Please, help applying tempo map from Melodyne to a project SOLVED

[Billy86]

This has been driving me crazy for a solid week now, and I think I've tried everything. I've watched all the video tutorials I can find, and RTFM, but I still can't figure out how to apply a Melodyne track tempo from a stereo file that was not played to a click track. I'm pulling what's left of my hair out!😫  I've written Melodyne but they haven't replied yet.

Here are the steps I'm using:

1. I "create  region effect" of Melodyne on the full song clip. Melodyne opens in polyphonic mode.  Great.

2.  I change the algorithm to universal, b/c that's what Melodyne guru Rich Crescenti said is the way to go. Melodyne redetects the file. Great.

3. I go into Note Edit mode  in Melodyne and open the Tempo Editor. Great.

4. I get things all set up. A tweak here, a tweak there if things drift off beat. The song plays great with the Melodyne metronome. Everything is on a mapped beat. The tempo map grooves with the song.  Great. All set.

5.  I render the Melodyne region effect. Great. 

6. I drag the Melodyne tempo mapped file up to the timeline. 

7. The tempo map produced is NOT the one I did in Melodyne!🤬 The Cakewalk metronome IS NOT on the beat, so I can't sync VSTs to it. It's not the tempo map I just created in Melodyne.

I've also tried to simply drag/drop the free-form stereo song clip to the timeline.  Melodyne asks me what algorithm I want to use, I choose universal. It does it's thing and produces the same flawed tempo map. 

What am I doing wrong? Once the wrong tempo map is created, it seems there's NO WAY in Melodyne to edit/save/apply it to the project. Thanks for any help!

Edited August 1, 2023 by Billy86

[msmcleod]

AFAIK Cakewalk's tempo extraction always uses Melodyne's automatic tempo detection, rather than any corrections you make within Melodyne itself.

The most common way to transfer tempo maps between applications is via a MIDI file, so the following steps should work:

1. In Melodyne, export the tempo map as a MIDI file.
2. Open Cakewalk (with no project loaded), ensuring "Allow Only One Open Project at a Time" is unchecked within Preferences->File->Advanced
3. In Cakewalk open the MIDI file you exported in step 1 using File->Open
4. Open your other project.
5. In the MIDI file project, open the Tempo Track Inspector and select all the tempos
6. Use Copy Special to copy the tempos (i.e. select only the tempos in the dialog)
7.  In your other project, set the Now Time to time zero then use Paste Special to paste the tempos.

[mettelus]

9 hours ago, Billy86 said:

3. I go into Note Edit mode  in Melodyne and open the Tempo Editor. Great.

4. I get things all set up. A tweak here, a tweak there if things drift off beat. The song plays great with the Melodyne metronome. Everything is on a mapped beat. The tempo map grooves with the song.  Great. All set.

Check out this video at roughly the 10:40-11:20 part. Melodyne doesn't "assign" the tempo to the file it is using until you switch out of Note Assignment Mode into another (Track Mode in the video). From there it is actually not rendered before dragging that RegionFX into the timeline (which basically copy/pastes the Melodyne info into the DAW). I have not tried this in CbB, but it should be the same mechanics as in the video.

 

[Wookiee]

@Billy86 are you trying to set the project tempo from an audio file?

[Billy86]

5 hours ago, msmcleod said:

AFAIK Cakewalk's tempo extraction always uses Melodyne's automatic tempo detection, rather than any you make within Melodyne itself.

The most common way to transfer tempo maps between applications is via a MIDI file, so the following steps should work:

1. In Melodyne, export the tempo map as a MIDI file.
2. Open Cakewalk (with no project loaded), ensuring "Allow Only One Open Project at a Time" is unchecked within Preferences->File->Advanced
3. In Cakewalk open the MIDI file you exported in step 1 using File->Open
4. Open your other project.
5. In the MIDI file project, open the Tempo Track Inspector and select all the tempos
6. Use Copy Special to copy the tempos (i.e. select only the tempos in the dialog)
7.  In your other project, set the Now Time to time zero then use Paste Special to paste the tempos.

Thanks. I’ll try when back at my computer. 

AFAIK Cakewalk's temAFAIK Cakewalk's tempo extraction always uses Melodyne's automatic tempo detection, rather than any you make within Melodyne itself.

Hopefully, this can be added as a new feature. Many of the tutorials on YT are in Studio One, from which I attempted to extrapolate. In Studio One, the process for applying an edited Melodyne tempo to a project is, well… a Cakewalk. 😉

[Billy86]

4 hours ago, mettelus said:

Check out this video at roughly the 10:40-11:20 part. Melodyne doesn't "assign" the tempo to the file it is using until you switch out of Note Assignment Mode into another (Track Mode in the video). From there it is actually not rendered before dragging that RegionFX into the timeline (which basically copy/pastes the Melodyne info into the DAW). I have not tried this in CbB, but it should be the same mechanics as in the video.

 

Yep, watched that vid. I’ll revisit it.  Thanks.  

[Billy86]

3 hours ago, Wookiee said:

@Billy86 are you trying to set the project tempo from an audio file?

Yes. Melodyne region effect on a wavering-tempo stereo audio file. 

[John Vere]

You just drag the audio file to the timeline. I do this a lot. It works best with music that has solid transients. It wont work with audio that is slammed to the max. 

[Wookiee]

52 minutes ago, Billy86 said:

Yes. Melodyne region effect on a wavering-tempo stereo audio file. 

You actually don't need it to be a region FX, If you drag the Audio up to the TimeLine Rule at the top CbB will extract the timing and apply it to the Tempo lane directly.

If you have Melodyne Editor or Studio you could try using the Tempo smoothing function in Melodyne to get a less jagged or jumping tempo map.

 

[Billy86]

10 minutes ago, JohnnyV said:

You just drag the audio file to the timeline. I do this a lot. It works best with music that has solid transients. It wont work with audio that is slammed to the max. 

Right. Did that. But it’s not retaining the tempo edits I make in Melodyne before dragging it to the timeline. 

[Billy86]

5 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

You actually don't need it to be a region FX, If you drag the Audio up to the TimeLine Rule at the top CbB will extract the timing and apply it to the Tempo lane directly.

If you have Melodyne Editor or Studio you could try using the Tempo smoothing function in Melodyne to get a less jagged or jumping tempo map.

 

As stated in OP, CW tempo map is not retaining anything I do in Melodyne. See @msmcleod comment about this issue. 

[John Vere]

Just now, Billy86 said:

Right. Did that. But it’s not retaining the tempo edits I make in Melodyne before dragging it to the timeline. 

OK I see, so you have audio track and you want to both create a tempo map and quantize it. I've run into that as well so be interested to see if it can be made to work. I've got a few old band recordings where the drums sound good but his timing was terrible. I gave up after trying Audio snap etc. 

[Wookiee]

32 minutes ago, Billy86 said:

As stated in OP, CW tempo map is not retaining anything I do in Melodyne. See @msmcleod comment about this issue. 

As CbB is not really aware of what you have done in Melodyne you need to render region FX for it to do so.

When you open a region FX Melodyne you in effect transfer the audio to Melodyne. 

 

[Billy86]

1 hour ago, Wookiee said:

As CbB is not really aware of what you have done in Melodyne you need to render region FX for it to do so.

When you open a region FX Melodyne you in effect transfer the audio to Melodyne. 

 

Did that. 

[mettelus]

Please check what I said previously again. Rendering is what not to do if you have adjusted the tempo within Melodyne. That video snippet is only 40 seconds long and marked at those two steps. Adjusting tempo markers in Melodyne doesn't affect audio, so the render is simply passing the original audio to the tempo track rather than the edits you made.

[Billy86]

2 hours ago, mettelus said:

Please check what I said previously again. Rendering is what not to do if you have adjusted the tempo within Melodyne. That video snippet is only 40 seconds long and marked at those two steps. Adjusting tempo markers in Melodyne doesn't affect audio, so the render is simply passing the original audio to the tempo track rather than the edits you made.

yes, thanks. Will try this when I’m back at the project.  

[Billy86]

On 7/29/2023 at 11:20 AM, mettelus said:

Please check what I said previously again. Rendering is what not to do if you have adjusted the tempo within Melodyne. That video snippet is only 40 seconds long and marked at those two steps. Adjusting tempo markers in Melodyne doesn't affect audio, so the render is simply passing the original audio to the tempo track rather than the edits you made.

@mettelus This got me where I needed to go, thanks! I created a region effect, did my tempo work, switched out of note edit mode, then dragged to timeline without rendering. The tempo map is in effect. Melodyne remains as a region effect on the audio track. 

[mettelus]

Once you have passed the tempo map to the DAW, you can remove the RegionFX to free up being able to do more surgical edits on the audio (as needed). That step of moving the tempo map to the DAW hasn't affected the file's audio and you have what you needed from the BIG RegionFX once the DAW has the map for you. I try not to save project files with massive RegionFX active as it embeds the "separations" data into the project file itself; but once you get into tweaking audio, rendering or not can come down to personal preference and computer resources (less noticeable when the edits are surgical and leaving them active).

[Billy86]

6 hours ago, mettelus said:

Once you have passed the tempo map to the DAW, you can remove the RegionFX to free up being able to do more surgical edits on the audio (as needed). That step of moving the tempo map to the DAW hasn't affected the file's audio and you have what you needed from the BIG RegionFX once the DAW has the map for you. I try not to save project files with massive RegionFX active as it embeds the "separations" data into the project file itself; but once you get into tweaking audio, rendering or not can come down to personal preference and computer resources (less noticeable when the edits are surgical and leaving them active).

Ah, I wondered about this issue. Didn’t want to risk losing the tempo work I’d done, so I left the region effect on. Will definitely remove. I like to render such Melodyne work as I go to lighten CPU load. Thanks again.