I have a project that is from an old master tape from the 70s. The tracks were dumped into sonar and tempo mapped. Each snare beat was manually assigned to the correct beat using set measure/beat at now.. creating a very detailed tempo map of the song.
 
I would like to tighten the timing of the song just a bit. Is there a convenient way to effectively quantize the tempo map, moving the audio to still be in alignment?
 
I've always moved the audio in songs to align with an already steady tempo (i.e. no tempo map) but never tried to move audio that is already aligned to the grid but on a varying tempo map. Seems like there should be an easy way to do this since it's already aligned to a grid, it's just that the grid varies all over.
 
Thanks, gabo

I do not know if I did well, but if you use the Loop Construction view, you can stretch and shrink parts of the audio, adjusting it as needed.

Not "easy" exactly but it can be done. Based on the info provided what I would do is this.
 
1) Create a Save As copy of the project as is (so you aren't mucking up your carefully mapped version).
 
2) Go through the song and identify the segments that you would like to correct to a steady tempo (eg: Measure 1-20 = 120 BPM, Measure 21-36 = 140 BPM, etc).
 
3) Open up Tempo View (with the tempo list window open on the right side) and delete any tempo changes BETWEEN the main tempo changes (so you would leave the tempo change entries at Measure 1 and measure 21 and delete everything in between)
 
Now your grid will be consistent between those tempo "anchor" points (but not the material which will of course fluctuate).
 
At this point turn all your clips Edit Filters to "Transients" and open the Audiosnap Pallette (A). Adjust the Audiosnap Pallette "Threshold" slider so it more or less shows just the spots you want to time correct (like the snare and kick hits).
 
Now here's where it gets tedious. You are going to want to keep all the tracks in phase (even the guits, drums, vox, etc) so you'll need use the "Merge and Lock" feature to lock all the transients across all the clips.
 
FIRST though you are going to need to go through and make sure all the Transient Markers are actually right on the transients and ONLY on those transients. I'd recommend using the snare and kick as the defining transients that will be used to snap to the grid (thus making all the other transient markers you set up on the less defined tracks like guit) follow along.
 
So Move (not stretch) all the transient markers into proper position on each snare and kick hit (many will be slightly off) and add or disable markers as needed (missed detection or false detection).
 
Once that's all done you need to set up markers across all the other tracks clips to line up with the kick and snare transients you just set up. I'm not sure if you can use the transient Pool option for this or copy/paste the markers. It may have to be done manually. Point is you want each clip to have a marker at the same spot as the kick/snare markers.
 
THEN you set up the "Merge and Lock Markers" function which will make all the markers at a specific time point stretch simultaneously (thus mainting phase relationships).
 
At that point you can use Quantize to hard correct (or correct by percentage) en masse (or do it section by section) or manually move hits one at a time manually as needed.
 
Get familiar with how Markers are Selected, Moved, Stretched, etc and how they behave under certain conditions with certain keybindings engaged. Best to experiment a bit first on a toss away version of the project until you get the hang of it.
 
Keep in mind, although I've been doing MASSSIVE time correction work on an old album I haven't actually used this method extensively so I may have made some mistakes (I've been using Reaper for bulk correction because it does it in a way that was beneficial to the project but I'm now back in Sonar for the fine correction which will hopefully work).
 
That is however what I would suggest in this scenario.
 
Cheers and good luck.

Oh and this may be important. I'd have to test.
 
If for some reason those "Anchor" points move when deleting the fiddle faddle tempo changes (which of course would destroy the entire method I described) use the "Set Measure/Beat at Now" function (set the Now Time on the desired "anchor" point, Right Click on the Time Ruler and select "Set Measure/Beat... blah blah"). That, IIRC, will make sure that spot of the grid sticks to the point in the clips instead of jumping backward/forward.
 
It sounds like you used that method to create your tempo map anyway though so it should be fine.
 
Another thing you may want to do is if the start of the clips don't extend to the very start of the project (Measure 1:1/00:00:00) slip edit the starts of ALL the clips so they are pressed right up against the left edge of the project. This keeps them from getting pushed backward which can happen sometimes when futzing with these types of time ruler tricks.
 
There are also some Preferences/Clip Inspector TimeBase/Timer Ruler options that can affect the behavior of clip movement when making tempo changes (I think) so watch out for that. I've rarely encountered that with my settings but yanno... just something to be aware of. I think it's when you use the more film score oriented time settings.
 
Cheers.
 

I have done this on a few occasions with live recordings. To be honest, I found it plain too hard to do in Sonar. unfortunately it is very simple in Pro Tools - map tempo manually, turn on elastic audio, delete markers and the tempo flattens out & it plays in time or smooth out the changes for a more subtle result.
There must be a better way in Sonar ?? 
 
Chuck

I have to disagree with Bob's approach; it's unnecessarily complicated. All you have to do is enable Audiosnap on all clips, and set 'Clip Follows Project' in Autostretch mode (the default). Then adjust or delete tempo changes as desired; all the audio will stay locked to the timeline and follow the changes. Deleting changes will effectively quantize everything to 100%. Or you can just smooth out the biggest deviations by editing the tempo map.
 
As Bob suggested, you should work with a copy of the project.

Synaptic
I have done this on a few occasions with live recordings. To be honest, I found it plain too hard to do in Sonar. unfortunately it is very simple in Pro Tools - map tempo manually, turn on elastic audio, delete markers and the tempo flattens out & it plays in time or smooth out the changes for a more subtle result.
There must be a better way in Sonar ?? 
 
Chuck

Ya, unfortunately Sonar has quite a bit of catching up to do in the time stretching department (much to my dismay).
 
I am however rather pleased that Audiosnap does seem to have gotten significantly more stable and reliable since the X2 days when I first dipped my wick into time correction. It was unusable at that point.
 
Things I'd like to see worked toward in the future are...
 
1) Make it so Grouped Clips obey Slip Stretching (currently you have to manually Ctrl Stretch clips individually).
 
2) Make it so Slip Stretching obeys Snap to Grid settings. Currently there is some strange "bug" or oversight that makes Ctrl stretching clips totally ignore Snap so you have to eyeball it everytime (coupled with the fact it ignores groups this becomes a MAJOR problem). Supposedly though this has something to do with Offset Markers being engaged and fiddling with the offeset setting makes the clips obey Snap. I haven't tested it yet but there was a thread (by Kylotan) where someone suggested that solution.
 
3) Come up with some kind of Timeline Tempo Marker scheme like Reaper has (and from what you described Pro Tools has and from videos I've seen I think Cubase does as well). It's still rather complex in Reaper but once you figure it out, create your splits and do the initial mapping you can REALLY micro manage and experiment with a project's tempo.
 
Right now time stretching and tempo mapping stuff seems to be spread out across multiple areas/features of the program that all need to be working together to make things happen. It could use some serious consolidation. However at this point I think it would take a HUGE design/programming push to create one big logical tool/workflow. Not necessarily to replace all the other stuff but a complete subprogram that focuses entirely mangling audio timing.
 
For now though I have my solutions and they work well. The only real pain is having to shuffle files back and forth between programs and I get anxious leaving the warm loving embrace of Sonar. lulz...

brundlefly
I have to disagree with Bob's approach; it's unnecessarily complicated. All you have to do is enable Audiosnap on all clips, and set 'Clip Follows Project' in Autostretch mode (the default). Then adjust or delete tempo changes as desired; all the audio will stay locked to the timeline and follow the changes. Deleting changes will effectively quantize everything to 100%. Or you can just smooth out the biggest deviations by editing the tempo map.
 
As Bob suggested, you should work with a copy of the project.

Bob? Heheheh.
 
I'll give that a whirl myself but it seems that might cause unwanted things to happen due to multiple factors. However most of the stuff I work on is extremely chaotic (as opposed to slower, simpler rhythms with minimal intentional tempo fluctuations) and I'm a complete OCD spazz so end up micromanaging.
 
Essentially things go VERY wrong when you try to apply these things to something akin to Slayer or DRI.
 
Good tip though.
 
/not Bob... ;-)

Beepster

Synaptic
I have done this on a few occasions with live recordings. To be honest, I found it plain too hard to do in Sonar. unfortunately it is very simple in Pro Tools - map tempo manually, turn on elastic audio, delete markers and the tempo flattens out & it plays in time or smooth out the changes for a more subtle result.
There must be a better way in Sonar ?? 
 
Chuck

Ya, unfortunately Sonar has quite a bit of catching up to do in the time stretching department (much to my dismay).

Sorry, but I have to disagree again, notBob. 
 
I hadn't noticed that what Chuck described is exactly how it works in SONAR. Only the name of the stretching function is different.
 
I'm also not sure that consolidation of features/functions is the answer. Much of the confusion about Audiosnap seems to stem from the fact that it integrates multiple functions related to altering project/content timing.
 
The truth is that if you take into account all the different combinations and permutations of what users want a DAW to do in the realm of syncing and stretching, it gets pretty complex no matter how it's implemented.
 
This thread is a good example of a task that can be very easy or very difficult to accomplish, depending on how you approach it. And you can dig a pretty deep, dark hole using the wrong one.

Thanks guys..  
 
So, Beep's approach is basically to delete the tempo map and then just use audiosnap to move the audio to the grid. I'm pretty expert at this as I do a lot of multitrack drum editing to align it to a grid. So I can deal with that but it's a lot of work. 
 
I was hoping since it was already mapped to a grid there was an easy way to just adjust the grid and have the audio follow the adjustments. I didn't do that tempo mapping, if I had the project from the beginning I would have just fixed it using the multitrack drum techniques to begin with...
 
Seems like Brundlefly's approach is at least an attempt to do exactly that. I'll give that a go and see how it works out.  I will take Beep's advice and "save as" prior to doing anything. Then I can play all I want without fear of losing what I already have. 
 
Thanks, gabo