# Weird tempo issues....



## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

I have a laptop using Reaper. I am fairly familiar with it. I have been basically goofing around. Not being a drummer I have messed around with drum VST's ..as well as taken some pre-recorded wav files chopped them up and assigned them to the appropriate place etc. 

I bought an older Yamaha drum machine this summer and have been messing with it. Basically playing one pattern through out the song and playing on it. Just for some rough sketches. 

I started a new project. So I picked a 4 bar pattern on the drum machine. Set the tempo on both the drum machine and the tempo on the recorded track for 75 bmp. I recorded a few minutes of the beat. When I look at the track, It quickly came out of time with the time signature in the track. ??? Probably 2 mill seconds late after 4 bars ( the length of the pattern). 

Weird. The drum machine plays songs which are built from patterns. So I loaded the same pattern into a song so it would play it once, then I recorded it. Same thing but even the two patterns are slight off from each other. My thought for doing this was that I could just cut and paste the pattern in on every fourth bar. 

So what do I trust? My original plan was to use the drum machine for a rough pattern and put some live stuff on later and either add to or delete the drum machine. 

Any ideas? The drum machine sounds not to bad when I run it through my rack mount delay. I have even tried to change the track tempo to see if I can make it hit the mark .. but to no avail.


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## Gizmo (Aug 7, 2008)

Hi shoretyus.
If I understand you correctly, the recorder and the drum machine are running independently.
If this is the case, there's no chance that they will stay locked together…they need to be synched. The easiest would be to synch your drum machine to the recorder if there's a setting for it to follow midi synch (Midi time code or midi clock) through midi from your recorder. Then the bpm is solely dependent on your recorder.

I guess another option might be to quantize the recorded midi and see what you get.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Um....that makes total sense.... I have never midi anything.....newbie sigh.... 
Though I have everything but a cable. I was thinking that the drum machine is not permanent and hence not worth that much effort.... wrong again ... 




> …they need to be synched. The easiest would be to synch your drum machine to the recorder if there's a setting for it to follow midi synch (Midi time code or midi clock) through midi from your recorder. Then the bpm is solely dependent on your recorder.


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## Gizmo (Aug 7, 2008)

Why don't you try and quantize…it might fix your delay. If you have a long sequence that gets progressively more out of synch, then just find a section that's close, quantize and repeat it.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

I did try to quantify the 4 bar pattern and though it snapped it in to place, it is still out a bit. I'll pick up some cables next week. There are a couple keyboards in the neighbourhood that I can borrow and it would be good to learn . I did spend some time today with the VST that I have installed already. Learned a bit more about it have successfully copied some patterns on it to a track. I just haven't figured out how to make/edit a pattern ( without cutting and pasting). 

My rig is an older laptop dedicated only to music. It will start to chug a bit if I start using too many of it's resources so I was hoping that they drum machine through the delay would be easier on the computer. 

Oh and thanks.


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## Gizmo (Aug 7, 2008)

Yeah, quantizing audio is not as simple as midl and I'm not familiar with Reaper to advise best here, plus there will be some delay in your audio interface.
It will be a good exercise to synch the two machines if you want to learn a bit more about midi, but in the end, you might be better off creating or downloading some midi loops and driving your drum machine as a slave midi sound module or some drum samples within Reaper.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Reaper is pretty easy to work at manipulating stuff and I have spent time pressing buttons. Some of my problem is that I don't have a great setup for sitting at the computer and editing tracks and stuff. It's easy to click the mouse pad start and stop recording etc. but not clicking through the drum program. The pads on the drum machine are kind of nice ,,,,big for my old eyes...and can sit on my lap or what ever and you can play it live. 

Beats watching reality tv...:congratulatory:


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Weird update. I bought a midi cable and figured out how to get sound. Problem is that ( using DrumCore for VST) I am not getting either ...
The same pattern recorded on the drum machine 
Nor am I getting the same drum sounds. I did figure out how to manipulate the sounds but I already built the pattern on the drum machine. 

I did play with recording the regular audio from the drum machine and by better editing got it close to the proper tempo. The signal is pretty noisy from the drum machine. 

Any thoughts.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Try this, it's free and works great if you're just looking for basic beats! 
http://www.powerdrumkit.com/


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

I have upgrade my computer. I loaded the new version of Reaper. Now I have a problem. This is a 64 bit and Drum core is only 32 bit. I tried powerdrumkit but have failed. I also tried EZdrummer... but all dowloads have failed ( that took hrs of downloading to have a screw up file ) 
Any other suggestions? 



Ti-Ron said:


> Try this, it's free and works great if you're just looking for basic beats!
> http://www.powerdrumkit.com/


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## Gizmo (Aug 7, 2008)

Can you start Reaper in 32 bit?

I use 32 bit Drumcore and it works fine if I start my apps in 32 bit.
Although it won't work with Logic Pro X (which is only 64 bit) and I'm waiting patiently for the new release of 64 bit Drumcore)



shoretyus said:


> I have upgrade my computer. I loaded the new version of Reaper. Now I have a problem. This is a 64 bit and Drum core is only 32 bit. I tried powerdrumkit but have failed. I also tried EZdrummer... but all dowloads have failed ( that took hrs of downloading to have a screw up file )
> Any other suggestions?


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

After several hours and a new morning that's what I ended up doing .. buddies are coming this aft for a recording session and we shall see how things work out.


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