Dealing with Logic’s Beat Mapping
15/04/21 17:00 Filed in: Creative Work
Do I really have to do it? You know – load an audio file in Logic, enable Beat Mapping, then drag a Measure/Beat ruler position to the corresponding peak in the audio waveform. If you are working on very simple materials, maybe the automatic detection can work nearly alone. If you are working on real music, it doesn’t work.
After many long tedious sessions of Ctrl-Shift-dragging and hoping the beat to sticks to the desired position, and usually ending up with a bumpy Tempo track, I’ve decided a better solution had to be found. My preferred workaround is to beat the Tempo in a new MIDI track. Then, I’ll ask Logic to get the beat mapping from that one. If things are a bit out, I can simply nudge the MIDI event, proportionally respace them with the Time Handles, or even add or delete events if a beat should be added or removed.
This works a lot better for me. At least, it is a tempo I beat myself on real music, and not an informed hint from a machine.
After many long tedious sessions of Ctrl-Shift-dragging and hoping the beat to sticks to the desired position, and usually ending up with a bumpy Tempo track, I’ve decided a better solution had to be found. My preferred workaround is to beat the Tempo in a new MIDI track. Then, I’ll ask Logic to get the beat mapping from that one. If things are a bit out, I can simply nudge the MIDI event, proportionally respace them with the Time Handles, or even add or delete events if a beat should be added or removed.
This works a lot better for me. At least, it is a tempo I beat myself on real music, and not an informed hint from a machine.