following a conductor - real time tempo track changes?

[gugliel]

I've seen mention of the notion of having sequenced music follow a conductor's beat ... but never tracked down the details. Anyone have information or references for this? Where there is a sequencer, a conductor waving a baton, and a musician following the beat and tapping out the tempo on something that makes the sequenced music follow changes in the human conductor's pacing?

Thanks!

[FrozeN]

I did mention this a bit and that was how I made the Bruckner KHSO mock-up. However, I only use manual editing in the tempo map of the sequencer to imitate how a conductor does the "rubato" thing.

I have used this piece of machine way back when I was still in music school (man that was like 15 years ago! :eek: ) which was like a drum pad and you use a mallet to tap on it to initiate the sequence, and thus the tempo. But I don't recall what is it, nor do I ever heard of any device like that now. :p

Cheers,
Frankie

[Tom Crowning]

I've seen mention of the notion of having sequenced music follow a conductor's beat ... but never tracked down the details. Anyone have information or references for this? Where there is a sequencer, a conductor waving a baton, and a musician following the beat and tapping out the tempo on something that makes the sequenced music follow changes in the human conductor's pacing?

Thanks!

I don't know if there's a 'ready to use' solution available, but depending
on your sequencer software you could use and external CC controler
(something like Korgs 'Chaos Pad') for tapping and map the controler
events via automation to the sequencer softwares time track.

Regards,
Tom

Edit: I just did a quick search, Band in a Box and Finale 2006 do have
this feature build-in.

[gugliel]

Here's something from kvraudio, where the questioner called it "tap tempo"


I was wondering if you guys knew of some sort of plugin for live performance that would help with tap tempo stuff? I'm trying to change the host tempo on the fly via MIDI tap from a drum pad or keyboard. any help would be appreciated. thanks!


and the only potential lead mentioned ableton live .... anybody else with more info?? Here's another quote, again referencing Live ....


I have beat matched whole tracks in cubase with live drums and there is no getting away from it, its a pain . you will have to bpm and warp point so many beats depending on the drummer and even with a good drummer you will probably have to do it a couple times or more in a bar. also you can totaly loose the feel of the groove if you are not careful. as for live i don't know but i think it uses short loops of 2 to 4 bars not whole tracks at a time but i may be wrong about that.

[Michiel Post]

Cubase allows this. I used it to keep a sequenced sampled anvils pattern running in tempo with Wagner's Rheingold during opera performances. I used a simple midi source - the Roland octapad for tempo input. You can specify the note value that is monitored and some boundires to the tempo changes that are allowed.
Brilliant feature of that sequencer.

[Tom Crowning]

Cubase allows this.

Yep, I use Cubase, too, that's why I had this idea with the
Chaos Pad. I've never needed this feature, but it's nice to
know that I COULD use it if necessary.

Tom

[Bruce A. Richardson]

You can map tempo to a MIDI track in SONAR as well.

OR...you can go with the low tech/hi tech method. Videotape yourself "air conducting" the piece, drop it into the sequencer, and sequence away. You could probably produce the tap-tempo track from the "conductor" then ditch the video.

[linwood]

What ever happened to the midi baton?

[Tom Crowning]

Videotape yourself "air conducting" the piece, drop it into the sequencer, and sequence away. You could probably produce the tap-tempo track from the "conductor" then ditch the video.

This would be a completely sick way to do this......

...that's why I like it :D

Some day I have to try it.

Tom

[gugliel]

thanks for the ideas -- just to stay on track, I should be clear that I'm looking to modify the tempo of a pre-sequenced work WHILE FOLLOWING A CONDUCTOR, for live performance -- thinking of putting together an opera mini-orchestration for workshop performance, where following the singers is essential.

I read some comments complaining about cubase's success in "beat matching" like this ... anyone here use Ableton Live with midi (not loops, not 'groove' clips, just a steady progression of midi events where the basic beat can be made to fluctuate in real time)?

[DPDAN]

thinking of putting together an opera mini-orchestration for workshop performance, where following the singers is essential.

that would never work , but using the conductor track to control an existing sequence is very possible.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

thanks for the ideas -- just to stay on track, I should be clear that I'm looking to modify the tempo of a pre-sequenced work WHILE FOLLOWING A CONDUCTOR, for live performance -- thinking of putting together an opera mini-orchestration for workshop performance, where following the singers is essential.

I read some comments complaining about cubase's success in "beat matching" like this ... anyone here use Ableton Live with midi (not loops, not 'groove' clips, just a steady progression of midi events where the basic beat can be made to fluctuate in real time)?

Actually, Cakewalk had a program called Cakewalk Live years ago which was designed to do exactly this!!

And I think there might still be some hardware boxes that do this. I have never had the need for this functionality, so I do not remember the specifics, but I know for a fact that multiple solutions for this very task have existed in the past.

[gugliel]

Midi Maestro looks like the kind of thing I had in mind -- at $99.95, a painless price to try it out, and there's even a 15 day free trial. midimaestro.com ... I'm downloading now, and will report back on how it handles my gigastudio + kontakt2 + sonar + samplitude + finale pc environment.