Guitar Gear Forum

I'm working on a project with a drummer and he is using Reaper to record and Slate SSD5 for sounds (I have SSD5 as well). He has been recording a midi track and audio from the SSD5 sounds he likes on individual tracks. He is sending me both the midi track and the drum wav files he has recorded, so I can hear the sounds he likes, but still have the flexibility to use different sounds from the midi to make better mixes (if needed).

The problem is, when I load the Reaper exported wav files and midi track into Logic Pro X, they don't line up at all. Look at this - it shows the midi track over the kick:



You can see that the midi is way off from the audio. The first fill is way earlier than when it happens on the audio track. Everything is shifted. I know I can manually line it up, but it isn't as easy as you might think.

Any idea why the exported midi from Reaper is off from the audio files? I really need them aligned as I don't want to do it manually. I've tried working with the drummer on Reaper in a screenshare, but this happens with every exported file.

Steve

sah5150 wrote:I'm working on a project with a drummer and he is using Reaper to record and Slate SSD5 for sounds (I have SSD5 as well). He has been recording a midi track and audio from the SSD5 sounds he likes on individual tracks. He is sending me both the midi track and the drum wav files he has recorded, so I can hear the sounds he likes, but still have the flexibility to use different sounds from the midi to make better mixes (if needed).

The problem is, when I load the Reaper exported wav files and midi track into Logic Pro X, they don't line up at all. Look at this - it shows the midi track over the kick:



You can see that the midi is way off from the audio. The first fill is way earlier than when it happens on the audio track. Everything is shifted. I know I can manually line it up, but it isn't as easy as you might think.

Any idea why the exported midi from Reaper is off from the audio files? I really need them aligned as I don't want to do it manually. I've tried working with the drummer on Reaper in a screenshare, but this happens with every exported file.

Steve

Looks like he pulled them from a session that had a little empty space at the front, as a pre-roll. The MIDI track won't account for the pre-roll.


So... have him just export the audio tracks from the measure containing the first hit.

Or just trim the regions yourself and back them up? If you have the grid turned on, and Logic's master tempo is set to the same BPM as the original audio, you should be able to snap/trim the excess off the front...

Also, if he elasticized the tempo at all in the session, the MIDI, again, wouldn't account for any tempo markers. But the exported audio would.

Can you open SSD5 as a VST/FX in Logic?

It'll probably be easier to just re-record it with the drums he likes.

Thanks guys - there actually seems to be something more wrong here. I trimmed both the audio and the midi and I can line up the first hits, but as the song goes on, the midi hits stop matching the wav file hits when I play the midi through SSD5.

Steve

sah5150 wrote:Thanks guys - there actually seems to be something more wrong here. I trimmed both the audio and the midi and I can line up the first hits, but as the song goes on, the midi hits stop matching the wav file hits when I play the midi through SSD5.

Steve

Mute out the MIDI, then have Logic do it's beat detector routine. It's possible either A) you haven't matched the tempo he recorded at, or B) He had no set tempo and tempo drifts all over the place.

My guess would be you're dealing with option A, but B is entirely possible. If the beat detection can pick up the rhythm, you've got some drift happening in the original and you're gonna be stuck just re-recording the audio output.