Sonar Professional
Problem: Can’t sync up my measures correctly and have Sonar sense correct tempo and meter using Set Project Tempo From Clip.
 
First: I apologize for the long post and request. I’m fairly new to Sonar and the technology (although I have a lot of analog engineering and recording background), and the Cakewalk Support People have been MIA.  Also, FYI - I’ve read, studied, and tried the manual info.
 
Background: 24 track recording were done on Alesis HD24 a while back.  Used HD24 Tools to convert tracks/songs to wave files, and made available to Sonar (no problems in that regard).  Note: No Midi was used on these tracks/songs.  I have been dubbing/recording and premixing with effects and processing without issue, but the tempo Sonar is displaying, and the track orientation to the 1-beat, and the actual bar meter in reference to the tracks, is incorrect.
 
Objective: To use the Set Project Tempo from Clip (or any other function needed) to get a song’s correct measure sync, meter, and tempo.
 
I had a phone/go-to-meeting session with the Support People, and they/he tried, but could not solve the problem.  They were going to research and get back to me.  He did let me know that he had a solution, but didn’t call me back on the appt time we booked, and they have not responded since to my other inquiries in regard to the case #’s.
 
All the songs have 4 beats per measure click tracks (generated in the original HD24 recording), so that is what we used to Set Project Tempo From Clip (we also tried the snare track when the click track didn't work).  The result was 60 bpm, instead of the actual 120 bpm, and the beats per measure were off, and measures were not aligned to the 1-beat.
We did get the tempo correct in one instance (120 bpm), but on all the other tries, it would only interpret 60 bpm, also the beats per measure and 1-beat were still off.
 
Support said it may be because there was blank space at the beginning of the track before the click and count starts.  He rushed thru the process to globally delete this space on all the tracks/clips, but he blasted thru it and did give explanation of what he was doing, and I didn’t get the process down.
 
Request: Can anyone give me some specific, detailed suggestions to: 1) Globally delete the blank space at the beginning of the song tracks (if you think that is the issue), 2) Deal with the Set Project Tempo From Clip process (or any other available process), so that I get the 4/4 meter, with the 1-beat lined up correctly, with the correct tempo?  Thanks for your help.

Hi, and welcome to this forum. I would try to use Melodyne in percussive mode as an Region FX, and then drag the clip (you wish to use as base for the tempo) up to the timeline until it turns blue, and drop. This should calculate the tempo (and tempo map) for you. Hope it helps.
All the best.
Edit: For best result, try matching the tempo as close as possible first. And use correct beat.

Great.  Thanks Ken. I'll let you know the result when I get a chance to try your suggestion.  Any ideas on why the Project Tempo to Clip is not doing the job it was created to do?  It seems that if it can't interpret a 4 beat click track's tempo correctly, there is something lacking in that tools design.

I'm a little confused that the tracks are not already aligned to the project since you indicated they were recorded to a 120BPM click, and SONAR's default tempo for new projects tends to be 120 for most templates. So even if you didn't explicitly ensure the project tempo was matching before importing the audio, it should have been.
 
In any case, if the project is something other than 120, and the tracks were all recorded to a 120BPM click, all you have to do is this:
 
- Snap the Now time to the measure equal to current tempo + 1.
- Shift+M to bring up Set Measure/Beat At Now (SM/BAN), enter measure 121, and OK.
- SONAR will change the initial project tempo to 120 from whatever it was, shifting the timeline around the audio without altering the absolute playback timing or relative start times of existing clips.
- If none of the clips started at time zero, you'll now need to select them all as a group, and drag them to align the the first transient with the correct measure/beat in the timeline.
- Note that SM/BAN will also insert a tempo of 120 at the measure and beat that you set. Since that tempo matches the initial tempo, you can just delete it since you won't be setting any additional points.

clegs
Great.  Thanks Ken. I'll let you know the result when I get a chance to try your suggestion.  Any ideas on why the Project Tempo to Clip is not doing the job it was created to do?  It seems that if it can't interpret a 4 beat click track's tempo correctly, there is something lacking in that tools design.

The process of tempo detection that Ken describes is a much more recent and functionally richer feature than project tempo from clip. Saying that something is lackling in the original tool is a bit like saying the wheel was poorly invented because it was not immediately attached to a Porsche 911:)

tenfoot
[Melodyne's tempo detection] is a much more recent and functionally richer feature than project tempo from clip.

I can't really agree with 'functionally richer' in general, and it's definitely not the case if you haven't upgraded Melodyne from the Essential version bundled with SONAR. 'Set Project from Clip' has some powerful features and considerable flexibility, but by the same token, you can't just 'press the button' and expect everything to magically fall in place in every case. Based on several threads I've seen about Melodyne, and my own experience with Essential, I'm not seeing that it's any better than Audiosnap in this respect; with either tool, the average tempo guess can easily be off by a factor of two, and you get out what you put into it in terms of the quality of the result for the time invested.
 
In the case of Audiosnap, this means going into 'Edit Clip Tempo Map', choosing the correct tempo multiple and beats per measure, making sure the beat marker for 1:01 is on the correct transient, and possibly tweaking other beat markers if there are detection errors. Also, in the case that the tempo is expected to be constant, you would want to change the mode for the 'Set Project' button to Clip, rather than the default, Beat, or Measure.
 
I would still say Set Measure/Beat At Now is the preferred tool for this job. But FWIW I just tested 'Set Project' using a fixed-tempo click track in a mixed MIDI-Audio project with the project tempo deliberately out of sync, and it worked like a charm with no tweaks other than choosing the correct tempo multiple from the offerings in Edit Clip Tempo Map, and setting the mode to Clip as mentioned above.

brundlefly
[
I can't really agree with 'functionally richer' in general, and it's definitely not the case if you haven't upgraded Melodyne from the Essential version bundled with Sonar.

 
You are right Brundlefly - I expressed that poorly, but I do find it easier to get a good result quickly, out of the gate with melodyne's new tempo mapping.

Wow, thanks so much for all the input and suggestions.  I'll be back in town and going to try to dive into it this weekend hopefully, and will update my progress when available.

Give us some feedback as to how it goes.
All the best.

I use an HD24 for live tracking as well. Karl Rose aka Fast Biker Boy posted some videos a while back:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VR7WkHywTo I've used this method and it works well. It also makes use of the shift+m command and tab to transients. If you have a recorded click track it helps. Melodyne's tempo mapping is relatively new. Celemony has some videos on their youtube channel that are helpful. I think the Groove 3 Sonar Platinum Advanced video has a chapter on this as well.
 On a side note are you aware of HD24 tools? It was a life saver for me when the Alesis HD connect software wouldn't work on my machine. Good luck and report back.


Rocky