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Old 02-07-2017, 08:11 PM   #1
Woods1
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Default Building A Song From The Beginning: Scratch Track before tempo discovery or after?

How do you all begin if you are in an (AcGut or Piano & Vocal songwriting mode) in Reaper? Is this the best forum to ask this in?

Isn't tempo pretty important when it comes to later on when adding things-particularly loops and such? And is tempo going to determine the speed of the metronome/click?

Thanks,
Woods
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Old 02-07-2017, 09:16 PM   #2
pbx3john
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Hello there - tempo is very important unless you're recording all midi, then it doesn't matter at all. I usually set the click track to what I think is the right tempo and then play it through a few times to see if it still feels right a few plays in. That works for me...
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Old 02-07-2017, 11:04 PM   #3
RDBOIS
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Mostly what pbx3john said above. However, once you get to know Reaper really well, you actually can just play and record your song (eg piano part) and then add a marker at every beat and tell reaper to use this marker as a tempo beat.

In other words, you can create a tempo map that fits to your own representation of time rather than the rigid signature of a metronome.

Why is this cool? Because once you create a tempo map based on your live performance, you can then add MIDI loops or any file, or add VST instruments such as MIDI drum, and everything will automatically play tight to your performance. Many people don't see this as a good thing, but perhaps we've become accustom to unnaturally precise time signatures, like a clock.

There is something exciting about live performances. I mentioned this elsewhere in this forum: I added Stairway to Heaven as a new track in Reaper and was very surprised to see that none of the beats fit to any given BPM tempo. Page's guitar playing is all over the place and the song speeds up randomly from beginning to end. But guess what? I bet no one ever complained that this song doesn't fit neatly to a click track/metronome... Yes?

Have fun.
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