Looking for Clarification on Finding Tempo and Time Signatures

[boddole]

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Hello everyone, I've recently been getting into drum programming, and have been trying to make midi tabs for the drums for different songs. However, I've been having a very difficult time trying to match the tempo to the songs and getting the time signatures to work out.

I have looked over many "this is how you find tempo / this is how to determine time signatures" types of posts, but it seems that reading 5 posts yields 4 different versions of "this is the correct way".

These are some links to a song that I think exemplifies a lot of the difficulties I have been having (a song with time changes, and slow, moderate, and fast sections)

Dream Theater - Panic Attack:


Guitar Pro tab (with drums)
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/d/dream ... ar_pro.htm (http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/d/dream_theater/panic_attack_guitar_pro.htm)

In browser tab (no drums)
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/d/dream ... ck_tab.htm (http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/d/dream_theater/panic_attack_tab.htm)


-The guitar pro tab seems right on the money, but I don't think I would have determined that there are no actual tempo changes, and I'm sure that I would have gotten at least a few of the time signature changes wrong - which would then of course throw off the final tempo count. Speaking of that, how do you know when to count a time sig. as something like 12/16 (as found in this song) as opposed to 6/8? (I know that a section played at a given tempo at either of those two time sigs ends up being the same, but when you count the beats to get bpm, wouldn't that decision have the potential to radically alter the bpm of the entire song?)

So, how would you guys approach a song like this? And do you have any resources that really helped you understand how to determine tempo and time signatures?

Thanks for reading this wall of text, I appreciate it.

[jancivil]

12/16 as opposed to 6/8?

I make a decision for myself based on what I need to see based on the importance of 'how much density'*, as well as its meaning to me musically. 6/8 conventionally typifies a three feel, two dotted quarters where 12 is conventionally used more for a four feel, ie., 4x3, like four triplets.

For my own purposes I'll often do *eg., 8/8 or even 16/16 rather than 4/4; but if I was handing out parts I would go with the latter. Then there is half-time feel...

do you have any resources that really helped you understand how to determine tempo and time signatures?

I don't have anything for you here. I think we're all more or less entrained to the clock, 60 or 120 and if I have to guess, I'd base it relative to seconds.

I just started a very much beats-oriented track; the template had 90 BPM to start. I watched the cursor and I dragged the barline in Cubase to that location, in the Time Warp mode (linear time, so the timeline moves but the notes do not). I have found that completely consistent BPMs amount to un-human feel so I always work this way.
I don't worry about BPM first, & make a time track and conform to that. I play the rhythm and make the time track conform to what I did.

I don't 'know'. I lay the rhythm down and in general figure out the tempo and time after the fact. In this case I had time signatures as the idea going in, but determined the tempo by a visual of the cursor, moved the bar to conform. It's the quickest for me.

I'm about to move the vertical line under '3' to the left to fit where the beat landed.



I have a lot of situations where I do not know what the time signature is, and I will change my mind a lot before I'm done. Right now even though I have a definite idea of that, I could change how it's expressed after I compose the drum part.

[boddole]

Interesting, thank you for input - I'll just have to keep working at it.