Dealing with different BPM in a live setting with time elasticity

Hapax
1

Hello Hivemind,

I haven’t found this exact disuccsion before (at least not with my upcoming point), so I hope it adds to the topic. As you all know, you can’t have two projects with different BPM running simultaneously. Which is kind of a bummer in a live setting, because you need to find workarounds to transition from one song to another.

Here’s my question: has anyone tried circumventing that with time elasticity? I don’t have my hapax with me at the moment, so I haven’t been able to test it, but here’s my idea.

Let’s say you have a song A at 156 BPM and a song B at 132 BPM. If you set both project to 100 BPM but adjust the time elasticity to match the desired BPM on each track, would that work? Since your project is set to 100 BPM, you simply have to calibrate the time elasticity to 156% or 132%. Then both project could play simultaneously, or at least one after the other without having to set the BPM manually.

It seems that this could work on paper, but I’m curious about possible limitations. Is it super CPU intense and may cause crashes? In which case, not a good option at all in a live setting. Can it mess up LFOs somehow? That’s not too bad in my case, but some might see that as a problem.

That’s it basically, I’m hoping to test that myself at the end of the week, but maybe someone has already done it and can tell me if it’s worth the trouble.

Cheers!

2

even my MC-50 in 1992 had a Tempo Track . . .

3

:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

usamo or one of those tempo boxes.

not for 2 projects. you need a second sequencer for that. hapax imho is suitable for 32 tracks of the same project. its not really good for 2 songs at the same time. some complain of not enough tracks but using it this way youve got 32. you could have a ball in the mixmute screen!

4

Also, I realize that the clock will always be at 100 BPM with this approach. So you’d need to make the appropriate adjustments for any time based effect (for instance delay). But you could compensate that by sending an automation to the appropriate destination when you switch project. That would require you to figure out the equivalence in values between your songs (URGH).

In conclusion, it seems that there’s no simple way to get two projects with different BPM to play at the same time. But there’s enough flexibility with the HAPAX, and probably with any modern box that you might use with it, to find workaround.

I’m gonna stick to samples as transitional elements between my songs, good luck to anyone trying to figure that conundrum for their live sets!