dmbaer

joetabby


I'd love to be able to map tempo to the MW in order to "conduct" timing in a realtime pass.

-JT

The "MW" would be what?  Sorry, I'm not familar with that abbreviation (athough it'll probably turn out to be something really obvious).
 
The biggest problem with conducting in real time with music playing is that the software cannot know when the next beat is coming.  Given the speed of today's machines though, yeah, it might be doable.  Recording a tempo map while the music is playing would be very cool indeed.  But I'd happily settle for a tempo recorder that sat there silently as you did your conductor thing.

MW = modwheel.  Midi cc01.  It could be any midi controller, but the modwheel is typically the biggest with the most useful "throw."

Real time, for me in this case, would be real time editing (not so much tracking) --  a second pass that focuses on introducing the tempo motion.

 --JT


Edit: Or picture it like the Pitch Bend controller, which it could also be mapped to... only this would be Tempo Bend -- a center detente, in which tempo moves slower or faster, gravitating around a center BPM.

Because of the advances in the last ten years in the way recording programs like Sonar work, users can get accustomed to having most everything automated in some way.  At one time we were happy to have software EQ units - then when automation was introduced and we saw that we could automate EQ levels throughout a piece, that was Sweet!--yeah, we can use that.

We also became accustomed to having almost instant gratification for everything we do in a program - push a button or two, and there it is - the program is giving us immediate feedback, and it's cool.  And sometimes the program will even do some tasks for us that were previously only in the creative realm - "Gimme a template for a song structure, so I don't have to do it on my own."  Band In The Box to the rescue.  "Gimme drum loops so I don't have to hassle with it"--Done.  "Gimme layered textures for a background to my video so I don't have to compose one myself."  Done.---And on and on it goes. 

So with tempos - sure it could be possible to have some instant way of recording what we do with the turn of a knob, or some other real-time way of recording tempo changes--some other programs besides Sonar have things like that.

But how many of you have used an interface, excited that "oh boy, now I can do it all without grabbing the mouse"--you're grabbing knobs on a controller instead - and then you realize that there's a big gap between what you're able to do in real time and what you'd more ideally want.  The solution is to go in and hand edit the live automation you've recorded.  That happens to me constantly.  And it's OK - it's nice to step back into that non-real time and really figure out what you're doing, forcing yourself to make decisions about your edits so you can end up with a better result than you can record on the fly by pushing a lever or turning a knob.

And this is all to imply that I think the Tempo Map as we have it, as difficult as it may appear on the surface, is a fine tool, even though it may be "last decade."  All I know is that after biting the bullet and learning how to use the thing, I love it.  It works great.  Learning to draw a curve of tempo change isn't the most difficult thing you'll ever have to learn.  You just dig in and start getting a feel of how it works.  You get pretty near instant gratification, because you draw a curve, go back, hit Play--hear the results--adjust your edit as needed.  It isn't that hard.  It's kindergarten stuff in the realm of MIDI. 

Moving nodes in an envelope, drawing on a graph - one isn't better than the other.  You just have to feel out how the tool works, and we already have this powerful drawing on a graph tool - All you gotta do is stop whining about the way it's built and learn to use it.  - It'll never be like turning a knob - It'll be better, if you just start using it and master it like the adult I'm sure you actually are.

RB

Another scenario to ponder......

Last year, I was writing a piece that, as luck would have it, had an acoustic guitar rhythm track running for virtually the entire length of the song.

So what I did was this.

I recorded myself playing the song - NOT to a click or metronome so I ended up with a freely recorded piece of music.

Next, I set up a short, percussive click on a synth and played along with my reference (guitar) track and recorded a series of pulses that corresponded with the downbeat of every bar.

Then I used Audosnap to build a tempo map based on the pulses. (I also made sure that each of the pulses was set to a velocity of 100 and also nudged a couple of them that weren't quite in the right place priro to enabling A/S)

Job done - now I could add drums, synths etc and place all the notes & hits directly on the grid with no timing variations (unless added for creative purposes)

This might help some of you with tempo related issues.

I haven't tried this in X1 yet, but it works like a dream in 8.5.3

You should post in this thread Feature Request's For X2

What I do is import the original track and open the tempo view, I'll redraw the tempo with the pencil so that the click speeds up and slows down with the reference track viewing the waveform helps.  Doesn't take that long.  Once everything is gridded out, then you can change everything as a whole from there.  Would be nice to be able to lasso the tempo nodes and move anything selected up or down.  

I can also conduct tempo with a wii-mote.  It's alot of fun. I made it to conduct spit out 24 midi time sync clicks every quarter note and the time between the ticks is the time between your conducting movements divided by 24, thereby making midi time code speed up and slow down with your conducting gestures.  I could easily modify the time code spitter to spit out different speeds based on mod wheel position. I use Bome's midi translator for this.  I've created speed detection scripts like Vienna uses.  Lot's of fun!

Blogman


Would be nice to be able to lasso the tempo nodes and move anything selected up or down.  

+1 for sure.  I didn't say that explicitly in my first post but I would consider that to be a part of making tempo event editing consistant with controller event editing in the PRV.  Grab handles, selection of multiple events and drag and drop value adjustments of multiple selected events, etc.  I don't think vertical dragging would be useful (and in mind it would cause more problems than it would solve).  But otherwise, CC editing in the PRV is brilliant and I can't imagine how it could be improved upon.  I'd love to be able to say that of the tempo view.