Recently, I have been dabbling in attributes in Pro Tools that helps quantize drum beats; two options I researched were Beat Detective and Elastic Audio. Today I will explain the articles I researched on these two and share my own experience using the two quantizing options.
First I read an article on Beat Detective on Ask Audio. Generally the article explained how to use Beat Detective. It showed that using Tab to Transient you can select the amount of bars you want to quantize. Once you have your selection, you go to the Event Tab and select it from there. Then you make sure that the beat and bar that you have selected matches the one in the window of the plugin. From there, you go to Separation and make sure sub-beats is selected and start to change the percentage value to dial in all the transients in the selection -- once done hit "separate". Next, you go into the Conform tab and hit "conform", and there you go to Edit Smoothing, select "fill and crossfade", and hit "smooth". The selection, then, should be quantized. This article was helpful in explaining what it does and how Beat Selector worked, but it didn't give any information as to what could be cool about using the plugin. There wasn't much about any cool methods to use this in a mix; just mostly how to use Beat Detective.
The next article I read was based on Elastic Audio, a feature that allows you to individually move the transients, on Sound On Sound. This one also explained how to use the feature. Once you have a drums selection you change the tracks into Tick mode and change the way it's read to Rhythmic for drums since we're handling a rhythmic section. Next you change the Waveform view to the Warp view in order to see the warp markers on the track. You can either manually select the transient that's offbeat and drag it on beat, or you could go into the Event tab and select Quantize then follow the instructions in the menu and hit "quantize". If you use the latter method, you must have the correct tempo already put into Pro Tools. If you don't, you can deselect the conductor icon on the Transport Menu and select the tempo and tap out the tempo you want to conform to with "T" or type it in manually. This article was a little more informative with a real life example. It also did not give any special tricks or techniques with the feature, but mostly just how it works. I did appreciate the tests that were conducted with the other Elastic Audio reading options and how those worked.
When I was testing out both features on Pro Tools myself, I realized that I liked the Elastic Audio into Quantize method a little more than Beat Detective because Beat Detective sometimes has problems reading and conforming drum fills. When it does have problems reading and conforming, it's basically trial and error with the beat selection and sensitivity until it conforms properly. With Elastic Audio it was able to read and conform with relative ease and without having to go back and retrying things until something worked. Below are pictures of both my Elastic Audio and Beat Detective projects.
First I read an article on Beat Detective on Ask Audio. Generally the article explained how to use Beat Detective. It showed that using Tab to Transient you can select the amount of bars you want to quantize. Once you have your selection, you go to the Event Tab and select it from there. Then you make sure that the beat and bar that you have selected matches the one in the window of the plugin. From there, you go to Separation and make sure sub-beats is selected and start to change the percentage value to dial in all the transients in the selection -- once done hit "separate". Next, you go into the Conform tab and hit "conform", and there you go to Edit Smoothing, select "fill and crossfade", and hit "smooth". The selection, then, should be quantized. This article was helpful in explaining what it does and how Beat Selector worked, but it didn't give any information as to what could be cool about using the plugin. There wasn't much about any cool methods to use this in a mix; just mostly how to use Beat Detective.
The next article I read was based on Elastic Audio, a feature that allows you to individually move the transients, on Sound On Sound. This one also explained how to use the feature. Once you have a drums selection you change the tracks into Tick mode and change the way it's read to Rhythmic for drums since we're handling a rhythmic section. Next you change the Waveform view to the Warp view in order to see the warp markers on the track. You can either manually select the transient that's offbeat and drag it on beat, or you could go into the Event tab and select Quantize then follow the instructions in the menu and hit "quantize". If you use the latter method, you must have the correct tempo already put into Pro Tools. If you don't, you can deselect the conductor icon on the Transport Menu and select the tempo and tap out the tempo you want to conform to with "T" or type it in manually. This article was a little more informative with a real life example. It also did not give any special tricks or techniques with the feature, but mostly just how it works. I did appreciate the tests that were conducted with the other Elastic Audio reading options and how those worked.
When I was testing out both features on Pro Tools myself, I realized that I liked the Elastic Audio into Quantize method a little more than Beat Detective because Beat Detective sometimes has problems reading and conforming drum fills. When it does have problems reading and conforming, it's basically trial and error with the beat selection and sensitivity until it conforms properly. With Elastic Audio it was able to read and conform with relative ease and without having to go back and retrying things until something worked. Below are pictures of both my Elastic Audio and Beat Detective projects.
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