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Topic: How to Select the Right Tempo

Ok, so I know there is never a right or wrong tempo but I was playing around with Cubase last night and I thought I would get a basic drum beat, try and lay some chords to get inspiration for creating a basic song.

By default Cubase opens with a tempo of 120bpm. To me this sounds too fast but often slowing it down, it seemed to sound too slow and I couldn't find a happy medium.

So I started trying to figure the tempo of some of the songs I was listening to at the time, mainly Thunder. It seemed these were sitting at around the 80bpm - is this correct? Is 80 pretty standard for this kind of melodic rock music?

How do you go about selecting the right tempo for your songs?

2 (edited by polyal 21-07-10 21:41:52)

Re: How to Select the Right Tempo

get the song going in your head while you're playing your git and tapping your feet ( open project-->beat calcutor first )then still in a trance to that particular groove start tapping the space bar per beat .. this will give you the tempo your tapping..then go to the transport bar and change tempo from track to fixed and imput the tempo ...get the metronome going and start creating a drum track at your ( at the moment) tempo

always round up or down to the nearest whole beat
ie say 92 not 91.32 what the beat calculator might compute

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Re: How to Select the Right Tempo

Is this beat calculator a common feature of music programs? I have not seen it but I am using Cubase LE so perhaps it is not a feature.

I just searched online for beat calculators and it pulls up a few free online ones -

http://www.audionetworkplc.com/popup-be … lator.aspx

Which will do the job nicely. I was searching for something like this but I did not think to search specifically on "beat counter". I think this will really help!

Are you using Cubase?

Re: How to Select the Right Tempo

that should do the job it looks similar to the sx3 version

i use sx3 and have no intentions of upgrading as there is nothing i cant do in SX3 .. esp with all the
3rd party plugs and vsti

i really recommend you go top end with your sequencer tho ...if your using cubase then cubase 5 (but not the studio version)

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Re: How to Select the Right Tempo

tried the beat calculator to a song of 106 and got an average of 106.1..so this should do very
nicely

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Re: How to Select the Right Tempo

I'm using Cubase LE and I wonder what differences I would see if I were to upgrade to a higher version. Perhaps you can help on teh thread here

http://forums.ollysguitar.com/topic/584 … base-full/

I would be interested to know what VSTs you use as well - perhaps that should eb a nother thread.

Re: How to Select the Right Tempo

i suppose it depends on what you want to use cubase for..i use SX3 in the studio basically in a layering
process ...ie record a drum track..then a bass track..then an acc guit ..then a......and so on and so on..i think most people work this way as its the only way for a one man set up..but the results can be really satisfying and very professional
most popular music is recorded like this anyway
as far as which version to use ......sx3 v cub5....sx3 hasn't got pitch correction,but i use melodyne... sx3 hasn't got halion.
but i use 'directwave'(sampleplayers)and so on (you've just done something similar by getting 'beat calculator' )cubase 5 has got more bells and whistles if you want them but the real core of any version is a multitracking
recording device
so in any one project  do you want 256 stereo tracks? do you want 128 vsti do you want to run 200 plug ins etc etc
do you want to pitch shift a track while apply time stretch and pitch correction all at the same time,while it cooks dinner and wipes your ars* then cubase 6 will probably do that
i dont do any of this thats why i can survive in a sensible manner using SX3

so what do you want out of your multitracker (cubase-any version)
you neen to see what the different versions are offering to see whats best for you
go to the websites for this info


.......as important is the interfacing, a flexible mixer is minimum

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