working out bpm of imported material?

[anko]

hi there.

i was just importing to reason some stems i'd saved long ago from another daw that i don't even have the original project files of anymore (so i can't fire up the project in that daw and check the bpm i had it set to).

apart from trial and error, can anyone suggest a good way to work out the bpm of the imported material so i can setup my new reason project well?

this is a new project so i'm trying to set the bpm to that of the source recordings, not match the bpm of the sources to an existing project.

i'm probably missing something hopelessly obvious here...

[anko]

to be clear, the stems are just plain .wavs of each track with no embedded timing information.

[jam-s]

If you've got a beat track you could try to tap the tempo and then riund it to the most likely bpm.

[Catblack]

to be clear, the stems are just plain .wavs of each track with no embedded timing information.

import them in, right click on the tracks and select 'disable stretching' and then use tap to tempo (near the play button down in the transport bar.

[raymondh]

Easiest way - go and download Abyssmedia BPM Counter

[anko]

thnx for replies. the "trial and error" method i mentioned in the op is using tap tempo...

and no, unfortunately there's no beat track, just some long synth takes, which are however somewhat rhythmic.

i was hoping for some accurate automated method. maybe some piece of reason-fu i was unaware of. just being lazy i guess.

Easiest way - go and download Abyssmedia BPM Counter

hmm, interesting.. they also have this: http://www.abyssmedia.com/tunexplorer/ which looks cool. thanks.

[normen]

I thought Reason had this as well but apparently it hasn't. In Logic you can select a part, set a loop and then adapt the tempo so that the part fits in the loop. So you'd cut the part so that it loops good, count the bars and set the loop in the timeline to the same amount of bars, then use that function..

[Re8et]

I found this video on youtube, checked myself some time ago, it's a great technique and very well explained.

SUPER FAST TEMPO MATCHING WORKS IN REASON 9!!

[anko]

I found this video on youtube, checked myself some time ago, it's a great technique and very well explained.

yeah thanks, i found that and a few others on youtube. most of them either say use tap tempo, which is what i was doing, or use other methods that are easier when there's a definite beat in the recording, but i don't have a drum track stem, and unlike this guy's starting point, i don't even know how many bars the original recording is, or if it is trimmed on bar boundaries.

heh, everytime i look for something on a reason technique on youtube though i end up finding other really interesting reason stuff.

[Creativemind]

Just tried the disabling stretch method then moving the tempo of the track up or down till it fitted, didn't work on an acapella vocal off a dance track. The props have took the up and down arrows off the side of the bpm display as well since Reason 8 which I'd never noticed. You can still use the + and - though on the numeric keypad.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I stretched it till the vocal fitted exactly into a bar line (first making sure I'd took any silence or gap off the beginning which there was on mine) but it still didn't work. Went straight on FL Studio and used the Tempo Detect function, hey presto. I had it at 125bpm and FL brought up 114.178 and it was bang on with a Dr.OctoRex loop. We need this feature in Reason, along with audiowarp, as on the link somebody posted which had a video on the thread, the guy time stretched some drums but the drum hits weren't as fast on each hit cause the sample was slowed down and although drums are non tonal you could still tell they weren't kind of pitched right.

Think it would be more accurate to disable stretch and probably assign a midi controller key to the tap tempo and use the key to tap in time.

[anko]

thanks for the detailed response Creativemind. and once agin thanks to all who've replied here. i have to say that for me the users and developers on these forums add a huge value to reason.

i don't have FL but bewteeen tempo tap (which i did assign to a controller pad and other things metionned above i think i've found a bpm that works with the source material.

i think some sort of audio analysis tool would be a great RE... !!! and not just for this purpose.