i am new hear so please bear with me, i have imported the strings section of the john lennon classic "imagine" i found it as an isolated track on youtube, it has a varible tempo of about 72-76 bpm, but i am doing a cover at 72 bpm, i have done the drums,bass and piano using midi and then printing the midi to audio, but because the strings section has a varible tempo it does not match up with my tempo project, my idea is to convert the strings to midi, and when i do that it is all over the place in terms of tempo, i have try to use audio snap to quantize but i just can not figure out how to sync the tempo to my project tempo, obviously i am doing something wrong! any advice would be most help full....thankyou

You could try dragging the Audio of the strings up to the Time ruler and seeing how well Melodyne adjust and sets you tempo for you.

Craig Anderton suggests you set Melodyne to percussive algorithm(for better results), but I am not clear about how you do that before dragging the audio into the Time ruler. Perhaps someone can fill us in on that bit.
 
You do need to hold it there, till it turns blue BTW.
Michael

I wonder if you open Melodyne and "leave it in percussive", prior to opening the project you are wanting to use it on. I'll have to try that see if it works.
Michael

Why not just stretch the audio to match closely to the midi tempo?

Maybe you have to modify your tempo map to the string section you want.
As your cover is all midi, un-freeze the parts, fix the tempo during the section you need.
Then freeze your midi again.
With strings it might be a little tough finding the "beats".
A nice snare hit on the 2 and 4 of the "source" material is probably the "easiest".
But it all comes down to, how bad/want do you need the strings?
 
T

pentimentosound
Craig Anderton suggests you set Melodyne to percussive algorithm(for better results), but I am not clear about how you do that before dragging the audio into the Time ruler. Perhaps someone can fill us in on that bit.
 
You do need to hold it there, till it turns blue BTW.
Michael

I think it does it by itself based on the material you feed it

BTW after RTFM I found audio snap an excellent tool to snap onto transient material e.g. the 2 + 4 backbeat snare hits

thanks guys for your suggestion's and advice, i have done the bit about dragging the strings into the timeline, which did indeed show a variable tempo, to be specific i have already recorded the bass,piano and drum parts @72 bpm, the string section varies from 72 to 76 bpm so of course it will not match up, i even did a tempo map of the strings in melodyne then set the tempo to constant 72 bpm..still no luck in matching the tempo, at this point i have more or less given up trying to match the tempo, so i have made a midi file of the strings and am manually adjusting the individual note's by using the tab to transient and looking at melodyne at the same time..arduous work, the isolated file i found on youtube seems to have been manipulated as well it is not accurate, also the song was recorded 40 years ago and the sonic quality and technology of those times where primitive compared to today, my aim was and is to do a cover with a modern day sonic quality sound to it, it is worth noting that all the people who played on that song where all playing without a click which i might add is what gave the song it's "feel" or "swing" so i conclude that maybe that is the path i should go instead of going for a grided  sound right on the beat or click?  btw how do you stretch audio in sonar?
many thanks so far...Peter 

Peter, 
The Help says you Control click and drag the clip after the cursor turns into the stretching tool. For some reason, on my system it is not working! Lookup the Help topic and try on yours. This option has been around for a long time and would be very useful in your situation IMO.

It's shift+ctrl+drag these days ... the option was changed but there is outdated docu to be found depending on where you look