Tobes
20-10-2003, 12:24 AM
Ok Im going to give it a go, i am not an expert but i will try and share the knowledge i have obtained throughout the years of tinkering in the studio:smiley2:.
Ok apart from having a melody one of the most important things in a song is Tempo and Timing, Tempo is the BPM (beats per minute), the Timing is where the beats sit within that minute, which we call quantization, it is quite simple really just basic maths.
When composing a song we work with bars, it is similar to time but we are working with beats and not minutes or seconds.
So for example, a day could be broken down into hours then minutes and then seconds and so on, exactly the same with a Bar apart from we work with the Imperial system ie: we can break a bar into 2 halfs or four quarters ,eight eights, sixteen sixteenths and so on, like i said before its basic maths, without this a song would be out of time and would sound very strange, the brain likes things to be in order without it the song just wouldnt sound right.
So when I am making a song I must decide on the bpm and timing from the start and follow this pattern to keep the song in time.
The most comonly used timing of todays music, is the 4x4, this is a simple maths equation and works very nicely for most songs.
The 4x4 is four beats to every bar multiplied by 4 and so on to create a sequence of bars. (i hope this is making sense)
This is the most common timing, there are many more including working in threes which we call triplets, this is how you get a rythm called the swing, its the same process as the 4x4 but we are now working in threes, you can work with any combination but it must follow suite to remain in time.
Remember! when starting a song you must decide the timing and the BPM of the track.
OK so if your really ambitious and want to learn how to calculate bpm's without using any software follow these rules:
Do you often find a great drum loop that is at the wrong tempo to fit in with your music? There are expensive programs out these days, that will stretch the loop automatically, but using a simple wav file editor capable of time-stretching waveforms, and a bit of maths, you can do it yourself, take the following drum loop as an example.
It consists of 4 beats, and goes for 2.47 seconds, from this we can calculate that one beat will take 2.47 seconds devided into 4 = 0.6175 seconds.
Hence this loop has a tempo of 60 devided into 0.6175 = 97.17 bpm. Now say we want the loop to fit into a 115 bpm composition, first we have to calculate how long this loop should go for, to fit into 115bpm, this is basically the reverse process of the above.
First we find out how long 1 beat at 115bpm will take, i.e. 60 devided into 115 = 0.5217 seconds, now multiply this number by 4 (0.5217x4), and we get the time that 4 beats at 115bpm will take i.e. 2.087 seconds, now all you need to do is use the time stretch/compress feature of your wav editor, to compress the loop to 2.087 seconds, easy as that you have now time stretched your loop.
Ok this is my first lesson in Beats and Timing, I think I am going crazy after all that, not too sure if i will ever get a tune to stay in time ever again http://www.itstooloud.com/forum/icon_smile_wink.gif
It would be great for someone else to maybe simplify this or add anything to this post, soon I will explain how to quantize a sequence of beats using a sequencer, and how to determine a BPM using software aplications, although this seems a little long winded (could just be my dodgy explenation techniques) this is an extremely important part of music production.
Ok apart from having a melody one of the most important things in a song is Tempo and Timing, Tempo is the BPM (beats per minute), the Timing is where the beats sit within that minute, which we call quantization, it is quite simple really just basic maths.
When composing a song we work with bars, it is similar to time but we are working with beats and not minutes or seconds.
So for example, a day could be broken down into hours then minutes and then seconds and so on, exactly the same with a Bar apart from we work with the Imperial system ie: we can break a bar into 2 halfs or four quarters ,eight eights, sixteen sixteenths and so on, like i said before its basic maths, without this a song would be out of time and would sound very strange, the brain likes things to be in order without it the song just wouldnt sound right.
So when I am making a song I must decide on the bpm and timing from the start and follow this pattern to keep the song in time.
The most comonly used timing of todays music, is the 4x4, this is a simple maths equation and works very nicely for most songs.
The 4x4 is four beats to every bar multiplied by 4 and so on to create a sequence of bars. (i hope this is making sense)
This is the most common timing, there are many more including working in threes which we call triplets, this is how you get a rythm called the swing, its the same process as the 4x4 but we are now working in threes, you can work with any combination but it must follow suite to remain in time.
Remember! when starting a song you must decide the timing and the BPM of the track.
OK so if your really ambitious and want to learn how to calculate bpm's without using any software follow these rules:
Do you often find a great drum loop that is at the wrong tempo to fit in with your music? There are expensive programs out these days, that will stretch the loop automatically, but using a simple wav file editor capable of time-stretching waveforms, and a bit of maths, you can do it yourself, take the following drum loop as an example.
It consists of 4 beats, and goes for 2.47 seconds, from this we can calculate that one beat will take 2.47 seconds devided into 4 = 0.6175 seconds.
Hence this loop has a tempo of 60 devided into 0.6175 = 97.17 bpm. Now say we want the loop to fit into a 115 bpm composition, first we have to calculate how long this loop should go for, to fit into 115bpm, this is basically the reverse process of the above.
First we find out how long 1 beat at 115bpm will take, i.e. 60 devided into 115 = 0.5217 seconds, now multiply this number by 4 (0.5217x4), and we get the time that 4 beats at 115bpm will take i.e. 2.087 seconds, now all you need to do is use the time stretch/compress feature of your wav editor, to compress the loop to 2.087 seconds, easy as that you have now time stretched your loop.
Ok this is my first lesson in Beats and Timing, I think I am going crazy after all that, not too sure if i will ever get a tune to stay in time ever again http://www.itstooloud.com/forum/icon_smile_wink.gif
It would be great for someone else to maybe simplify this or add anything to this post, soon I will explain how to quantize a sequence of beats using a sequencer, and how to determine a BPM using software aplications, although this seems a little long winded (could just be my dodgy explenation techniques) this is an extremely important part of music production.