BPM & DELAY CALCULATOR

[Geir]

This is really quite interesting Andy !! Thanks for the reseach and the lesson ! I really need to look more into this

I did look up YGTHYLA on wikipedia and found this:

The song is in a folkish strophic form and uses a Dylanesque acoustic guitar figure in compound time

. so of course I followed compound time and it did both enlighten and confuse me a bit. So I guess I'll have to read it again a few times

here's the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_time#Compound_meter

[AndyR]

Oh, that does make a quite a bit of sense to me.

I've known for ages, years, that everytime I try to write in 3/4, I actually write in 6/8 (and sometimes 12/8).

This is because I start counting threes to get it going, and then my natural "rocknroller" four-on-the-floor tendencies kick in and lay a slow 4 or 2 beat over it.

So it's called compound time, then, is it? Learn something every day

I strongly suspect that's what happened to John Lennon on YGTHYLA - "hey! let's do a waltz, yeah cool...". He started playing one, and then sang in fours over it

That's what usually happens to me.

[64Guitars]

Great posts, Andy.

Actually, I only learnt/understood a lot of it while I was typing it out (but I've had most of the "facts" for years)!

I know what you mean. That's why I enjoy answering technical questions about the BRs, audio theory, etc. and writing tutorials in the Guides section or on my website. It forces me to look up stuff that I've known about for years but perhaps not well enough to explain it in accurate detail, and to really think about it and get it straight in my head before I try to explain it. So I learn a great deal by teaching others.

Sometimes I try a delay on a vocal, but it really does put "echoes" on a voice, and I don't do many tracks that seem to benefit from that. Different styles really benefit from it, though... (oldrottenhead creates some seriously amazing vocals with delays on)

The main thing for me is: I try not to use delay on too many different parts in the recording - it can get a bit confusing for the listener.

I agree. In general, I really don't like delay on vocals. It makes the vocal confusing and the lyrics hard to follow. I would rather use a bit of reverb instead to make the vocal a bit more vibrant. I also like to duplicate vocal tracks and pan them conversely with a slight time shift. It really makes the sound bigger. You can do the same thing by recording the vocal performance twice. That works well for background vocals. But for the lead vocal, I prefer an exact duplicate of the vocal track as described above. It gives a tighter sound which I think is important for the lead vocal. For background vocals, that tightness often isn't desired, so recording multiple vocal tracks works better. Then it sounds more like a group of singers rather than just one.

[64Guitars]

I did look up YGTHYLA on wikipedia and found this:

The song is in a folkish strophic form and uses a Dylanesque acoustic guitar figure in compound time

. so of course I followed compound time and it did both enlighten and confuse me a bit. So I guess I'll have to read it again a few times

here's the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_time#Compound_meter

Ah, yes. Compound time. I have a vague recollection of that from music classes at school. So I had the right idea in thinking that "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" is triplets in 4/4. But I had forgotten that it's called compound time and that each note of the triplet counts as one beat rather than the whole triplet counting as one. So it's not 4/4; it's 12/8 in compound time.

Now the only thing I'm still confused about is why it's 12 eighth-notes to the bar and not 12 twelfth-notes. I guess there's no such thing as a twelfth-note but maybe there should be. I mean, if a whole note is 12 beats, then a half-note would be 6 beats, a quarter-note would be 3 beats, and an eighth-note should be 1½ beats, shouldn't it? I'm probably missing something obvious but at the moment I'm baffled. Maybe Andy can explain it?

[Super 8]

Fascinating stuff!  That's a great tip about doubling the lead vocal 64Guitars!  Couple more questions this end ...

Question 1: Is 64Guitars lead vocal technique what is sometimes referred to as 'A.D.T.' ('Automatic Double Tracking')?  Would you say George Martin applied this effect to Lennon's voice on YGTHYLA then?  As you can probably tell I'm trying to recreate a similar sound & feel to YGTHYLA so all this info coming out of the virtual woodwork is actually REALLY helpful right now! 

QUESTION 2: I'm planning on segueing from a YGTHYLA time signature & tempo straight into a 4/4 time signature (it definitely is 4/4!)  If you're playing in a YGTHYLA Compound time signature (ie: 12/8 as now established) along with the same tempo THEN ... what would the follow-on tempo be to segue straight into a 4/4 time sig??! 

PS:  Sorry people, I've actually neglected to mention what I'm trying to achieve here!  I have an original song percolating in TWO parts.  It's called: 'Rollercoaster'.  The first section was in Waltz time (it's now in Compound time - thanks guys!)  The second section is in a straight 'four-to-the-floor' 4/4 time signature.  I need the two parts to segue seamlessly from one to the other.  The second section has a sort of Rolling Stones vibe and feel to it.  The first section is VERY Beatles inspired (YGTHYLA being the main influence!)  It's gonna be my attempt at a 'Beatles v. Stones' production within one composition - a sound experiment.  It's currently playing on a loop in my head - I just need to get it down!  It'll be coming to a SoundCloud near you soon so ... STAY TUNED!!!  Thanks again for all your help with this so far folks - it's very much appreciated!   

[AndyR]

Just finished this one - I'll have a go at your new one in a minute Super 8

Maybe Andy can explain it?

I have a feeling there's others on here with a lot more sound understanding of musical theory than I have!!

I suspect it's convention of hundreds of years. The little I learnt at school talked exclusively of crochets and quavers, minims, and wotnot...

Nowadays everyone seems to talk about eighth-notes and quarter-notes, and I nearly always have to look up what people mean by a quarter-note. It's a crochet, a whole "beat". If you look at music that has a tempo specified, it's usually expressed in crochets, regardless of the time-signature... which is what led me to figuring out how that other website reckoned this song was 93 BPM, a "beat" is a crochet.

I suspect these terms like "quarter-note" are more "modern" terms based on 4/4 standard time. There are 4 crochets in a bar, therefore a crochet is a "quarter-note".

If we then try and use these terms in another time-signature, eg 3/4 or 5/4, they become misleading. A crochet is a crochet. But if we call it a quarter-note, suddenly we're using it to describe what is actually a "third-note" or "fifth-note" in that time-signature!

And like you say, when we're using a quaver-based time signature like 6/8 or 12/8, then the eighth-notes (quavers) suddenly seem to be sixth- or twelfth- notes

I think the important thing here is that the different time-signatures give different feels. 2/4 really does feel different than 4/4, although on paper it looks almost the same except there's twice as many bar lines. To be able to express this across different pieces of music, you need standard building blocks that represent time. So a crochet at 120 BPM is still 0.5 of a second, regardless of the time signature.

The time-signatures, with their different emphases (accents?) in the bar, give the different feel of the melodies or whatever.

Try them out loud:

4/4
ONE 2 3 4 ONE 2 3 4

Or, if you're doing rock/pop with a back-beat
1 TWO 3 FOUR

2/4
ONE 2 ONE 2
(It's called "march time", used for, er, military marches)

3/4
ONE 2 3 ONE 2 3

6/8 (and remember to count twice as fast as the ones above)
ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3

12/8
ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3 THREE 2 3 FOUR 2 3

The reason YGTHYL is 12/8 not 6/8, I'm guessing, is because of the length of the melody phrases - not sure about this, though.

EDIT: I've just realised, the quarter, eighth, etc can't be that "modern" - look at how we write time signatures, they're fractions! 4/4 time is "four quarters", 2/4 is "two quarters", 6/8 time is "six eighths"...

The plot thickens!!!

[AndyR]

Question 1: Is 64Guitars lead vocal technique what is sometimes referred to as 'A.D.T.' ('Automatic Double Tracking')?  Would you say George Martin applied this effect to Lennon's voice on YGTHYLA then?  As you can probably tell I'm trying to recreate a similar sound & feel to YGTHYLA so all this info coming out of the virtual woodwork is actually REALLY helpful right now! 

I think so. Someone might know better, but I think "Automatic Double Tracking" meant doing it electronically rather then "Double Tracking" which meant sing it twice. My gut feeling is that on most Beatles recordings, when it's double-tracked, it really was sung twice, that's how you did it in those days.

QUESTION 2: I'm planning on segueing from a YGTHYLA time signature & tempo straight into a 4/4 time signature (it definitely is 4/4!)  If you're playing in a YGTHYLA Compound time signature (ie: 12/8 as now established) along with the same tempo THEN ... what would the follow-on tempo be to segue straight into a 4/4 time sig??!   

PS:  Sorry people, I've actually neglected to mention what I'm trying to achieve here!  I have an original song percolating in TWO parts.  It's called: 'Rollercoaster'.  The first section was in Waltz time (it's now in Compound time - thanks guys!)  The second section is in a straight 'four-to-the-floor' 4/4 time signature.  I need the two parts to segue seamlessly from one to the other.  The second section has a sort of Rolling Stones vibe and feel to it.  The first section is VERY Beatles inspired (YGTHYLA being the main influence!)  It's gonna be my attempt at a 'Beatles v. Stones' production within one composition - a sound experiment.  It's currently playing on a loop in my head - I just need to get it down!  It'll be coming to a SoundCloud near you soon so ... STAY TUNED!!!  Thanks again for all your help with this so far folks - it's very much appreciated!   

Sounds like a cool idea!

But to answer your question... well, it depends, will the 4/4 section be going at the same speed? If it's going at the same speed, then it stays at the same BPM. But whether what we'd hear as the same speed is the same thing... not too sure (You might need to read the previous email! Hope it's clear enough).

If you've got your 12/8 section working nice at 93 BPM, leaving the BPM at 93 when you switch to 4/4 will sound like it's speeding up, even though the length of a crochet is still the same... This is because the 12/8 at 93 BPM contains that slow "4/4" running at a notional 62 BPM. So, when you switch to the true 4/4 at 93 BPM, the "four beats" suddenly get half as fast again.

Er... actually, I think this is beyond me to explain!!!

But I suspect it'll go seamlessly as long as you play the instruments well enough. You might have to rehearse the two sections separately at 93 BPM, then start practicing moving from one section to the other.

But I have a kind of gut feeling that it won't be what you want... I think you probably have to give it a go and see what happens... and get back to us with "uh-oh, I need it a bit faster/slower/whatever".

There will be a magic number that makes it sound "seamless" to the listeners when you've recorded it. I put the seamless in quotes, because I suspect switching from 12/8 to 4/4 is always going to provide a little jolt... it's just making that jolt sound/feel good.
 

[64Guitars]

Question 1: Is 64Guitars lead vocal technique what is sometimes referred to as 'A.D.T.' ('Automatic Double Tracking')?  Would you say George Martin applied this effect to Lennon's voice on YGTHYLA then?

According to the WikiPedia page on You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, the vocals are double-tracked. Double-tracking is the technique I described earlier for background vocals. That is, you record the vocal track once, then you record another take of the same vocal part on another track. You mix the song with both tracks, usually panned apart, to give a stronger vocal.

ADT is an artificial way to achieve a similar effect in real time. It was achieved by recording simultaneously to two separate tape machines. One of the tape machines was equipped with an oscillator which allowed the operator to vary its speed. The signal from the playback head of this machine was sent to the mixing desk. The distance between the record head and the playback head caused a slight delay which could be varied in length by varying the tape speed. So the signals from the two tape machines would arrive at the mixing desk slightly out of sync, giving the effect of double-tracking.

The technique I described earlier for lead vocals gives a result that's similar to ADT but not in real time. You have to first record a single track. Then you make a copy of that track, shift it slightly to create a very slight delay, and pan that track to one side while the original track is panned to the other.

On some BRs, there is a doubling effect which does something similar in real time. It splits the signal and applies a delay to one side. There is a separation parameter which determines the panning of the two signals.

[AndyR]

Try counting this, it's two bars of 12/8 followed by two bars of 4/4

Tap your finger consistently at the same speed and count each one on the finger tap - if you don't speed up at the change, that's what it'll feel like if you stick at the same BPM.

ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3 THREE 2 3 FOUR 2 3
ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3 THREE 2 3 FOUR 2 3
ONE and 2 and 3 and 4 and
ONE and 2 and 3 and 4 and

Of course, if it's rock n roll (backbeat), it should be:

ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3 THREE 2 3 FOUR 2 3
ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3 THREE 2 3 FOUR 2 3
1 and TWO and 3 and FOUR and
1 and TWO and 3 and FOUR and

Or, I suppose "four on the floor" (bass drum beat on each):

ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3 THREE 2 3 FOUR 2 3
ONE 2 3 TWO 2 3 THREE 2 3 FOUR 2 3
ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and
ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and

...

I'm not too good at it, but I've done it enough times now to suspect that, actually, staying at 93 BPM is exactly what you want...

And, 64G - nice one, that's what suspected, that the original ADT was "realtime", but I didn't know how they did it. (Actually, I've done it in a studio!! Years ago, recording a demo for a three-piece, we didn't want another guitar part, so the engineer stuck the guitar signal through a chorus with modulation turned off... the original went left, and the slightly delayed and detuned signal went right)

[64Guitars]

My gut feeling is that on most Beatles recordings, when it's double-tracked, it really was sung twice, that's how you did it in those days.

WikiPedia says "ADT was invented especially for the Beatles during the spring of 1966 by Ken Townsend, a recording engineer employed at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, mainly at the instigation of John Lennon. Lennon hated the tedium of double tracking during sessions and regularly expressed a desire for a technical alternative." So anything recorded before 1966 would be manually double-tracked (vocal sung and recorded twice). But they used a lot of ADT on Revolver and most subsequent recordings. They still used manual double-tracking occasionally, depending on what they were trying to achieve, but I think they mostly used ADT from Revolver onward. Although, there's almost no ADT on Let It Be because they wanted it to be an "honest" album and not rely on technical trickery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_double_tracking