Committing to a Tempo

[Today]

does anyone else find this to be a huge barrier between themselves and progressing with an idea/project?

i want to start cutting more audio in my tracks, and i feel like this difficulty is confining me to midi for too long.. i have a hard time deciding sometimes with grooves where they sit best. While i'm writing i might fuck with the tempo at several points.

[press]

for me i usually decide if i want to make hiphop dubstep juke/jungle or dnb. so thats either 80-95bpm 140bpm 160bpm or 172-175bpm. once i know what i want to make i set it and work the tune around the tempo, i do not generally mess with the tempo once i lay some stuff out.

[ogunslinger]

if you change tempo and you have audio tracks it will mess your groove up

[jrisreal]

Real bands don't worry about tempo. They don't even know their tempo, just base their tune off the drummer who just plays at whatever speed he/she is feeling. I think the same is a good thing to practice in edm. Use a tap-tempo tool or something to get the bpm that you're feeling rather than committing to 140 or w/e

[wub]

I never sit down and think to myself "I'm going to make a tune at xyz tempo", it's far too limiting. Start producing, get the initial hook for the tune going, then start looping it and let the production itself dictate what BPM it's going to be.

if you change tempo and you have audio tracks it will mess your groove up

To a certain extent, but not always - FL audio file restretch function thing when you adjust the BPM usually holds quite well, then it'll be a case of maybe tidying up any drum sections that have gotten ploddy/too steppy, but that's part & parcel.

[Sexual_Chocolate]

i just start chucking samples around

start with my DAWs predetermined tempo (120), but usually end up changing it 3-5 times (i.e. 120, 140, 135, 128, 180)

[Lectric]

Real bands don't worry about tempo. They don't even know their tempo, just base their tune off the drummer who just plays at whatever speed he/she is feeling. I think the same is a good thing to practice in edm. Use a tap-tempo tool or something to get the bpm that you're feeling rather than committing to 140 or w/e

then if you want a dj to bump your tune they likely wont.

[Sonika]

i just start chucking samples around

start with my DAWs predetermined tempo (120), but usually end up changing it 3-5 times (i.e. 120, 140, 135, 128, 180)

Why is it that all DAWs predetermined tempo is 120 bpm?

[wormcode]

Real bands don't worry about tempo. They don't even know their tempo, just base their tune off the drummer who just plays at whatever speed he/she is feeling. I think the same is a good thing to practice in edm. Use a tap-tempo tool or something to get the bpm that you're feeling rather than committing to 140 or w/e

then if you want a dj to bump your tune they likely wont.

If they are good they will. A DJ won't really care as long as it's a good tune, and there's plenty of ways around mixing odd tempos.

120 bpm is considered a middle ground average tempo and it's also very easy to recognise and count for anyone, so it became a standard (allegro-moderato). There's probably some more to it. I know FL has always been 140, and I've used some trackers that had odd default tempos, or none.

[MassAphekt]

Im kind of formal when it comes to bpm, not sure why but I tend to mix house/electro at 132, dubstep/hardstyle/harddance at 148, drumstep/hardcore at 178
and why? well I like to switch genres behind the decks alot :p

[mthrfnk]

I sometimes mess with tempo. Recently I created an intro to a track at 140bpm with a halftime drum beat but ended up switching it down to 130bpm and switching it to a 4x4 beat simply because it fitted the energy of a track. I generally determine my tempos based on how my drum patterns sound with my melodies, I don't like to go into a track thinking "right lets make a 140bpm track".

I personally see nothing wrong with switching tempo but constantly changing whilst working is obviously going to mess your groove up.

[Today]

yeah.. well, i guess my thing is not necessarily that its ruining my groove and i'm jumping around a lot
its just like scenario of building a beat that carries a good groove, but a different one, at a handful of tempos
one might work at 140, 135, and 120 but in different ways
Or a hip hop track that's tough and driving at 96 but funky and laid back at 88

granted its all MIDI
but i have to commit before cutting audio
which i want to start doing more, and actually play to my track in real time through an arrangement, with a beginning and end and everything

I guess i could save as, and try out 2 or 3 versions of a track's initial beat
just wondered if others have a hard time making these kinds of decisions that can't really be un-done at a point

[Sharmaji]

just use ableton.

[3za]

Who says you have to commit to just one tempo?

[Sonika]

I honestly dont consider tempo to be the governing factor of my track. Of course it makes a difference, but I could achieve a super swung, slow feel at 200 bpm, and I could get a hard hitting, fast track at 40 bpm.
Sure, it's a piece of the puzzle, but I'd say not as big as many other aspects of the track.

[Ghost of Muttley]

I make in 145 and my drum make this aspect of fast track

[Suangi]

Why is it that all DAWs predetermined tempo is 120 bpm?

i'd guess it's because it fits nicely into minutes and seconds (2 beats/sec), not that that matters to the vast majority of musicians and producers.

i mess with my tempos a lot, but i usually stick to even numbers and avoid anything like 135.67 and such.

[nowaysj]

Coming from where I come from, it has been a great help to get tempo, scale and key locked down early in the process.

Most daws nowadays can handle changing the tempo of audio. If you are in flstudio, just save the tempo into the wav file, and everything will stretch automatically, and near seamlessly if you change tempo to a reasonable extent. Just like live, there are different algos for tonal vs transient based sounds.

[DimsiLuxi]

i seriously dont see the problem... unless u r using premade loops of drums as ur main drums and dont even feel like chopping it up... or even worse premade bassline loops. Anything else can be worked around. As said u can chop drum loops and put them in a drum rack... place midi notes and voila... ur beat is tempo independent. If u want to use longer samples u can always warp ur audio... some daws do it better than others (ableton does this really well) and u ll be able to change the tempo, note that if u gonna change tempo drastically u will get weird results wich might even sound cool. Other then that i cant se a problem. And as far as commiting to a tempo goes i dont have much of a problem here either. To start producing a toon u have to choose a tempo, sure u can leve it to default but then u start to commit to 120bpm, so might as well start with something more within the tempo of a track i wanna make... if i wanna make a hip hip track i wont leave my tempo at 120 and start working, cause something that sounds good at 120 will sound crap at 90. So some starting tempo is good to have and later i might change the tempo for a few bpms and that wont change much as far as any track elements go. And sure i will check from time to time how my tune sounds in a different tempo but 99,9% percets of the time i ll come back to whatever tempo i wrote the tune in.

[Killamike49]

You don't have to commit to a tempo when you make EMBER BREAKS.