syncing

[Gps]

There is an American, who can play guitar. He wants me to add drums and synths.

I already pointed him to Audacity to record his guitar play.

But how am I gonna sync it, with the midi stuff I want to add?

I was wondering about a creating a track at a certain bpm, just a metronome track ?
Send that to him ?

I can't be the first person here with this issue, so how would you guys solve this ?

Maybe I need to add, I am in europe, and he is not coming over with his guitar.
I am an LMMS user but am wondering about switching to Ardour for this ?

Can Audacity do a metronome and at the same time record audio ?

[tseaver]

Dunno if it fits your mindset, but you might consider Bandlab, an online / collaborative DAW:

https://www.bandlab.com/

I haven't used it in anger, just dabbled enough to see how a distributed group might use it.

[nadir]

Can Audacity do a metronome and at the same time record audio ?

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/rhythm_track.html
I don't really know audacity well.

In ardour you can just play the metronome, you also got a grid which shows you the bars and a temp(meter?). Probably lmms and audacity are similar, but in ardour to me it is more clear to see (mainly if you have a recording track and a midi track).

But, as said, i don't know audacity or lmms well, so that might be the reason. Might well be just as clear in both if you know them.
And the beginning with ardour is a bit confusing (audacity seems straight forward, most intuitive, lmms is not that intuitive either, not to me).
I'd say ardour is well suited for the task anyway, and it is worth to get the head in it. The user/channel "unfa" on youtube has a lot of good tutorials on youtube.

PS: now i remember i once ran in something with jack-audio-server and syncing, but i don't really remember well. Might be worth to look in the docs or do an online search. - I do agree that a simple Metronome or a midi for drums sounds like good solution though. No need to overcomplicate it, if that works.

[Linuxmusician01]

Interesting question. I'd use some sort of standard Midi file (.mid). To generate the drums for example. A Midi file is sort of "universal" and is probably compatible with any- or almost any DAW.

You could create one w/ Midieditor or Qtractor etc. Make sure it's got Tempo info (Midieditor does this per default). Then create an audio track (.wav file for instance) for the drums using the Midi file (with Qtractor?). You could share the .wav file or both the .mid and the .wav.

I think that for the uninitiated in making music on a computer - or if you have different systems like Linux and Windows - sharing the .wav file and playing the guitar over it via Audacity may be the easiest option for the guitarist in question.

Others might advise against this though...

[Gps]

Maybe I need to add, that the guitar guy does not wanna use any daw.

I was already trying for him to use Ardour which has windows version.
(He is on windows)

Would he record in Ardour, I think all my problems would be solved.

We have to start some were, and he for now just wants to record his play,

I also pointed my scarlett solo out to him, which has an guitar connection.

The only part he did like, was me pointing out, that with Ardour he can turn his pc in a multi track recorder.

He also did a short music test with me. To figure out how much I know about music.
I passed that test. Mostly about scales and measures, to see if we can communicate musically.

I ones had a look into Audacity, and it seems it can increase or decrease the bpm of a track.
You can however not tell audacity to make something 120 bpm.
You can as far as I found only give a percentage of how much slower or faster you want the track to be.

When I was covering tracks to learn from it, I imported multiple tracks in to LMMS.
Only once I did not have any sync issues. It was an Hip Hop track, and suspect the original was made on a computer.

https://soundcloud.com/user586365033/hiphop

For those who do not recognize it: Ice Cube - Gangster rap made me do it.

[Linuxmusician01]

Maybe I need to add, that the guitar guy does not wanna use any daw.

I was already trying for him to use Ardour which has windows version.
(He is on windows)

Would he record in Ardour, I think all my problems would be solved.

We have to start some were, and he for now just wants to record his play,

I also pointed my scarlett solo out to him, which has an guitar connection.

The only part he did like, was me pointing out, that with Ardour he can turn his pc in a multi track recorder.

He also did a short music test with me. To figure out how much I know about music.
I passed that test. Mostly about scales and measures, to see if we can communicate musically.

I ones had a look into Audacity, and it seems it can increase or decrease the bpm of a track.
You can however not tell audacity to make something 120 bpm.
You can as far as I found only give a percentage of how much slower or faster you want the track to be.

When I was covering tracks to learn from it, I imported multiple tracks in to LMMS.
Only once I did not have any sync issues. It was an Hip Hop track, and suspect the original was made on a computer.

https://soundcloud.com/user586365033/hiphop

For those who do not recognize it: Ice Cube - Gangster rap made me do it.

Which one of you is going to record first? If it's you then he can play the guitar over your track (which already has the desired tempo of course). He can use his mobile phone to play a wave or MP3 file that you sent him over his headphones and play along.

If he's gonna play first then you can send him a few MP3's with a metronome or simple drum track in a few popular tempo's like 80 BPM, 100 BPM and 120 BPM. He can choose the tempo and tell you which he used.

However, I guess that'll only work if you add live playing to his, and not if you want to add automated (Midi?) playing of, say, a synth. But then again, if you used a DAW to create the backing track for the guitarist then you should be able to import his work into your DAW?

Or does the guitarist want to make the "final" mix or track? Because that would definitely force him to use a computer. If he hasn't done that before I think this "workflow" isn't the best to start learning how to use a computer for recording music.

BTW Reaper (DAW) works natively in Windows and Linux. Might be easier to install the exact same version of than Ardour. But Adacious should work too for simple stuff.

Good luck!

[Gps]

I have been looking at and thinking about reaper.

I am starting to loose patience with the LMMS development.

I have asked for swing and groove quantitation, many years ago now.

This has to do with me seeing a demonstration with an Atari ST, Cubase, a drum-machine and a Yamaha DX7.

We the public asked the guy to make some house / disco.
He clearly was not into that type of music, but programmed a simple beat.
We then said it sounded very mechanical, then he did something in Cubase, and boom it suddenly sounded like a real drummer.
He right clicked in Cubase in a midi pattern.

If this could be done on an Atari ST already, then how hard can it be to have this on a modern computer?
Were talking about the 80 ties.

From you tube I learned Cubase and Albeton have stuff like this, but a full Cubase is above my budget, and even worse it has no Linux version.

Off topic, I ones lend an Yamaha DX7 from a computer club, and hooked it up to my Atari ST with a pirated Cubase.
Sadly I found out the DX7 was not multitimbral.
(it can't play multiple instruments at the same time)
Still had fun because I had a drum pattern, from a floppy that came with an Atari ST magazine.
The good old days? Well not financially because you could buy a car for that money....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQvpgqE ... l=DanBaker

For the younger people here, the Atari only handled the midi part, the sounds are not coming from the Atari (except the metronome click), but from a sound module. I should never had throw away my Atari ?

[Gps]

It seems my American friend, might be installing Reaper.

That should solve any sync issues, or at least I hope so.

Although not directly related, to this attempt at coop, I did find a post from three years ago were somebody requested groove quantization for reaper.
There seems to be plugins that can do it.

Will I finally get funky ? Trying to do this manual in LMMS failed horrible.

[Linuxmusician01]

It seems my American friend, might be installing Reaper.
[...]

If he hasn't used a DAW before he's gonna be in for a surprise, ha ha. Too me all DAW's are incomprehensible. But I sincerely hope your collaboration will flourish!

Don't give up.

[Impostor]

There seems to be plugins that can do it.
Will I finally get funky ? Trying to do this manual in LMMS failed horrible.

Putting a subtle delay, preferably a filtered one like Calf Vintage tape delay, on your drum track can also funk it up a bit. Subtle is the word though!

[Largos]

From the Ardour 7.5 release notes.

Tempo Map Editing

Over the past few releases, we revamped tempo maps editing with one goal: introduce mapping tempo to real performance.

Musicians often make subtle pacing changes during their performances. Previously, an engineer or producer would have to slice regions and time-stretch them to "fix" these changes. Now you can do it the other way round: create tempo map nodes and easily adjust their positions to match onsets in the recorded material.

You can access the tempo mapping mode by going to "Edit / Tempo / Map Tempo". It's also possible to use this mode by default. The setting is at the bottom of the "Metronome" page of the "Preferences" dialog.

The basics of this feature have been available for some time now. But the UX of mapping tempo to performance has finally reached the stage where we feel comfortable pitching it to users and collecting feedback.

We will provide more documentation (the manual, videos etc.) for this feature in the near-term future, but if you want to get a sense of how this works, there is a Harrison Mixbus video about it.

That might be useful for this.

[Gps]

It seems my American friend, might be installing Reaper.
[...]

If he hasn't used a DAW before he's gonna be in for a surprise, ha ha. Too me all DAW's are incomprehensible. But I sincerely hope your collaboration will flourish!

Don't give up.

Giving up is in general not in my system. This also makes it often very hard for me to let things go.

I was already looking for a simple tutorial but have not found one yet.

Most of them make me shout a my screen, ffs, I only want to record something, stop talking.
Most vids are already 4-5 min in before they even point at the record button.......

[Gps]

There seems to be plugins that can do it.
Will I finally get funky ? Trying to do this manual in LMMS failed horrible.

Putting a subtle delay, preferably a filtered one like Calf Vintage tape delay, on your drum track can also funk it up a bit. Subtle is the word though!

Thats the word, subtile.

It can easily be overdone, were it does not get funky but just sounds wrong.

[Gps]

From the Ardour 7.5 release notes.

Tempo Map Editing

Over the past few releases, we revamped tempo maps editing with one goal: introduce mapping tempo to real performance.

Musicians often make subtle pacing changes during their performances. Previously, an engineer or producer would have to slice regions and time-stretch them to "fix" these changes. Now you can do it the other way round: create tempo map nodes and easily adjust their positions to match onsets in the recorded material.

You can access the tempo mapping mode by going to "Edit / Tempo / Map Tempo". It's also possible to use this mode by default. The setting is at the bottom of the "Metronome" page of the "Preferences" dialog.

The basics of this feature have been available for some time now. But the UX of mapping tempo to performance has finally reached the stage where we feel comfortable pitching it to users and collecting feedback.

We will provide more documentation (the manual, videos etc.) for this feature in the near-term future, but if you want to get a sense of how this works, there is a Harrison Mixbus video about it.

That might be useful for this.

The first time, me and that American talked, I was already thinking about Ardour.

LMMS is a great midi editor, but Ardour seems to be from day one aimed at people who want to record life music.

Been doing of google search, and watching some vids.

Only Cubase, Albeton and FL studio seem to have groove quantization, out of the box. ( I need to dig deeper in this, dont tell me there is no daw on Linux that can dot it )

There was some talk about creating nodes, and yes this sound exactly about my issue / questions.

I know real artist play with feel. In exact computer terms, they are not exactly on time.
This is also what groove groove quantization does. Making some notes less perfect, timing wise.

Maybe I to need ask about this on the Ardour forum. Tempo maps and groove quantization, are at least close related.

[Impostor]

Only Cubase, Albeton and FL studio seem to have groove quantization, out of the box. ( I need to dig deeper in this, dont tell me there is no daw on Linux that can dot it :( )

Hydrogen has a "randomize velocity" option, and, also a "lead and lag" per-note control window where you can do some grooving. I don't see the point of the velocity randomization option as you can easily vary that yourself, but the lead-and-lag control is a very handy feature to have.

MusE has a "humanize" script where you can randomize velocity and timing.