Hello folks
 
I'm a long time Cakewalk user and lurker on here, and have used the software mainly as a multitrack audio recorder with the odd bit of midi thrown in but nothing like this.
 
However, one of my kids has now shown an interest and this has come up.  She's written a song (yay) and played the whole piano part into Cakewalk (via controller keyboard)  completely "wild" - no click, she didn't set a tempo, off she went (I reasoned getting her to do this would be a challenge that put her off, I'd rather get something down than nothing). It's a pretty good performance but definitely could do with being straightened out.  
 
So it's this - something I think I know how to do with audio clips but......
 
How do I divine its tempo (in general)?  When I adjust the tempo the midi realigns to what I've tapped out on Insert Tempo, the midi all realigns to the new tempo (which an audio clip wouldn't). I reckon I can't edit and quantise etc until I have figured this out.  The midi end of Cakewalk as I said is largely a mystery so I have searched help, but search only works sometimes when you actually know what you're looking for.  
 
Thanks in advance

K.
 
If the part is analog and not midi, and you have melodyne installed (at least essential) which came with producer, than drag the keyboard's audio track up to the timeline which will turn blue when you do. Drop it there and watch Sonar )or cakewalk) presto chango, create a tempo map from the wild performance. You can the quantise to that map.
 
Best thing since the DAW ning of time. and how I always start my songs now, with a wild guitar.

For midi, use Set measure/beats at now (under the Project tab). You'll have to go through and tell Cakewalk which notes are what beats and measures. Put the Now time at the start of a midi note and tell it measure 4 beat one for example.

Alternatively, you can Stretch the midi clips. Simply change to the desired tempo, then use Control + shift to grab the edge and Stretch the midi clip to fit. You may have to slice and dice to stretch parts slightly differently, but it does work for this purpose.

Below are steps for using Set Measure/Beat At Now to create a tempo map to match a performance that wasn't recorded to a click. Once the timeline is aligned, you can go into the Tempo view and delete all but the initial tempo to completely flatten the tempo, or just adjust tempos to reduce the variability to preserve some of the 'life' in the performance. And you can quantize to tighten up timing within measures/sections between 'Set' points.
 
Linking specific posts doesn't seem to be working properly. It's post #12 in the thread that comes up with this link:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2922802

Lesson learned.
When I first started on a DAW (Sonar, FL Studio, Reason, Project 5) I settled on Sonar. So with the Sonar my first few projects I just played away. Then I realized the copying and paste, quantizing and all MIDI, not being able to editing right. Until it hit upon me about using the right tempo.  
Sonar defaults to 120bmp 4/4. My suggestion is to figure out the right tempo and do it over again...Lesson learned.

I would suggest to learn to record straight in just as your daughter did, and practice performance techniques to get it closer to an appropriate tempo. It's great being able to edit here and there to preserve an otherwise good performance. I've been using Cakewalk for over 25 years and I use it as a linear recorder - I've never quantized the input or attempted to re-align to the grid. All the midi alignment tools are great for edm style or beats - or strict tempo stuff - but for real music recording and performance capture : just let it fly, and learn to record an actual performance.  just my 2 cents.

I frequently record solo piano compositions (especially new improvisations) without a click, and use SM/BAN to sync the timeline so I can smooth out excessive rubato or quantize lightly within measures/sections to tighten them up while leaving the overall ebb and flow of tempo intact.
 
Recording without a click allows you to use tempo creatively (e.g. speeding up or slowing down on choruses or throughout the whole piece, or recording a rit. ending on an otherwise fixed-tempo piece) and eliminates a lot of the 'red-light anxiety' that can cause you to tighten up and make more timing and articulation mistakes than you normally would.
 
I agree it's important to learn to comfortably record to a click (or maintain a steady tempo without one), but in cases like this where someone else - especially a novice musician - has recorded without a click, it's perfectly viable to just 'fix' the performance rather than asking them to re-record.
 
 

thanks brundlefly, very helpful stuff
my daughter and I will get to recording w click but it's a question of getting her interested  in recording in the first place

Let me know if you run into any problems. If you want to share a copy of the MIDI somewhere or PM me for an e-mail address, I'd be happy to have a go at it.

I'm also figuring out how midi entry works.  It seems there are some different schools of thought for example people that write midi parts and then bounce them down to audio tracks vs people who run most of their sound creation keeping everything in midi.  I kind of understand where to start, but I don't know that much about the inline piano roll yet which I think is the tool I want to use.  The event list seems so un-musical to use.  First I need to learn the kb shortcuts of what's involved in that.