Fred Holmes


I have a file with many many changes in tempo ( it sounded good while listening) but when I get to singing with it I realize that the entire piece needs an increase in tempo but with all the variations intact..

Now, of the tempo was an envelope I'd just grab it and raise it up. But of course it isn't.
Is there any way in Sonar ( or with some external mfx) to accomplish this?

Thanks,
Fred

Hi,
 
This happens to be my workflow bec. mostly, I'm doing arrangement in classical department. :-).
 
Below is my method. I assumed you already know Audio Snap.
 
STEPS:

1. Bounce the whole mix to a new track. Highlighted area must start from measure 1 even if there's no music there.
   
2. Mute the MIDI tracks so that only the bounced mix will be playing.
   
3. Create a click track with the same length of the bounced mix. Also start from measure 1.
   
4. Bounce the click track to a another new track. After this, only that bounced mix and click will be heard. NOTE: the whole mix and click audio must be in the same length.
   
5. Now, you can time compress / expand this two audio tracks(in same amount) to find tempo of your liking. Don't worry about the quality.
   
6. Once you've decided the tempo, "bounce to clip" the two audio audio so that the time compress/expand will be permanent. NOTE: the two audio is still in-sync.
   
7. Apply AS to both audio.
   
8. Disable transient markers in the whole mix track.
   
9. Click wave file should show quarter note transient markers enable. With this, you can now put this click track's transient markers to pool.
   
10. Then, set project tempo from clip, the click track clip. Now, you have a relative new tempo in sync with your MIDI track.
    
11. You can now enable your MIDI tracks and mute/delete the whole mix and click clip.
    

You can repeat the steps if later on you change your mind. This works for me everytime I need it.
 
Thanks.

miditus


6. Once you've decided the tempo, "bounce to clip" the two audio audio so that the time compress/expand will be permanent. NOTE: the two audio is still in-sync.
 
7. Apply AS to both audio.

Very interesting and makes sense mostly.  But I don't understand the purpose of step six.  Could you elaborate?  Also, in step 7, what is "AS"?

dmbaer

miditus


6. Once you've decided the tempo, "bounce to clip" the two audio audio so that the time compress/expand will be permanent. NOTE: the two audio is still in-sync.
 
7. Apply AS to both audio.

Very interesting and makes sense mostly.  But I don't understand the purpose of step six.  Could you elaborate?  Also, in step 7, what is "AS"?

Hi,
 
STEP 6 is a preparatory step for STEP 7, which is applying/enabling AS to the bounced clips. AS stands for Audio Snap. :-)
 
Hope my workflow is of help to you.
 
Thanks.

FYI,
I've referenced this thread in a feature request to cakewalk
Fred

ORIGINAL: gkurtenbach

For example, if I set the tempo at the start of every measure sometimes that tempo seems"shakey" like the drummer is speeding up and slowing down but not in a smooth manner that way real drummers do. Obviously if the drummer was drumming at 120 bpm at the start of measure 1 and then was drumming at 121 bpm at the start of measure 2 they probably didn't jump from 120 to 121 at the start of measure 2 but smoothly increased in someway between.

I think this is the weakest part of using AudioSnap to create a tempo map. Smooth transitions like a brezier curve would seem more natural then jumps. I would also agree that once the tempo map has been built, it is too difficult to modify any portion of the map without messing up the proceeding tempo changes.

It would be useful if you could use the space bar or a midi controller pad to tap the tempo map similar to Sibelius.

RTGraham

CJaysMusic


I would just go into your tempo map and increase each section by the same amount. I think its the only way to do it
Cj

Good thought, but it won't preserve the *relationships* of the tempo changes.  When there are multiple tempo variations - especially accelerando or ritard ramps, etc. - everything needs to change by a *percentage* for it to feel like the relationships are preserved.
 
 

Fret Wizz


A Tempo offset would be good to have eh?

Would be useful, but as noted above, it would only truly preserve tempo relationships if it offered a percentage mode instead of just a hard offset.
 
I agree that Fit To Time is the solution here.

Depressingly, as usual Bars n Pipes Pro ( my sequencer of choice) has had this since the outset in the 1980s.   And people wonder why I still use it!

WAKE UP, bakers!

bitflipper


An even simpler method to implement would be the ability to select a portion of the tempo map and drag it up or down.

The limitation to this idea is that it would not preserve the relative ratios of the tempo changes. It would, however, be adequate 95% of the time, as global tempo changes are typically not radical ones, only a few bpm.

Or to have a (for lack of a better term) ripple edit option.  IOW, have a mode in TV that is more like piano roll.  With ripple enabled, you drag rather than draw tempo markers up/down and and when you do, all the following ones are adjusted as well, keeping the same relative changes intact.  If you did this sort of thing a lot, this would be really useful.  If only very occassionaly, you can use process-length to accomplish the same thing, can you not?  So, it'd be nice but not at the top of my wish list in the tempo features department.
 
I did some experimentation over the weekend.  I decided it was time for my knowledge of Sonar tempo capabilities be more than just what I'd read in the manual.  On the whole I'm pretty pleased with what's there, but there is defintely room for improvement.
 
I created a pattern of notes, via step entry, so they'd be perfect.  I muted the track and created a click track to use with fit-to-improv to create a tempo map.  Worked fairly well, except the fit-to-improve operation changed everything (note on positions and not lengths) around in the step-entered track.  Not sure why Sonar felt it needed to do this.  Locking (doing a lock data on the step entered track) kept that from happening.
 
Did another click track ... discovered you do *not* want to record a click track when there's a tempo already in place.  Seems obvious now, but I thought for a moment my keyboard controller was flakey, the click track notes seemed so imprecisely placed.
 
There appears to be no way to clear tempo events except by removing them with the erase tool in TV.  Also, annoyingly, TV resets its options upon opening.  For example, open TV and set the grid affinity to quarter notes.  Close and reopen, and its back to the default value of whole notes.  As I said, annoying!
 
Happy discovery.  Fit to improv seems to accomodate BPM values greater than 250.  There was some discussion here a few months ago about this limitation.  There's still an upper limit, but it seems to be better than it reportedly used to be.  Some of my quarter note tempo values were close to 500 BPM in some of my tests.

I Have another problem. I made a lot of changes of tempo in MIDI. Then I have to cut a couple of bars on the beginning of the tune. Unfortunately the tempo line didn't move. Is there any way to make the tempo line to move?
Any ideas?

Use Edit > Copy Special and Paste Special, and make sure tempos are included.
 
Incidentally, my workaround for the original issue can be found here:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2010573
 
1. Enable autostretch (a.k.a. Clip Follows Project) on all audio clips.  
2. Select a MIDI or audio clip that runs the length of the project.  
3. Go to Process > Fit to Time.  
4. Convert the current Thru time to total frames.  
5. Divide that by the desired factor (e.g. 1.10 to get a 10% increase, 0.90 for a 10% decease).  
6. Round and convert that new value to minutes:seconds:frames.  
7. Enter that as the new Thru, and select Modify by Changing: Tempo Map.  
8. Click OK. 

Use Edit > Copy Special and Paste Special, and make sure tempos are included.
 
Thank you. It was very helpful