Defining a Beat Detective Selection

Whether you will be generating Bar|Beat Markers, extracting a DigiGroove template, or separating clips to be conformed, you must always define the audio or MIDI selection to be analyzed. The Beat Detective window provides tools to define and capture the selection range, time signature, and swing (sub-division) content for the selected audio.

To ensure the best possible results with Beat Detective, make sure the selected passage starts exactly on the attack of the first beat.

For Beat Detective to generate beat triggers that are metrically accurate, the length and meter of the selection must be correctly defined. In addition, the selection should not contain any meter or tempo changes.

Use Loop playback to check the accuracy of your selection.

To define a selection for Beat Detective:

1 In the Edit window, select a range of audio or MIDI material in a single track or in multiple tracks.

To keep the Edit selection intact while playing or looping from any location, deselect Options > Link Timeline and Edit Selection.

Make sure the selection’s start and end points fall cleanly on the beat. To zero in on an audio clip’s start and end points, zoom to the sample level and use the Tab to Transients option (see Tabbing to Transients).

To avoid losing an existing selection, save and recall an Edit selection by saving it as a Memory Location. See Memory Locations.

2 Choose Event > Beat Detective.

3 You must define or capture the selection every time you make a new selection or change the tempo map. To define the selection range, do one of the following:

If the tempo and meter of the audio selection do not match the session’s default tempo and meter, enter the Time Signature, and Start Bar|Beat and End Bar|Beat locations. For a four-bar selection that starts on beat 1, enter 1|1 and 5|1.

If the tempo and meter of the audio selection do not match the session’s default tempo and meter, and you are unsure of the length of the material, enter the Time Signature and the Start Bar|Beat location; then start playback, and click the Tap End B|B button repeatedly to automatically calculate the End Bar|Beat. When using Tap End B|B with long selections, continue to tap until the End Bar|Beat stabilizes. Once stabilized, you may need to manually adjust the number to the nearest bar boundary.

If the selection’s tempo and meter match the session tempo and meter (see Calculating Tempo with Beat Detective), and it aligns correctly with the session’s bars and beats, click the Capture Selection button. The correct Time Signature, and Start Bar|Beat and End Bar|Beat values will be filled in automatically.

 

As long as the audio material is correctly aligned with the session’s tempo map, use Capture Selection each time you make a new selection or make any changes to the tempo map (such as changing tempo or meter).

 

The Selection definition is not retained when a session is closed and re-opened

4 To improve Beat Detective’s accuracy in analyzing swung notes, select the Contains option that indicates the smallest sub-division of the beat contained in the selection. The Contains option includes quarter-notes, eighth-notes, sixteenth-notes (the default setting), thirty-second-notes, and a triplet modifier. The selected Contains option determines the groove template grid locations for DigiGroove templates.