Hi gang,
I'm having so much trouble quantizing my finger style guitar parts. I've spent many hours with Melodyne, read the manual, viewed every video I can find and while it does fine with my vocals (in between crashes), I just can't get it to work properly on some intricate guitar parts. It just moves notes to where they're not supposed to be.

I'm odd in that I take a backwards approach to learning a new finger style guitar piece. I start by typing in notation and then work back and forth between playing and midi editing to arrive at a finished notation. I then play from that until it's memorized. A perk is that I end up with an exact 'transcription' of what I play.

So I'm wondering if I can use that notation midi info to perfectly align my exact recorded version. I've never tried the loops and groove features of sonar but I'm thinking of using a vsti to bounce the midi to an audio track and then somehow using that as a quantizing 'groove'. Would that mold my recorded audio to the vsti audio?
 Anyone have thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Joe
 
In other words, use not just the midi beat info, but the actual midi note (rhythm) info.

When you convert audio to midi - you are losing the audio portion of the track.  Basically all you have is the timing (when and how long) and pitch data.  You would have to play that midi data back through a synth to generate sound, so unless you actually sampled your guitar, you would lose the audio characteristics of it.
 
Just out of curiosity, are you using Melodyne Essential or Editor.  I had pretty good luck correcting a finger picked guitar part using Editor, including deleting extra notes, adding missing notes, timing and pitch.  I don't the essential will work because it does not support polyphony which is really what the guitar part is.

Thanks, dwardzala
 
I have Editor not essential.
I don't want to convert audio to midi. I already have the midi (perfectly quantized), so I want to somehow use it (backwards, I guess) as a 'mold' to form the quantized rhythm of my recorded audio. I'm guessing it can't be done, but I was hoping to find someone that has tried it. Editor does a fine job on 80% of what I play but there's always those trouble spots.

For timing only you could try using audiosnap, but would not be a quick solution.

Yes, it can be done with Audiosnap. Basically, you would first need to enable AS on the audio clip and massage all the transient markers to be sure there are no extra, missing or misplaced markers - you want one for every note/chord in the MIDI track. Then copy the MIDI into the clipboard (a.k.a. paste buffer), and Groove Quantize the audio to the clipboard contents (the default).
 
 

Thanks! Can't wait to try this when I get home.
 
Audiosnap is very tedious and I haven't (in the past) gotten great results. But if I just Audiosnap the small problem clips I might have a real solution. I'll try it!

I am glad Brundlefly chimed in, I was on a phone before and could not type a good description for you.
 
If you have not used audio snap, here is a thread from a couple weeks ago worth reading. FastBikerBoy's video (post #2) gives a nice overview of setting markers (in that thread the point is to extract tempo, you want the same thing I think, but apply the tempo instead). I added a "setup" comment to that video in post #6, but that was also advice from FBB, just another video.
 
In addition to the info in that thread, here are a couple quick videos:
Getting started with AudioSnap
Using AudioSnap for Drum Replacement
 
I think what you are looking to do is similar to "drum replacement" but instead of extracting the timing as MIDI, you want to align your audio markers and used your quantized MIDI file to apply the timing as Brundlefly said above.
 
The quickest way for you to learn this is to create a new project, set the bpm, and import the audio and MIDI tracks so you can visually stack them (and while setting markers can easily see the MIDI reference). Turning on Aim Assist (X) will give you a vertical marker to help guide you if you have not used it before.
 
AudioSnap is a nice toolbox, but can be confusing at first, so do not hesitate to ask more questions.
 

I brought up AudioSnap with the A key
Made sure the AudioSnap Beats check box was selected
Extracted Groove from my exact midi transcription - (which was already 100% automatically quantized because it was entered from Staff view notation)
Applied groove to the audio recording made by me playing the notation on that midi track

Disappointed -- It did do something though. I couldn't tell any difference between doing the above and just quantizing the whole track normally. I was hoping that it would at least quantize the volume levels because that would seem to produce a more natural sound than adding a compressor to the track, but I couldn't hear a difference.

I also copied the midi track to the clipboard and then used it to Process | Groove Quantize it. Same results as above.


I was able to manually adjust some AudioSnap Beats and improve the track in some places, but not through quantizing or groove quantizing. Did I misunderstand?
 
Thanks

If the MIDI is perfectly quantized then, yes, conventional quantizing of the audio will work just as well.  But it sounds like you're saying the results are equally bad in both cases as opposed to good. If so, there are likely still some issues with the transient markers that need to be fixed. Hard to say exactly where the issue lies without seeing the material first hand, but basically you want to have one and only one transient marker for every event in the MIDI clip, the markers need to be exactly on the actual audio transients, and they need to be within half the resolution setting of the correct time, or they'll get quantized in the wrong direction.
 
But, no, the Velocity strength setting has no effect on audio files; that part of Groove Quantizing applies only to MIDI clips.
 
Re-reading your description, though, I see you're referring to "Extract Groove and "Apply Groove" which are Audiosnap functions for applying one audio clip's transient pool timing to another audio clip. In the case of applying MIDI timing to an audio clip, once you have the transient markers set up properly, you should be using a simple Copy to get the MIDI events in the clipboard, then right-click the audio clip, and choose Groove Quantize
 
 

I did carefully line up the transient markers and then realized that defeated the whole easy way of doing it and that I didn't need the midi track -- I just quantized it. It still didn't sound perfect because of fretboard slides, but I'm still working on it. Plus I've learned a lot about Audiosnap. Thanks for your help!

BTW I'm not going to use Melodyne any more inside Sonar X3 -- it crashes too much. I'm careful to save every 5-10 minutes, but when it crashes it ruins the whole project so that I can't reload and use melodyne on it again anyway. I've got enough work-arounds and things to be careful of in Sonar as it is.