Analyzing your sound waves against a grid

Duck Tape

Platinum Member
I am actually not sure if I'm using the right term.. but if you record yourself using a program like protools you can have a graphical representation of your time that would look something like this:

protools.jpg

If you recorded yourself playing time to a click, and the click is marked clearly on the interface it would show you which beats are early, right on, or late.

I have been a bit slack with recording over the years and I have long been curious if I could use this to analyze myself, perhaps curate my work and maybe even change some of the nuances in my playing.

I wonder if anyone else does this and found some benefit to it?
 
I wonder if anyone else does this and found some benefit to it?
Absolutely yes. I’ve recorded myself playing around without any instruments and only a click, then listen back to ’sus out where I rush (It’s usually my left hand). I can also recognize which tempos I slot into easily and which I drag or rush.

Another good idea is to put breaks in the click track so you can play to emptiness for a measure or two or four.
 
Yes. I've found it useful. I found that my left hand really tended to drag on the backseat. Well, drag might not be the right word, but it was often a smidge late, while all the other notes lined up.

The thing is, I like that feel sometimes, but I didn't know how to control it. Recording to the click helped me learn how to listen better in real time so I could control it.
 
While it’s a skill that’s needed these days, it still makes me sad that it’s become the judge and jury for music.
 
I
While it’s a skill that’s needed these days, it still makes me sad that it’s become the judge and jury for music.
Don't think it has to be. It can be used as a tool for development, without running the show.

Well, maybe not in a lot of commercial music, but in my little world it doesn't have to run the show. 😊
 
I’ve used ProTools in the past to see how accurate I could be. It was a great tool for that. I’m less concerned, nowadays, in being dead on. I can still do it, no problem, but I’m more enamored by playing with a groove that, purposefully, doesn’t attach itself to the clicks.

The feel isn’t in the notes, but in the space between the notes.
 
You can also listen to your parts with the click turned off (not looking at the screen) to find which bits have the best feel, judged solely on audio.

Then you can look at the grid & see what can be learned. You might find that you like the feel when you are most locked to the click, but you might also find you like the feel best when it is not so rigid - opinions vary.

So yes, a great learning tool.

:)
 
I made a recording of the right channel of "Killer Joe" using Logic Pro for similar reasons. This was back when that swinging quarter notes thread was active and I wanted to get a closer look at Grady Tate's ride cymbal timing.

Killer Joe Timing.jpg

I overlaid it on a grid to get a sense of his absolute timing. I also made a spreadsheet with the times of the cymbal hits measured to the millisecond which let me calculate his note-to-note times. Once I had those I could plot the timing variation between notes over the span of the song to see if there were any patterns. For instance, there was speculation that maybe he was pushing and pulling the time within the bar, like maybe playing the 2 and 4 a little late and that kind of thing.

The results were pretty interesting. I keep meaning to post a thread about it but just haven't sat down and done it.
 
I made a recording of the right channel of "Killer Joe" using Logic Pro for similar reasons. This was back when that swinging quarter notes thread was active and I wanted to get a closer look at Grady Tate's ride cymbal timing.

View attachment 124631

I overlaid it on a grid to get a sense of his absolute timing. I also made a spreadsheet with the times of the cymbal hits measured to the millisecond which let me calculate his note-to-note times. Once I had those I could plot the timing variation between notes over the span of the song to see if there were any patterns. For instance, there was speculation that maybe he was pushing and pulling the time within the bar, like maybe playing the 2 and 4 a little late and that kind of thing.

The results were pretty interesting. I keep meaning to post a thread about it but just haven't sat down and done it.

Thank god someone decided to pursue this. Was I right? Lol
 
I made a recording of the right channel of "Killer Joe" using Logic Pro for similar reasons. This was back when that swinging quarter notes thread was active and I wanted to get a closer look at Grady Tate's ride cymbal timing.

View attachment 124631

I overlaid it on a grid to get a sense of his absolute timing. I also made a spreadsheet with the times of the cymbal hits measured to the millisecond which let me calculate his note-to-note times. Once I had those I could plot the timing variation between notes over the span of the song to see if there were any patterns. For instance, there was speculation that maybe he was pushing and pulling the time within the bar, like maybe playing the 2 and 4 a little late and that kind of thing.

The results were pretty interesting. I keep meaning to post a thread about it but just haven't sat down and done it.
Dude was pretty darn solid, huh? I guess that’s why he got the call.
 
Maybe! I remember the various views expressed on that thread, but TBH I can't remember which posters had which views for the most part. I'm blanking on what your angle was.

Yep, not a metronome but impressively solid.

My take was that he was pushing the 2 and 4
 
I have an app on my phone called TETuner that has a similar analyzation part to it, and when I am teaching my young students about, pulse, space control, and subdivision, we use that visual analyzer. ffor many of the students who are visual learners, it helps.. For the students who have the natural ability to get space control, it helps them understand something they can already do in a different way
 
I practice with a metronome and sometimes make recordings to see if I'm on the grid.

But I also think this click track style playing is a current fad. Sometimes the tempo should change a little. This is music, not some drum machine.
 
I made a recording of the right channel of "Killer Joe" using Logic Pro for similar reasons. This was back when that swinging quarter notes thread was active and I wanted to get a closer look at Grady Tate's ride cymbal timing.

View attachment 124631

I overlaid it on a grid to get a sense of his absolute timing. I also made a spreadsheet with the times of the cymbal hits measured to the millisecond which let me calculate his note-to-note times. Once I had those I could plot the timing variation between notes over the span of the song to see if there were any patterns. For instance, there was speculation that maybe he was pushing and pulling the time within the bar, like maybe playing the 2 and 4 a little late and that kind of thing.

The results were pretty interesting. I keep meaning to post a thread about it but just haven't sat down and done it.
It is fun to load tracks into a DAW and see what they are actually doing. I do this pretty often. Even with EDM where most everything is gridded just to see what the micro timings. EG, how wide was that bass drum and snare, was that ride ahead or behind the beat. The older funk stuff is great to look at. Most of the modern DJ equipment can't sync them, they were all over the place.
 
I record with a click all the time, so yes, I listen for flamming and I also look at the grid.
I'm not always 'correcting' things.
 
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