Logic Pro X - Match Loop Tempo with BPM Counter and Flex Time Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to this Logic Pro 10 video
tutorial on how to conform loops to a
session tempo using the BPM counter
plugin and flex time a lot of people
have been asking me about this video are
to do a video like this because maybe
you're using loops that are not Apple
loops over years and using some
third-party loops Apple loops if you get
them from the Apple library will
automatically conform to your session
tempo but if you download a WAV file off
the internet sometimes there's no way of
knowing what the tempo is and sometimes
not even the key of the loop and it's
difficult to try to sit there and adjust
the tempo right and left just to figure
out what the tempo is so we can use a
plug-in called the BPM counter to sense
the tempo and then we can use flex time
to adjust the playback speed of multiple
loops to conform to a central tempo of
our session so to get started I have 4
loops I'm going to be working with so
I'm going to create 4 new audio tracks
I'm going to go ahead and save my
sessions going to call it whatever it
doesn't really matter
zoom out a bit just so I can see all
four tracks just to let you guys know I
have a drum loop I have a bass loop I
have sort of like a synth string sort of
idea and I've sort of like a pulsing
idea the other thing I do is going to
take all four of these tracks I'm going
to put them in stereo because the loops
are all stereo stereo WAV files
alright so there's our session my loops
are out here in a folder just labeled
loops I have a bass loop a drum loop a
pulse loop and a synth string loop now
I've in advance labeled the BPMS on all
these I know that the BPM is but what
we're going to do is we're going to
imagine that we don't know what the BPM
is and we're going to figure out what
the BPM of each one of these loops is by
using the BPM counter so let me just
drag my drum loop on the drum track the
bass loop on the bass track
the synth string loop on the synth
string track and the pulse loop on the
pulse track all right so I'm just going
to pull all these right to the beginning
of the session zoom in a bit and let's
just listen to the drums for now I just
happen to know offhand the drums are a
bit loud so I'm gonna pull them down a
little bit let's listen to the drum loop
with the click track and let's see and
let me actually pull the click settings
up or the click volume up I go into the
metronome settings you right click just
pull the tonality the volume up a bit
and let's see if our drums fit in time
with the session tempo which by default
in logic is 120 now I know offhand it's
not going to sound good because the
drums are at 110 but we're going to use
the BPM counter to sense that again
we're going to imagine that we don't
know what the BPM is so obviously wrap
the bat we can hear the drums are
playing a lot slower than the session
tempo so what we're going to do is on
the drum track on the the channel strip
over here we are going to assign an
audio effect and insert it's under
metering it's called the BPM counter one
of the simplest and probably one of the
most useful plugins in logic all you do
is you assign it to the track that you
want to learn the tempo of and you hit
play
see uh it basically after you let the
the track play for a little while it'll
guess with the BPM s so it's guessed
this 110 it did jump down to 109 point
nine but sometimes when you are dealing
with you know tenths of a bpm
you can sort of round up and just assume
that you know 110 was the assumed BPM
not 109 point nine so what I'm going to
do at least for this session is I'm
going to use the drums as my reference
tempo so all of my other loops are going
to have to conform to that reference
tempo so I'm going to change the the BPM
the tempo of my session to 110 and now
the drum should play right along at the
click track when I turn it back on there
you go
perfectly in time now let's take a
listen to the bass along with the drums
let's see if the bass is in time with
the drums cool that sounds in time it
just happens to be the same tempo but if
it wasn't we could throw the BPM counter
on there and try that out I'm just going
to click on this track and hit command R
just to repeat it once let's move down
to our synth string track here let's
listen to this let me just zoom in a bit
so you can see the waveform a little bit
better
now again obviously I know what the
tempo is it's 92 BPM but again we're
gonna imagine for a moment that we don't
know that let's try putting the BPM
counter on this track and I have a
feeling we're gonna have an issue with
this one because there isn't a lot of
transient heavy material I think the BPM
counter is going to have trouble sensing
the tempo but we'll give it a shot
okay so it wasn't able to sense a tempo
one little trick I learned with working
with material that doesn't really have I
mean you can hear the motion it's a
quarter note sort of motion the problems
that they're the transients in the
recording are just not hard enough for
the BPM counter to pick up on so one
little trick I've used in the past is to
throw before the BPM counter put the BPM
counter down and like your second insert
and throw under dynamics throw the
envelope or plugin on there and with the
envelope plunk envelope plugin we're
going to increase the attack time and
the attack amount and decrease the
release time just to bring more punch
out of the recording we're not going to
leave it on there we're just simply
using it just to make the transients in
the recording stand out more before that
signal hits the BPM counter let's see if
this has any any effect on the BPM
counter
Oh
let's try that again let me pull the
gang up even more pull the time out even
more let's give that another shot make
it even more transient heavy
still doesn't want to do it let's go
back let's make the attack time a little
bit longer let's make the release time
longer pull the release way down and
hopefully hopefully this does it for us
there we go right the very end it was
able to figure it out so that just goes
to show that sometimes it can take a
little bit of finagling to get to get
the track to do what you wanted to do to
guess the the BPM so now we know that
this track is 92 BPM so I'm going to go
ahead and take the envelope or off there
it doesn't need to be on there anymore
we're going to change the session tempo
to 92 temporarily while and actually I'm
going to delete that extra base loop
there I probably would actually no it'll
probably okay I'll leave it there so
we're going to temporarily change the
session tempo to the native tempo of the
loop we're going to turn on flex time
and just on that loop we're going to
change this to polyphonic mode if it's
not on make sure that complex mode is on
it'll sound better that way and then
we're going to change the tempo back to
the tempo of the bass and the drums so
what this is going to do is just going
to put the drums and it's not going to
do anything to the drums it's going to
put the base back together it's supposed
to be but it's going to shrink the size
of the synth strings because it's going
to playback faster so let's go back to
110 and you can see that the synth
strings are now conforming to the tempo
of 110 so it's important to make sure
that you find the native tempo of the
loop apply flex time while the session
has that same tempo and then go back to
the tempo that you actually want to be
at which in our case is 110 so let me
mute out the the pulse let's use just
bar mode and the marquee tool just to
trim this synth string up here and hit
command R to repeat it let's see if the
sounds like it's in time
so now the sense strings are going a lot
faster all right let's check out our
last instrument here this is the pulse
synth it sounds like this right now it's
very fast it's a lot faster than the
rest of the session it does not match up
at all so let's throw the BPM counter on
this one solo it out and listen to it
there we go 128 so again we're going to
repeat the same process we do the synth
strings we're going to change the tempo
of the session to 128 temporarily we're
going to apply flex time to the pulse
since synth polyphonic mode makes your
complex mode is on and then change the
tempo back to 110 so now the pulsing
synth will conform to the session tempo
it's only a 2 bar loop so I'm just going
to do that I'm going to hit command R 4
or 3 times let's see if that fits in
time
cool so that's just a quick a quick way
to conform your loops to the session
tempo using the BPM counter and flex
time so just keep in mind this isn't
going to work for all loops it'll work
for most loops that have transient heavy
material if the transients are sort of
lacking in your material the BPM counter
is going to have a hard time figuring
out the tempo and like I said there's
ways around that like I did the synth
strings by at temporarily adding that
envelope plug-in on there to sort of
bring out the the transient material so
I hope you guys enjoyed the video and
thanks again for watching