Reaper and Acoustic Guitar Timing

[Eclectrophonic]

Hi Everyone!

Who here plays acoustic guitar and records it in Reaper?

This is something I do a lot and since moving from Reason to Reaper, have not found a foolproof method of getting my guitars bang in time.

Here's what happens. I have a guitar part I'm wanting to record which I've just come up with on my acoustic guitar. I load up a template which has all the relative vocal / guitar tracks assigned and has a studio drum kit (Steven Slate free one) with a 4 on the floor assigned too (as I find it less stringent to play to a kick rather than a click) and then I tap tempo in Reaper to find the BPM.

I then start recording the guitar. I may just strum the first chord of the sequence over and over to begin with to just find the tempo / pulse and then when I feel I'm in time I play the verse chords (maybe twice) and then the bridge chords (again, maybe twice). I always have this problem though, no matter how hard I try, there's always a few strums that don't land on time (even if it's milliseconds out but noticeable). It's flagging up my guitar playing as being novice though I've been playing a long time lol! When not playing in a daw, my strumming sounds great but to a drum or click, hmmm lol!

So then it's onto moving the transients so they're on time. I really explode the clip up big and use ctrl shift c to detect all transients. I have the threshold at -26.6 which seems to detect all transients for me. Does anyone know a shortcut to select all transients afterwards? but timestretching them or moving the transients (I anchor the transient before the one I'm moving) just speeds up the transient I move. So if it's a little early and I move it, it will be a tiny bit faster now (as I've moved the transient forward) and a little late so I move it back, will be a tiny bit slower if that makes sense and then (not always but 9 times out of 10) doesn't sound right as now the strum is faster or slower.

I'm sure Reason does things different. I never had a problem with this is Reason. I think it may be audiowarping the waves when I move the transient as it doesn't seem to speed up or slow down anything.

I've been using Elastique 3.3.3 Pro by the way but not sure what the difference is or if this is the best one to use.

I've now resorted to multiple takes as this seems to be the best approach but is taking like half an hour to record an 8 chord sequence (4 chords for a verse / chorus and 4 for a bridge) which is what most of my songs seem to be.

I would like to know how others achieve this. Is there a way of tidying up slightly out of time guitar strums to be perfectly in time in Reaper. Which time-stretch algorithm do you use? do you use punch in/out to correct areas? comping?

As I say, I never had this issue in Reason and I suppose one solution would be to record the guitar parts in that and import them into Reaper but would much prefer to do this all in Reaper and I'm sure you must be able to do this accurately and sufficently in Reaper as it is a much more advanced daw.

Thanks!

[ericzang]

Are there any latency inducing plugs on your Monitor FX? Sonarworks for example? Latency seems not compensated for fx in that special Monitor chain.

[Eclectrophonic]

Are there any latency inducing plugs on your Monitor FX? Sonarworks for example? Latency seems not compensated for fx in that special Monitor chain.

Not on my guitar track no. I just have a tuner on that track.

[jens]

I could give you a few useful tips, however using the transient detection tool is not one of them...

[ericzang]

I think you thought I was referring to a track's "Input FX". I meant the Monitor FX chain you see when running this Action:
View: Show monitoring FX chain

[enroe]

I also have timing problems all the time when I play riffs or entire
tracks with guitar. But that's never because of Reaper or Cubase.
It's almost always a timing and playing issue.

What works well: practice, practice, practice!

[Eclectrophonic]

I think you thought I was referring to a track's "Input FX". I meant the Monitor FX chain you see when running this Action:
View: Show monitoring FX chain

Oh sorry, I don't think so. Would Reaper put something on there would it?

On the track I've been working on today there's nothing no.

[Eclectrophonic]

I also have timing problems all the time when I play riffs or entire
tracks with guitar. But that's never because of Reaper or Cubase.
It's almost always a timing and playing issue.

What works well: practice, practice, practice!

Yeah I'm fully aware it's me. I've been playing almost 23 years, I dont think my timing's getting any better lol! If I sit on my sofa and play and sing, no timing issues are noticeable, only against a click or drum track.

Sometimes I'm on it but maybe only 60% of the time. It only takes one strum or one chord or what have you to cock up a 4 or 8 bar loop and then it's not perfect. It gets frustrating. You start to lose the flow of creativity trying to tidy up a guitar chord progression loop for say half an hour. One or two strums off and it can cock up the whole sequence.

In Reason I can sort it out in a couple of minutes. It seems to just select every transient (no sensitivity setting in it) and I think it audiowarps the transients when you move them as I just quantize the whole lot and then listen back again and inevitably some have quantized wrong but some right, tends to be 80% right and then I just stop play when I hear one that's out of time and manually move it and in a couple of mins I'm done. You could say, just chuck it in Reason and tidy it up and then re-import it but I would like to do it all in Reaper. I will try to be more in time but in invariably make a few mistakes.

[jens]

Again:

personally I don't think the way you do it in Reason / want to do it in Reaper is the best approach for this. it's a much too technical solution and will most probably yield rather unnatural results. Chances also are that it will kill your groove.
There's a lot you can do to solve your problem though, but it is a more of a multi-facetted approach.

Sometimes I'm on it but maybe only 60% of the time. It only takes one strum or one chord or what have you to cock up a 4 or 8 bar loop and then it's not perfect. I

If it is just one wrong strum here or there you can easily replace it with one that's better in time from another take. This goes for both Reaper and Reason, of course.

Unless it's systematic - and then the next question would be whether it's actually supposed to be off grid a bit and if the drum-beat you chose is actually really very adequate for your rhythm.

In this case mute the drums and try to dance to your recording. That should tell you whether your timing is good enough - off grid or not. And if it is good by itself, then try to find a more appropriate rhythm for the drums or edit the one you got until it really fits.

And if you have a systematic problem to play the rhythm (i.e. you mess it up always or often at the same place in your pattern or you mess it up often in many places) then try to play it differently. If you strum it very legato, try to play staccato in appropriate places. Perhaps for that try to use barre instead of open chords as then your left hand (or your right one if you play left handed) will be able to help you better to be in time. And always try to feel the groove with your whole body anyway.

There's no simple one-size-fits-all solution to this. Making music is a lot of fun but also hard work at times, so don't fall for cheap and easy workarounds.

[donkey tugger]

What he said....^

..and on the time stretching/warping thing;

Whilst the technology is getting better all the time I've still not heard anything I'd want to use on an acoustic guitar which is exposed in a mix - too much loss of transients and warbling noises...especially on a 12 string.

If you're struggling to record a part then it's always far better to record a few takes and cobble together the best bits, using crossfades if need be. Works out a lot quicker and better in the end.

[jens]

Yes, exactly that!

[jens]

Oh, and another thing: it may happen at times that I slightly correct the timing of one or the other bit - but then I always do it manually by actually shifting the slice - zoom in, switch off snapping, cut at sensible places, slightly move it towards where you think it belongs, listen, dance, (cross)fade if need be (typically ideally manually too), listen, feel - do that until it all feels and sounds right.

[vurt]

can you not "slice at all markers" after setting the transient marker?
then quantise
will sound a bit roboty maybe but you can then do what jens suggests, find the groove and adjust to taste.

id personally, just repeat the chorus or verse, over and over and over, till i have about 20 of them.
chances are, on listening back, one of them will be close enough for rock n roll.
if not, practice more

[jens]

can you not "slice at all markers" after setting the transient marker?
then quantise
will sound a bit roboty maybe but you can then do what jens suggests, find the groove and adjust to taste.

Yes, but it will be most probably much much harder to try to recreate the groove once it's been killed. To be a little off grid here and there is a natural human thing that we feel, without neccessarily actually exactly knowing if how and where we are doing it.

id personally, just repeat the chorus or verse, over and over and over, till i have about 20 of them.
chances are, on listening back, one of them will be close enough for rock n roll.
if not, practice more

Yes, exactly - that's what both donkey tugger and me meant as well

[enroe]

That's how it goes with us every day ...