Match Tempo of 2 Audio Tracks?

[musikman1]

Hi, trying to do something simple here, but haven't needed to do it in awhile, and haven't yet had an occasion to try this in Sonar Platinum, and can't seem to get it to work. I was away from my PC so I recorded a basic rhythm with my acoustic guitar along with a metronome click into my voice recorder of my phone, then emailed the MP3 to myself so I could get it onto my PC and import it into a track in Sonar Platinum.  What I want to do is set my project tempo to "roughly" match the tempo of the rhythm guitar clip, then audition some drum loops to find a drum beat that suits the guitar rhythm, and it doesn't have to be perfect because for now I  just want to find a good match for it so I can make a drum track to practice that guitar rhythm to.  (Eventually I'll re-record both drums and guitar for an original song). 

The empty project tempo began at 95bpm when I first imported the guitar mp3 to a track.  I double clicked the guitar clip and checked to see that Sonar indicates the clip's original tempo to be 89.893 bpm.  In past versions of Sonar, normally I would just adjust my project tempo accordingly, in this case to 89.893 to match the clip. Then I would insert a drum loop from my library into another track and the drum loop (groove style clip) would automatically snap and align to the project tempo, this would get both tracks at least close to the same tempo. For some reason this is not happening as I remember it. What I have is the guitar clip sounding obviously slower than the drum loop.  I know the drum loop is conforming to match the project tempo changes, because I tested that by increasing the tempo to a very fast setting, and the drum loop follows.

To my way of thinking, if I set the project to match the guitar clip's original tempo at 89.893, then drop in a drum groove clip to an empty track, they should both sound like they're playing at least relatively close to the same tempo, even if it's not exact.   Is there now a setting for tempo for each individual track or something I'm missing here?  Any takers on this one? Thanks in advance.

Edited February 2, 2019 by musikman1

[CJ Jacobson]

You have some tools that you can use. Melodyne and audio snap.

With Melodyne, you can create a tempo map with it. This might make it 90bpm, instead of 89.893 bpm.

With Audio Snap , follow this:

This will  sync an audio clip to the project tempo

1. Select the audio clip or clips that you want to follow the project tempo. 

2. Press 'A' to open the Audio Snap palette.

3. Click and select the 'Clip Follows Project Tempo' button

The clip is synchronized to the project’s tempo map. 

This is just one way, as audio snap has many ways to do things like this

[sven450]

I might be misunderstanding, but I think you can use melodyne.  In new project of any tempo, just drag the original clip up into the timeline.  Melodyne will think for a bit, and BOOM. Your project will mirror the original track tempo.  I think this is what other poster was referring to.  Really easy.  I do this when I am recording covers sometimes for all those bands who don't record to a click.

[musikman1]

Thanks guys, I will try these suggestions and post result.

Update:  Ok, I tried dragging the clip into the timeline, and Melodyne did take over and went through its analysis of the clip and changed it. I think the problem is that the guitar I recorded wasn't close enough to perfect timing, there were also parts of it where I had make a couple of performance errors, which probably threw the overall timing out of sync with the metronome I used.

The process did accomplish something though, it made the guitar clip line up timing-wise to the drum loop, however, the project tempo got changed quite a ways off from the original guitar clip tempo of 89.89, it got changed to a much slower tempo of 77.66.  Drums and guitar are synced much better though, even with the tempo being slower. At least I can hear if this particular drum loop will be suitable for this guitar rhythm, and if not I can audition others, which is what I'm going for in the end anyhow.  

I'm wondering if now that Melodyne has adjusted the guitar clip, maybe I can speed up the project tempo and somehow get the guitar clip to respond back up to around 90.00bpm? Gonna give it a try, I know one way might be to enable looping for that clip, not sure what that result will be yet though, since the performance errors may throw any type of audio quantizing off a bit..

Edited February 3, 2019 by musikman1

[Larry Jones]

I haven't done this myself, but I suggest you take a look at this post from the old SONAR forum. Also read the replies, including mine where I ask for an explanation.🙃

[musikman1]

Thanks Larry,  just read the thread. Haven't tried it yet, but next time I need to do that, which will likely be in the near future, I'll give that a try, as most tracks in my project are audio.  I'll have to go through and read it again though, because just reading through it for the first time it's a little confusing, but the steps seem to be fairly simple to do, and it obviously has been proven to work.  Thanks again, much appreciated.