I have a really good track that I want to use as a scratch track to record a song. It's right on the click except for the guitar solo which speeds up noticeably (of course it does. Guitarists, right?) and then goes back to the click when the vocals come back in. Without re-recording the whole track, what's the best way to fix this problem? I've been adjusting the audio transients, but the back half of the song needs to be moved and a lot of adjustments need to be made. Ir's just a scratch, but I'd like it to sound as natural as possible. I'm pretty new to Sonar (and DAWs in general). How would others approach this problem?
 
Cindy

Cindy . . . which version of Sonar do you have ? The newest versions have a feature (Melodyne Essential) which can do some "re-tempoing" (probably not a real word, but you might get what I mean ?)

I mention this only, because it was really an easy way out for me one time. I realise it doesn't work in many (most?) cases, and that it might be too obvious to even type down :o/
 
The solo was slipping off-click gradually and inconsistently. I cut the solo in one and two-measure portions, and positioned each of those clips on the beat. Now the solo did not drift too much during those one or two measures before the following clip was again spot on. Actually, it created a gentle groove.
At the cutting points, slip stretching the right hand side clip slightly towards left filled perfectly the few gaps.

You could try splitting into heaps of clips and using vocal sync. I havn't tried it, but always envisaged a use for it like your describing.

If you have Melodyne Inthink the easiest (and quickest) route would be to split the clip before and after the guitar solo, covert this clip to a Melodyne region fx, and then "select all" notes and use the quantise feature in Melodyne set to 100% (or slightly less for a more realistic feel) to push all the notes in time

It will either get everything in the right place but if the playing is really out of time they may get moved to the wrong place - in which case they should be easier to spot and then manually move - so it is win win

Hey Boydie. Do you use Melodyne (or anyone else reading this thread) for this type manipulation yourself? I find for anything other than the most simple notes of guitar work, that the process destroys lead in/out of individual notes. Great for vocals. And bass sometimes. But anything intricate like finger picking, moderately fast solo's, fast rhythm etc, that it just doesn't work at all. Manual correction of individual notes, sure, but not bulk quantisation like your suggesting. Please don't think I'm dispelling your suggestion. I really am curious. Is it just me?

Do you mean ALL the instruments speed up with the guitar solo?
 
If so...
 
1) Open Take Lanes on the track and enable Snap (not audiosnap... just the Snap function to snap clips/events to the timeline). Create splits on either side of the solo. The first split should be on the last measure point that is in time with the timeline. The second split you will have to disable Snap for. Look for the first measure/downbeat after the solo where the song comes back in time with itself and make a split right at the start of that point/transient.
 
2) Enable snap again. Move the clip section after the solo (after the second split) and snap it to the proper measure point on the timeline. This will sync up the last part of the song to the proper tempo again (if the song was indeed in time). This will create a gap between the end of the solo and that end clip.
 
3) Create a new Take Lane (click the little + button on the Take Lane control area). Select the solo clip section (the clip you just carved out of the song), hold Shift on your keyboard and move it into the new take lane (holding Shift keeps it at the same point in the timeline). Leave the other two clips in the original Take Lane.
 
4) With Snap still enable hover over the end of the solo clip section as if you were about to slip edit it. Press and hold the Alt key. The clip boundary should turn yellow. Still holding the Alt key click and drag the clip edge (that yellow line) to the next measure point so it snaps. This will stretch the entire clip proportionally.
 
If you did it correctly the gap you created earlier will be gone and all the clips will now match up and the solo section will fit your timeline properly (don't worry if you hear any warbling/artifacts). If so select the clip you just stretched, Right Click and select "Bounce to Clips"... that should get rid of the artifacts if the stretching wasn't too drastic.
 
Listen back. If there are any pops at the split points the zoom way in to the split points (one at a time), slip edit the end/start of the clips you did NOT stretch so that they overlap just a little bit with the stretched clip and add linear fades to all the clip splits (create a manual X-Fade essentially).
 
Now hit "Ctrl Shift A" to clear any current selections, select the Parent Track (the composite shown in the main track above the Take Lanes), Right Click and select "Flatten Comp". This will bounce the clips into one long new clip and mute the other lanes.
 
Now that your song follows and fits onto the project timeline IF there are some minor timing issues in the solo you can use audiosnap/transient stretching to correct them without having to screw with the entire song.
 
I do this quite often but on a large scale when doing covers that drift. Essentially I slice up the entire song at appropriate measure points and stretch as needed.
 
As mentioned above though the new Melodyne 4 supposedly has tools to do this stuff but I haven't tried it yet. May not work so great on a fully mixed song but maybe it will.
 
Have fun.

Oops. I did not see Kalle's post. He is describing the same process as I am. It works well.
 

Check this tip (and the thread)
http://forum.cakewalk.com...074655-p2.aspx#3110584

Soundwise
Check this tip (and the thread)
http://forum.cakewalk.com...074655-p2.aspx#3110584

In theory that would work but there are a couple problems...
 
One is that you end up stretching material that doesn't need to be stretched (if the song is mostly in time as the OP says).
 
The second is, in that article Craig neglects to mention all the transient marker setup work that needs to be done before snapping in bulk like that. Most of time, unless the material is super clean and has strong defined transients you have to go through all the markers by hand to reposition them at the actual transients. Transient detection is a little better in Sonar these days (and Audiosnap in general is working WAY better than it used to) but it's no where near perfect. On a fully mixed stereo file there would have to be a LOT of prep work making sure the transient markers are actually  at the transients as well as disabling/inserting transients that are false positives or missing.
 
I literally just did a pile of this over the past couple of days on an extremely simple, dry DI guitar track that was just a steady chug. Even with that it was extremely time consuming getting the markers set up properly.
 
Best to avoid that type of AS work until it's absolutely needed which is why I mentioned the Split/Slip Stretch method to ballpark it then Audiosnap to do any extra cleanup needed.
 
Not that your suggestion isn't good and will be worth it for the OP to check out. I just think it's not quite as simple as Craig made it seem and if most of the material is in time isn't necessary.
 
Cheers.