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Changing the tempo of a finished composition


shoutoribo

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I composed and recorded a whole track and then decided I wanted to increase the tempo. What would be the quickest way for me to increase the tempo of the whole thing without having to go through each midi file and make a new comp? Also, will I need to re-record vocals or can I change the tempo of what I've already recorded?

 

Thank you :)

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You can try logic Flex, (I prefer Melodyne). Results will vary, pianos often end up sounding somewhat watery. You also might get audio ticks. It depends significantly on the amount of tempo change. I would try flex or melodyne first on the finished two track mix. If this is unsatisfactory. Make a copy of logic file and it's audio to work on.. Figure out Tempo change. Try the vocals first, listen to voice alone, see if it is OK for you. Then go ahead and redo instruments. It really depends on your impressions, and of course the purpose of project.

 

Some people don't mind the artifacts of changing tempo or pitch.. Personally I would redo it, depends on time spent, $$$$ availability of singers, musicians. etc.

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Traditionally, you might varispeed up or down a little bit.

 

But really, getting the tempo right is like the foundations of a house. You make sure it's where you want it to be before building the house on top of it. It's very hard, once the house is built, to then go back and say "can we move the foundations around a bit?"

 

Of course, you can use all kinds of flexing and splitting and timestreching and etc techniques, but they all mess with your mix integrity and if it's just a distorted EDM track, you might be fine with how it sounds, but otherwise... it's not something I would do.

 

If the project is just MIDI and samples of course it's easy enough to change tempo in Logic but once your recording audio, paritcularly if you have tempo changes and so on, it gets very hard to do well.

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If it's already finished, the quickest way imo would be to bounce the project, create a track or project with just that wav file, and then use polyphonic flex to shorten it to taste.

If you haven't done that before, click on the region, turn flex&follow on in the Inspector (or hit ctrl+f), set the flex type to "polyphonic" in the track header, hover your pointer over the top right edge of the region till you see the flex bracket, and then click-drag left.

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  • 6 months later...

Honestly, I wouldn’t do any of that - I’d use varispeed and do any additional mixing or bounces from there. You can even record on a varispeed-affected track...it’s the easiest and least detrimental way to change the tempo of an entire composition.

 

Assuming a future reader hasn’t heard of that...

 

Right click on the control bar (shows key, tempo, etc.), and under “custom” check “varispeed.” Your updated control bar will show a section where you can speed up or slow down the entire session. The default measurement is “percentage” but you can change it to “resulting tempo.”

 

From there, everything in your session will be the new tempo shown in that section of the control bar.

 

Now, to tap a tempo into logic, click cmd T to tap. The first tap will trigger a prompt asking if you want to use the tap function; just click yes and continue pressing cmd T to get your tempo!

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