Wondering if anyone can give me some pointers on diagnosing timing problems. I find that sometimes they are obvious and other times they feel subliminal, they are so slight. It is in this situation that I find it very difficult to find the culprit.

Generally I will solo the individual elements and see if I can spot it that way, then in groups etc. However sometimes they are so slight i'm left scratching my head.

A lot of the stuff I have problems with is multitracked, (therin lies some of the problems) generally it feels like its the drums as they are the only non live instruments, obviously I dont want to quantise everything to a grid and lose the feel of the arrangement.

So what to do ?

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www.myspace.com/joekmurphy

Perhaps you could explain a bit more about the workflow, or post up a clip. If the drums are programmed, then surely they're consistent at least, so you could nudge them around slightly without having to quantise. It's not at all unusual to have to push tracks around a little. For one thing, live players are often slightly behind or ahead of a click.

Scouser - I've never heard of anybody who did NOT perceive their looseness of timing when they come to record upon MIDI sequenced tracks! Of course, you can also SEE it when you look at the audio files with their mathematical bar lines. It may sometimes be that the initial tempi are not quite what you'd have played otherwise - step-time MIDI sequencing draws upon a different part of your brain. And, for example, completely non-sequenced tracks often speed up a little through the course of the piece. It's interesting to think about the nature of the inaccuracy and to ask yourself what impulse made you diverge from the clock. It's not necessarily true that the clock is right and the feeling is wrong.

I gave up recording sequenced rhythm sections first. Some folks find it odd, but I don't think it works - they may force you into playing not-quite-the-way you otherwise would. What you really need in place is the main rhythm instrument(s), whether it's a guitar/keyboard chording part or whatever. Sure, unless you want to mess around quite a lot with tempo adjustments and so on, you need to play to a click but in the first place it needs to be the right click - one that supports the main rhythm part without controlling or limiting it. You don't usually need, for instance, a straight-eight sequenced hat in there - wherever possible, record a tambourine, backbeat, hat, cymbals in by hand. Don't use a sequenced instrument unless it's an absolutely integral part of the rhythm arrangement. Get the part(s) so the rhythm sounds alright BY ITSELF, with all the necessary parts in place. If need be, re-record, tweak and comp a little, or even a lot and add the bass and melody parts to that. Once you can hear all that, THEN you can add your sequenced bass drum, or whatever it is. Rehearse in real time with pads or whatever. You may well find you need a lot less and play a lot differently than you would have, because intuition and feel is leading, and you do not feel the need to fill up all the empty space. Works for me.

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...only the dance remains

Quote Red Heylin:

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Scouser - I've never heard of anybody who did NOT perceive their looseness of timing when they come to record upon MIDI sequenced tracks! Of course, you can also SEE it when you look at the audio files with their mathematical bar lines. It may sometimes be that the initial tempi are not quite what you'd have played otherwise - step-time MIDI sequencing draws upon a different part of your brain. And, for example, completely non-sequenced tracks often speed up a little through the course of the piece. It's interesting to think about the nature of the inaccuracy and to ask yourself what impulse made you diverge from the clock. It's not necessarily true that the clock is right and the feeling is wrong.

I gave up recording sequenced rhythm sections first. Some folks find it odd, but I don't think it works - they may force you into playing not-quite-the-way you otherwise would. What you really need in place is the main rhythm instrument(s), whether it's a guitar/keyboard chording part or whatever. Sure, unless you want to mess around quite a lot with tempo adjustments and so on, you need to play to a click but in the first place it needs to be the right click - one that supports the main rhythm part without controlling or limiting it. You don't usually need, for instance, a straight-eight sequenced hat in there - wherever possible, record a tambourine, backbeat, hat, cymbals in by hand. Don't use a sequenced instrument unless it's an absolutely integral part of the rhythm arrangement. Get the part(s) so the rhythm sounds alright BY ITSELF, with all the necessary parts in place. If need be, re-record, tweak and comp a little, or even a lot and add the bass and melody parts to that. Once you can hear all that, THEN you can add your sequenced bass drum, or whatever it is. Rehearse in real time with pads or whatever. You may well find you need a lot less and play a lot differently than you would have, because intuition and feel is leading, and you do not feel the need to fill up all the empty space. Works for me.

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I'm just a solo weekend recordist, but I have to say I agree with the above in bold 100%. I hated hearing my songs when I recorded them to a steady click. But then when I abandoned that and just tried to overdub to a variably played piano, especially with non-trivial accelerandos/ritardandos/pauses, it was too hard to overdub - the timing was horrible.

Most recently I've settled on building a tempo track to match a variably played piano, using Jamstix 3 to add "guide fills" to lead me through tempo changes, and then do overdubs to that. The "drummer in my box" makes it SO much easier for me to follow the tempo changes for overdubs!

Sometimes I'll "cheat" a bit, does anyone else do this:?
If the overdubs just aren't as nice as I want with a variable tempo backing track, I flatten the tempo track to a constant tempo, then do the overdubs. When I'm all done, I "unflatten" the tempo track - now the overdubs are completely in sync to the variably played piano.

Is there maybe a better way to do that?

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Alexis -Cubase 6.5.0/SX3.1.1.944, XP SP2, 4GB RAM (1GB not accessible, but used just to balance the computer so it doesn't tip over); Delta 66 in Omni i/O Studio; Motif8; UAD-1