Helpful ReplyIs there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files?

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bluebeat1313
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2018/11/21 19:06:54 (permalink)

Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files?

Hi fellows. 
 
I came to a roadblock that I can not resolve.
In Cakewalk I have 5 tracks that are synced properly (from software A)
and 5 tracks (from software B) that are not synced well to the ones from software A, but are synced among each other (Software B)
Developer of Software B told me that outputted WAV files are:   "what you hear" recording, and is not in sync with any reference clock...
 
Is there a way to sync all of these WAV files?
 
Thank you in advance!
 
#1
mritenburg
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/21 19:28:20 (permalink)
You can convert the waves from software B into groove clips within Cakewalk and then stretch them to fit with the other wave files.
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/21 19:35:43 (permalink)
mritenburg, thank you for suggestion, however this seems a very tedious approach.  Latency starts to happen at around after 20 seconds into the tune and increases exponentially.  I thought there would be a way to automate this process because all 5 tracks are synced to each other...
 
Can anybody else please comment.
 
Thank you.
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mritenburg
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/21 19:47:33 (permalink)
bluebeat1313
mritenburg, thank you for suggestion, however this seems a very tedious approach.  Latency starts to happen at around after 20 seconds into the tune and increases exponentially.  I thought there would be a way to automate this process because all 5 tracks are synced to each other...
 
Can anybody else please comment.
 
Thank you.




You're saying 2 clicks to enable groove-clips is tedious?  
 
Well, you can try Audio Snap, but it's actually more work.
 
 
#4
bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/21 22:10:08 (permalink)
2 clicks.. maybe you are right, I never tried it before. I thought that those "grove clips" would be roughly 20 seconds each because that is where latency shows up. So 3 minute track =  9 groove clips x 5 tracks... I might be thinking this wrong... 
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slartabartfast
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/21 22:36:41 (permalink)
The problem you describe is that one set of tracks is not synched to any standard clock/tempo. Simply stretching the whole track will not eliminate the variability. If you create single groove clips, or any other method of stretching, from those full tracks, the altered tracks will remain synched to the others in their set, but the tempo for the whole set will likely wander relative to the other set. You might be able to sort of automate the regulation of that wandering with a tempo map, audiosnap or melodyne, but you may end up having to split the tracks into multiple clips and stretch individual clips. This could be tedious indeed. 
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/21 23:18:14 (permalink)
slartabartfast, thank you for reply. 
Yes, stretching whole thing (track(s)) does not do it, because latency is  exponential.
That is what I was afraid of.  I thought that there might be some sort of "smart" elastique tool that can do this sort of thing for multiple tracks, without chopping the heck out of them. I guess I am out of luck?
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msmcleod
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/21 23:45:51 (permalink)
I've not tried this,  just trying to think outside the box...
 
So say you take just one track, extract a tempo map/make a groove clip , then save that project as "tempo map"
 
Then save the project as "track1".
 
Then, set the tempo to some average so that everything is the same tempo (e.g. if the tempo range in the map was between 115 and 125, you'd set the tempo for the whole clip to 120).
 
Then save the groove clip as "clip1".
 
Now start a new project, "track2" with the second wav file, extract a tempo map/make a groove clip, set the tempo to the same as clip1 and save the clip as "clip2"
 
Do the same for the other three tracks.
 
Then open the original "tempo map" project and drag each of the saved clips into the project as new tracks.
 
So basically you're:
 
1. Getting a map of the tempo for the song from one of the tracks.
2. Evening out the tempo of all the tracks to a fixed tempo, saving each track as a groove clip
3. Importing them into the original project, so that the original song tempo map (with all its variations) is applied evenly to all tracks.
 
There's probably some work involved in setting the fixing the time-markers when creating the groove clip, but wouldn't something like this work? 

Mark McLeod
Cakewalk by BL | ASUS P8B75-V, Intel I5 3570 16GB RAM Win 10 64 + Win 7 64/32 SSD HD's, Scarlett 18i20 / 6i6 | ASUS ROG GL552VW 16GB RAM Win 10 64 SSD HD's, Scarlett 2i2 | Behringer Truth B2030A / Edirol MA-5A | Mackie MCU + C4 + XT | 2 x BCF2000, Korg NanoKontrol Studio
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/22 00:19:49 (permalink)
Mark, it does make sense, and what I would normally do, if this was just one project.... I would just get my hands dirty,  chop those tracks every 3-4 bars and manually move them, so they are in "sync" with the rest of the stuff. 
 
The problem is... Software "B" will always have syncing (latency) issues for the reason, as developer said:
Output Wav files are - "what you hear" recording, and is not in sync with any reference clock...
 
I am guestimating... I believe...  that latency of WAV files from "Software B" will always have same algorithm... 
I am looking for some automation process that would resolve very similar latency behavior in this and future projects for multiple tracks. 
 
Thanks.
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Cactus Music
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/22 02:46:55 (permalink)
Personally I would avoid Software B. What sort of DAW does not export a proper wave file?? I'm curious. It's allowed to use names here too :)  

Johnny V  
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#10
bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/22 03:07:06 (permalink)
Johnny, I would gladly stop using the software if there was an alternative. There are none (trust me on this one!)
Software is vArranger. I used Software A and Software B, not to confuse people. I have tried two different ASIO cards playing with buffers etc. Internal WASAPI.. can not avoid it. It is internal to to software.... no "clock" sync.  It spits WAV files that have exponential latency. Drives me absolutely nuts. 
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Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/22 04:45:12 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby Brian Cadoret 2018/11/22 07:59:09
This is a problem that its possible to solve using audiosnap. You would have to extract a tempo map from the original tracks (choose a track that best defines the tempo like a percussive track) and then fit the other clips to match this tempo map.
This topic might shed some light on how to do it.
 

Noel Borthwick
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#12
Blogospherianman
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/23 00:49:39 (permalink)
I do this often with several different versions of a song. Several ways to do this. I personally like to map tempos by hand. So I map the tempo of each of the songs Saved As various tempo map names. song 1 tempo map song 2 tempo map song 3 tempo map. Then i'll Apply the tempo map i like to All of the Audio clips by copying the tempo map from the tempo list of one to the other. Unifying the tempos of all the clips. Once each Clip has been Mapped, they are perfectly controllable via Audio Snap and the tempo map. Very fun!
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/23 15:26:08 (permalink)
Thank you Noel!
Thank you Blogospherianman!
 
Tempo map looks like an interesting power tool. I have tried it, but still, tracks have issues.
I will play around with it more in the next few days. In the past, I was able to happily avoid using tempo corrective tools, but this time I might just have to dig in it.
 
I am still hoping / trying to press on developer to sync software to correct clock, so the outputted files have correct tempo maps... 
As I understand, standard approach is adhere to sound card clock?
 
Thank you.
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bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/26 23:20:07 (permalink)
Hi fellows.
Sorry to revive this post...
I was trying to fix my track in Cakewalk using Audiosnap, I was able to partially make it workable.
The problem is, that I am very new at this approach (fixing tempo in audio clips) and confused by process.
 
What I mean is, that I do not even know if it is Tempo mismatch or latency issue.  Initially I though it was latency, so I tried many things common things, like not running extra stuff on background, raising/decreasing buffers, external ASIO interface... and many other things to record these tracks. The program that I am using is not a VST and it does all "recording" internally, so I can only import WAV files to Cakewalk...
 
Long story short,  looking at the file, I can not figure why it is out if "out of sync".. Is it  audio latency that is exponential or tempo map problems caused my MIDI clock of that program.
 
I was wondering if anybody here, who knows about those things, can help me and take a look at actual audio file and tell what is wrong with it... I would appreciate it very much.
 
P.S. If this was a single instance of the problem, I would find one way or another to "fix it", but I have many arrangements that share same problem and I just want to find a solid "common" approach to fix these. But before even starting to look for the cure, I want to know the cause. If it is Tempo Map problem, Latency or both... or something else.
 
 
Thank you,
Mike.
 
 
 
#15
Blogospherianman
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/28 18:36:51 (permalink)
PM me a link if ya want and I'll check it out.
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msmcleod
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/28 18:54:17 (permalink)
If you need further info on Groove Clips/Extracting tempo or AudioSnap, here's some resources...
 
Tempo Maps



 
AudioSnap



 
GrooveClips / Working with Tempo



Mark McLeod
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slartabartfast
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/30 18:09:39 (permalink)
bluebeat1313
What I mean is, that I do not even know if it is Tempo mismatch or latency issue.  Initially I though it was latency, so I tried many things common things, like not running extra stuff on background, raising/decreasing buffers, external ASIO interface... and many other things to record these tracks





You have not really described your signal path and devices in any detail, but I find it hard to conceive of how audio latency would be "exponential." The most common cause of the problem I think you describe is that you have recorded one set of tracks at one tempo and another set of tracks at no regular tempo whatsoever, but the basic phenomenon of increasing displacement is an effect of tempo mismatch.
 
Assume for the sake of demonstration that you have recorded to a regular metronome on both track set 1 and track set 2 but they are set at a different metronome frequency. If you align the first beat of the two sets, then the faster metronome will result in a track in which the equivalent note/beat falls ahead of the slower metronome  track from the second note onward, and the difference will get progressively more marked as the tracks progress over time. A graphical representation of this phenomenon using letters as notes and dots as time between notes is:
a...b...c...d...e...f...g...h...i...j...k...l...m...n...o                           faster metronome
a....b....c....d....e....f....g....h....i....j....k....l....m....n....o            slower metronome
That is the expected behavior if the tracks are recorded at the correct rate for each metronome and has nothing to do with audio latency. It will occur whenever the tracks are at different tempos, and the displacement from alignment will increase over time.
#18
Anderton
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/30 18:46:38 (permalink)
Couldn't you just slip-stretch the end of the clips that are longer to match the end of the clips that are shorter? That would solve the problem if there was a slight tempo mismatch.

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bluebeat1313
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Re: Is there a way to "sync" 2 sets of wav files? 2018/11/30 20:17:15 (permalink)
Oh wow, I forgot that this is a serious forum.
I checked the post for two days, than closed the window, thinking it will not get attention. For some reasons I do not receive email notifications when reply is posted.  Silly me. As developer of the software explained,  his program does not adhire to specific clock. The tempo set to record these Wav files is correct... he said latency caused by jitter and by design, as software is used mostly for "live" performing and so that midi parts would play smoother when triggered in live scenario... Well, explanations...
 
I was very persistant and developer confirmed that he is working on Clock Sync In option. As I understood, it will solve my latency problems. Instead of bugging you guys, I think it is wise for me  to give developer a chance to fix this, while he is in the mood for it  ;)
 
P.S. I think I had issues with  Audiosnap because latency was not consistent. 
 
Thank you!
#20
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