound good enough. Because it is getting faster, rather than slower, you probably get better odds. Really, though, the best you can do is try it and see how it sounds. (It's also worth noting that most DAWs have multiple algorithms for doing audio quantization and stretching/condensing, so you may need to experiment to find the best algorithm for individual tracks.)
Rick
Thanks, Rick. Sounds like it's worth a try before hiring musicians back into the studio.
Re: Speeding up the "tape"
Posted: Mon May 24, 2021 1:34 pm
by RPaul
One other thing worth mentioning is that, if there are vocals on it (one of the harder things to speed up believably, though it's done all the time in dance remixes), beyond just the time stretching (or condensing in this case) stuff I mentioned earlier, you might be able to apply some formant shifting to the vocals to help overcome some of the stretching effects. For example, formant shifting, in the absence of time stretching, can turn a voice from normal to chipmunk-ish, or Darth Vader-ish in the other direction, and everywhere in between, and without changing the tempo. Tasteful amounts can help in cases where generating harmonies from a single vocal, and I suspect it could be used to help compensate for the sort of effects that get induced by a speedup. Unless the time stretching algorithm does its own compensation, speeding a part up would tend to shift it in the chipmunk direction, to whatever degree things are being effected by the change, so doing a downward formant shift might help get it back closer to where it was before the speedup.
Rick
Re: Speeding up the "tape"
Posted: Mon May 24, 2021 2:15 pm
by cosmicdolphin
+ 3 or 4 BPM is doable with good software...anything over that is usually a re-record job