Sonar and Melodyne tempo map not working for me

So I have this month's latest Sonar Platinum and I'm trying to match a track's tempo to the project without much success.  I've tried matching the tempo by dragging a stem of the drums to the timeline.  I've also tried using a bounced down track of the entire project consisting of a vocal, guitar and drums but the calculated timing is off by quite a bit.  Sonar runs the calculation and creates a tempo map that changes measure to measure.  However, the resultant project tempo doesn't coincide with any transients or beat of the referenced track.
 
I've opened up a new project and tried the same with other finished mixes with the same results so I must be missing something.  I've tried clipping the track's beginning so they start right at beat one.  These are all basic 4/4 songs with high crest factor transients so I would think they'd be recognized properly. 
 
I have the most updated release of Melodyne 4 installed so I didn't install Melodyne essentials within Cakewalk's installer.  Could that be the issue?   For reference I'm using the exact steps shown in cakewalk's demo.  In the past I've had to change the project's tempo manually, measure by measure so I'd love to get this working.

Melodyne Studio and Editor allow making corrections to the detected tempo as in addition to choosing the detection algorithm, which is all you get with Essential - see Melodyne's documentation. I only have Essential, so I can't give you any more detailed guidance. But based on my few experiments with Essential, the default detection will often need tweaking. The most common issue I've seen (and seen other users report) is that the detected tempos are 2x what they should be. Other than that, it seems to do a reasonable job with tempos that just 'wander' a bit, but is likely to have issues with more variable/rubato material.

Zargg71
Hi, and welcome to this forum. Have you tried to change the Melodyne algorithm? IIRC I used the percussive algorithm. I have successfully made a tempo map with freehand recordings, and I only have the Essential. The "bigger"versions should give you more options than the Essentials version. Hope it helps.
All the best.

That's another issue I'm having.  When I do the steps of creating a melodyne region fx, changing the detection algorithm and then applying the tempo to the project, the tempo is reset to a static 120bpm.  The only method that at least does something is dragging the track to the timeline.    
 
The project was recorded to a click track but I'm wanting to use this functionality to further improve the timing grid so edits and adding virtual instruments are more inline with the recorded music.  Using this melodyne method is killing it altogether and I'm not seeing a doubling or halving effect.  Going through tens of measures I'm not seeing any transients coinciding with the newly created tempo. 

tenfoot

Gregkonji
So I have this month's latest Sonar Platinum and I'm trying to match a track's tempo to the project without much success.  I've tried matching the tempo by dragging a stem of the drums to the timeline.  

Hi gregkonji.
I could be mistaken, but when you drag a track into the time line,  you are creating a tempo map to match the projects tempo to that track, not the other way around. 
 
Not installing essentials if you have a more advanced version certainly should not be an issue. 
 
 

Yes my wording is wrong.  I'm trying to do what you just said.  I want to create a project tempo map that follows the recorded music.  The video demos I've seen are exactly what I'm trying to do.

Try to drag the file / clip you want SONAR to follow to the timeline (until the timeline turns blue), and then drop. You should have the new tempo map calculated by Melodyne / SONAR.

Gregkonji
I tried this method after creating the melodyne region fx. With the Percussion Algorithm it resets the tempo to 120. With the Universal Algorithm the timing is somewhat ok the first 30 measures but the rest of the song is off by a full beat.

I see this a lot too. What I end up doing is making the Region FX, then edit the tempo map in Melodyne until correct, then drag it up to timeline.

There's some really good YouTube videos on tempo mapping in Melodyne ... And not the Melodyne videos. I wish I had saved the link. But a YouTube search should find it for you. It goes through the process in detail which is dragging around beat lines and measure lines using the various Melodyne tools that appear depending on where the cursor is on the tempo map. It can be a little tedious with rubato pieces, but it works well when you're finally done.

By the way, suddenly being off by a whole beat is a perfectly typical manifestation of Melodyne getting confused at that point. And it's easily fixed within Melodyne. That and other manifestations are explained in the video. Drat! I will have to find it and I'll post it.

Nice. Thanks for the links.

Gregkonji
I just watched the advanced editing video performed by the same guy as the link you shared. It looks to be as tedious as using Sonar's audio snap manually correcting per measure. All the Melodyne marketing I've seen makes it seems like some amazing artificial intelligence machine that would save me a bunch of time.

Yes, it can be tedious, depending on content "quality" and how much the tempo wanders. By "quality" I mean how well Melodye can interpret the audio. Some audio files seem to be easier for Melodyne than others. So, if you have several tracks, choose the one that Melodyne works best with. Or, sometimes, using all works better since Melodyne has more information to get clues from. I think you said you had Essential? You won't have multitrack capability there, but if you upgrade you will. Unfortunately it's usually a bit expensive to upgrade unless you happen to catch a deal.

Also, you don't have to adjust every transient. I typically align measure lines, and the Melodyne algorithm adjusts beats within the measure automatically. My workflow usually involves adjusting the first beat of each measure, working left to right (increasing time) with the "coarse tool" and then take a second pass with the "fine" tool.

By the way, it may help your understanding better if you think of the two tools a little differently than the video describes them. The "coarse tool" (the top of the tempo curve) will adjust beat lines in a "free" fashion which typically results in overall changes in average tempo. It seems to affect the alignment of beat lines in adjacent measures slightly. The "fine tool" (bottom of tempo curve) can be thought of as an "maintain average tempo" adjustment tool. In other words, when you drag a beat line, you'll notice that the tempo curve will decrease on one side, and increase on the other, causing no average tempo change, just a localized one. This is useful for the second pass in my workflow since previously fine tuned measures (to the left) will not be affected by the measure you're working on.

This saves a little time over AudioSnap because in the first pass, contents within a measure will be adjusted as well. In AudioSnap, you'd have to select the transients within the measure and drag them all such that the first downbeat is on a measure line, but now the rest of the transients will be dragged linearly and they will be off. The other way is to adjust each transient in AudioSnap, and that is REALLY tedious. Melodyne will do the within-measure transients automatically.

I'm not sure how much of this Melodyne Essential will allow doing, but hopefully some of this has helped.

Good Luck!

Thanks peteL for the additional info. I do have the full blown version of Melodyne 4. I upgraded from Studio for the multi track option. I just need to learn the tool and better understand its limitations.

How much is it off by?  I can't make it out in the screen capture.  Milliseconds?