Beat Detective - a short cut

Hey there slicers and dicers

I am not a drummer.
That being said, I do a lot of drumming. This happens mainly because I'm an independent producer who works with artists (and on my own projects) with miniscule budgets so hiring a session drummer is usually out of the question.
What this means is that I spend a fair amount of time working with Beat Detective in ProTools LE. I haven't yet made the move to the Music Production Toolkit (upgrades you to 48 audio tracks and multi-track Beat Detective among other things), so I have to be creative when using Beat Detective across multiple drum tracks. When I record drums I'll have anywhere from 3 to 10 tracks, so keeping everything together using the lite version of BD is a process and I tend to use the method described by Shan on the DUC (see post here: Beat Detective Workaround).
But right now I'm working on a project with Larry Lavelle (Level on the Line, Larry's first album will be done soon! Check Javboy Records for updates) and the drum parts required are a bit more complex than I usually play. This is fine, but Beat Detective doesn't really like complex beat patterns.
Necessity is the mother of invention, right? So to simplify things a bit I started using BD in a new manner. Instead of cutting up and syncing each hit (all the way down to 64th notes), I tried just chopping at the quarter notes (sometimes half notes) and moving those into place and leaving the in-between hits alone. They tend to fall into place, I mean how far off can you really be on a 64th note? This method takes less time and maintains that real drummer feel.
So just use Shan's method, but don't cut the beat up so minutely. Just get your main beats.
Simple, effective, brilliant. Ok, maybe not brilliant, but give me a break!

I'm moving the studio this week. Pretty exciting! Then construction can begin!!
My new album is coming out this week too. Check it out Javboy Records

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com