Acapella sync methods

[Rhythmikal]

anyone got any tips on sync'ing acapellas with beats?

one method i use is listen for a word which lands on a snare and line it up like that. but its not very good for the whole beat.

im currently tryin to remix Big L 'Put It On' which i think is 92bpm. i cant really get it to flow correct though.

sAfE.

 

[GRAFIK]

what i do for remixes, i use only vinyl and i will play the beat that i made, and mix the instrumental part of the track that you want to use for your acapella together. then i record it into my computer and find out when the word that falls on the first snare and line it up correctly. sometimes some acapellas dont go good with certain beats...

 

[Anubis-Ra]

my guess would be to find the BPM of the instrumental of whichever acapella you're using. If I was using the Hustler's Ambition acapella, I'd find out the BPM of that song, then make the beat accordingly. I haven't really did an acapella in awhile though.

 

[sYgMa]

What you can do, and that is pretty simple is to cut an 2, 4 or 8 bar of vocals and the put it in you beat as a loop. The longer the sample, the better your 1st approximation will be... and the shorter you take your samples, the easier you'll be able to match the part of vocals and the beat (but you lose accuracy... get it? Dont stretch the vocals or anything, leave it at it's real tempo. Then, you can try to find the tempo of the beat by changing it and trying to match both songs and lyrics....

depending on what you use (software/hardware), you can always try to find an approximation of the tempo by clicking it with the mouse or a button (I know you can do it with FL Studio and the MPC... but I dont know for the other programs...)

After you find the right tempo for the 8 bars to match, then try with the whole song and listen to the end of the song... If the tempo dont match, that's where you'll hear it the most... make your adjustements there.... (little tweaks)

 

[MarkN]

the best way is to google for the bpm of the original track lol !

if that don't work then personally i play my beat on loop then load the accapella into cool edit and open up the timestretch tool and preview it and then just adjust til i've got it, having DJ'd for years helps me get the stuff in time a bit easier this way !

 

[grandtheftaudio]

If you wanna know what BPM it is Recycle does that easely. Just cut out something like 4 bars and divide what you get by 4.

The tricky thing when it comes to matching accapellas is that most rappers don´t start directly on the beat. Most start after or before the beat. What you can do is this: If you´re using software make a song that has the BPM that you just figured out. Then record a couple of bars of the original beat (with the rapper still on it) and quantise it so it starts where it should. After that you record the accapella on a different track and use the original to show you when to start the accapella. If you mute the original beat you should hear a couple of milliseconds of silence (if the rapper started behind the beat that is) and then the accapella starts.
After you´ve done this you can, just to know when the beat really starts, make a short sound like a click or something on a different track and quantise that. Make sure that the sound has died out before the rapper starts or you´ve messed up.
When all this is done, mute all but the accapella and the clicksound and sample it. What you should have now is a sample that starts with a click and just after the accapella. All you have to do now is mute the clicksound somehow. After that you should have the accapella that you started with but with just the right amount of silence before the rapper starts.

Hope I didn´t loose anyone and hope it helped.

 

[KENWOP]

i just do it by ear hear the verse know the verse and ryhyme yourself with lyrics when it sounds like it goes then match it up dont think thats gonna help ya though but thats how i do it

 

[Rhythmikal]

thanks everyone, i will take it all into account.

sAfE.

 

[Sacred One]

maybe the the beat was made in realtime, and if you got your drums programmed, it won't help, u gotta play along with the accapella

 

[Vince]

...and some acapellas will never flow well with your beat. some just won't!

 

[Daymo]

I just play the beat and use timestretch on the acapella. Jay-Z is a real pain in the ass most of the time to get it on point.

I never really have much trouble synching up Nas acapellas though. His rhyme pattern seems more basic than Jay-Z and it makes it easier to synch.

Cheers
Daymo

 

[sYgMa]

There was also a program that actually is pretty accurate. I think classic posted it... check that out

https://www.illmuzik.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11773

 

[Vince]

He's not asking how to find the BPM though.

Daymo mentioned Nas rhyme-pattern to be easier than Jay-Z's...check out MC's like Kool G Rap. He'll hit every kick and snare!