Digigroove Templates - DigiDesign Pro Tools 8.0 Reference Manual

DigiGroove Templates

Beat Detective allows the fine timing nuances of
a rhythmic performance to be extracted and
saved as a groove template, called a DigiGroove
template. DigiGrooves can be saved locally to
the Groove Clipboard, or saved to disk as Digi-
Grooves.
Groove templates can be used to transfer the feel
of a particular performance to:
• Selected audio regions using Groove Conform
(see "Groove Conform" on page 566).
• Selected MIDI data using Groove Quantize
(see "Groove Quantize" on page 804).
Groove templates are "quantization maps" de-
rived from real musical performances. The
rhythmic character of each performance is ana-
lyzed and stored as a groove template. Beat De-
tective analyzes an audio selection for transient
peaks according to a defined threshold and
maps the rhythmic relationships to a 960 parts
per quarter note (ppq) template.
When creating DigiGroove templates, Beat De-
tective also analyzes the dynamics of a perfor-
mance. MIDI velocity data is saved from MIDI
tracks, and accents and peak levels in audio data
are incorporated into the groove template as ve-
locity data, which can be applied to change the
dynamics of MIDI tracks.
Beat Detective translates the amplitude of sig-
nals in audio tracks to MIDI velocity according
to a linear scale. For example:
• A 0 dBFS signal equals a MIDI velocity of
127.
• A signal at –6 dBFS equals a MIDI velocity
of 64.
• A signal at –12 dBFS equals a MIDI velocity
of 32.
• A –48 dBFS equals a MIDI velocity of 1.
Capturing this information is very important to
preserving the feel of a performance, and can
add life to MIDI tracks that lack dynamics.
Beat Detective only captures duration data
from MIDI tracks, not from audio tracks.
To extract a Groove Template:
In the Edit window, make an Edit selection
1
(including audio or MIDI). The selection should
consist of one or more complete bars, starting
and ending on downbeats.
When extracting Groove Templates, the
captured selection must not include Bar|Beat
Markers. Otherwise, the accuracy of the
Groove Template will be compromised.
In the Beat Detective window, select Groove
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Template Extraction.
Define or capture the selection as described in
3
"Defining a Beat Detective Selection" on
page 552.
Configure the Detection options so the selec-
4
tion's peak transients (or MIDI Note Ons) are ac-
curately detected (see "Generating Beat
Triggers" on page 554).
Click Extract.
5
In the Extract Groove Template dialog, enter
6
comments about the groove. You can enter a
maximum of 255 characters to describe the
groove. Comments can be viewed using the
Show Info button in the Beat Detective window.
Chapter 28: Beat Detective 561