Creating a slower tempo backing track in Logic Pro - annoying click track in bounced file

Gear & Tools Talk 💻 Hardware, Software & Recording
1

I am trying to create a slower tempo backing track (drums and bass only) by importing an audio track into Logic Pro, extracting the stems, muting everything I don’t want, changing drums to slicing and bass to polyphonic (per the manual that retains quality when the tempo is changed), then changing the tempo, and lastly, bouncing the two stems as a new audio file.

Everything works well i.e. I can extract the drums and bass, slow down the tempo and play them inside Logic Pro.

But, the software insists on playing a click track even though the ‘1234’ and ‘Metronome’ icons are greyed out. The click track is sadly not in sync with the beats else I could just ignore it.

I tried various combinations of ‘smart tempo on/off’, etc. but can’t get rid of the click track. The closest I got was by importing the audio track with project tempo setting set to adapt, then turning the ‘1234’ and metronome icons gray – the click track dissapears, but Logic thinks the track has multiple tempos - its a pretty steady 126bpm blues shuffle, but the software thinks the tempo isn’t steady - and so it won’t let me change the tempo, or rather it wants me to edit the tempo in a tempo editor which seems like way more trouble than this should be!

So thought I would ask for help in the community!

2

Ashu

If you’ve not done this already: try creating the new audio file combining the stems you want without changing the tempo; then try changing the tempo of the new audio file.

Brian

3

Interesting - I hadn’t tried that, will do.

Thanks!

4

The clicks seem to get added as soon as I drop the audio track into the project. I tried a new empty project with an audio (mic or line), made sure the ‘1234’ and metronome icons were grayed out and the 'then dropped the mp3 into the project, then bounced the project to a new audio file - alas, the clicks are already there and already not aligned to the track (it has a pickup bar). They don’t get added when I split stems or change the tempo.

I have tried disabling all the settings under project → settings → metronome.

At this point, I think I will just make my own with a looper pedal :slight_smile: