Tempomapping for an all over the place song (8 tracks)

[Andreas Leimer]

Hello.

This is my first post, so sorry in advance if this is not the place to ask this question.

 

My problem is as simple as it is complex to me:
A friend asked me to help her out by recording some drums and drones to accompany her singing.
The tempo as well as the time signatures are all over the place. --> there are instances of 4/4 accelerating, shifting into an 6/4 and back again.

What is the easiest and fastest way to get an 8 track song (different vocal layers) on the tempo grid to be able to work with it?

Approaches I tried so far:

• Melodyne
• Audiosnap
• Cutting the individual "parts" across the tracks and ctrl+shift drag them

none of the work without being a major pain in the a**.

Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance!

[OutrageProductions]

Trying to reverse engineer something that lacks periodic impulses is a PITA. You just have to continue doing it by trial & error or feel.

[Andreas Leimer]

1 minute ago, OutrageProductions said:

Trying to reverse engineer something that lacks periodic impulses is a PITA. You just have to continue doing it by trial & error or feel.

It really is. And i feared that was the real answer to it

Thanks for confirming tho.

[jackson white]

i feel ya on this, work with demos on a regular basis and the quickest way here is to play along with the original track with something that Melodyne can sort out better (i.e. something with strong transients) and just use that track to map tempo. almost always needs some cleanup, but that's often because the original performance. 

so far, nobody's dropped a Frank Zappa cover on me... 🤞

[msmcleod]

If it's good enough to tap along to, consider using "Fit Improvisation".

To do this:

1. Insert a MIDI track and make sure it's the only track armed.
2. Start recording and tap a single note to each beat of the song until the end.
3. Select the MIDI track, then Process->Fit Improvisation.

Cakewalk will create a tempo map based on what you tapped in.

[Andreas Leimer]

I pushed through...

 

 

Please remind me to never accept anything like this ever again...

[John Vere]

 

On 3/21/2023 at 3:14 PM, Andreas Leimer said:

Please remind me to never accept anything like this ever again...

Is that what it looked like when you got it or did you chop it up trying to extract the tempo. 

If it didn't look like that and you have the original do as Mark said above to try and set the tempo.  

If that's what it looked like you can fix that by exporting it as tracks. Make your setting like mine in the screenshot and you will get all the tracks as continues stems from start to end.  Then do as Mark says to create a tempo map that only drift a little bit. Tempo maps that look like the one you have are wrong and not musical. The tempo should only vary a little and in a smooth way if you tap along carefully. It may take a few tries to create the manual click track but I've done it a few time and it does work. I insert SI drums and use the snare side stick. C#. 

Once you have a usable tempo map then there are some options to line up each track. I used to chop them up like it looks in your screen shot.   I now use Melodyne. You can set it's grid same as the projects and use the time tool to put the blobs where they belong. I do this a lot for 3 part harmonies. Some versions of Melodyne can quantize automatically to the grid. Manually it is time consuming but wow does it sound good when done. Sometimes the lead vocal isn't perfect so I place the Now Time at it's transient start and use that to line up the Harmonies. Cakewalk also has a Vocal sync regional effect but it never worked for me which is most likely pilot error. I have not read the instructions yet as I'm happy enough with my Melodyne workflow. I have the editor open anyhow to fix pitch and amplitude.