Set measure /beat at now

[jono grant]

Hello!

I'm in a film score, having to move a large file of audio, midi, envelopes etc. into a new position to match picture.

Everything is in sync and now I'd like to set measure/beat at now so that the bars/beats line up with the newly positioned score.

When I do this, it works, however it uses tempo to make the first bar line up to your cursor. So the clips that follow that position shift out of sync.

I know if I consolidate everything to the start of the file, it will work fine. But in this case I can't consolidate yet. I have too much work to do on the file. long story, it's a lot of tracks/clips/layers.

I tried locking the clips position/data but that didn't help.

 

Any way to do this "set measure/beat at now"  and keep the clips as they are positioned?

Thanks

Jono

[msmcleod]

Have you tried setting the clips time-base to absolute before locking them? This should lock the start time to their absolute time in seconds/samples.

While they're in musical time, they will move in "real time" because their musical position remains unchanged, even though the actual time in seconds changes due to the change in tempo.

[David Baay]

Assuming you want everything to be on their respective bars/beats as well as their absolute start times, you need to do  the following (after aligning the first clip to the video):

- Snap the Now time to the beginning of that first clip (assuming it's cropped to the first audio transient), and SM/BAN that point to the nearest measure (probably 2:01:000). Don't worry that this is going to temporarily throw the timeline wildly out of sync with the rest of the project, initially.

- If there is a clip in the project starting at some known bar, snap the Now time to that clip and SM/BAN it to the bar it should be hitting (+1 if you started at 2:01). If there are no easily-found audio/MIDI 'landmarks in the the piece, play the project, count out 8 measures, and stop the tranport near the downbeat that should be 9:01. Tab to the downbeat transient (or MIDI note) or visually set the Now time there with snap disabled, and SM/BAN that to 10:01 (assuming you started at 2:01).

- If the audio was recorded to a click, the whole thing should now be in sync with the timeline. If it varies, you can set additional points as needed to get the timeline in sync everywhere.

- If you want the first measure to be at the same tempo as the first measure of music, you can set a matching tempo at 1:01:000 without affecting anything that happens after the point you snapped in the first step.

The one issue I foresee is if the start time is very shortly after 1:01:000, CbB won't be able to set a high enough tempo for the first measure to bring 2:01 back to that absolute time. In that case, you might need to set the meter of the first measure to 1/4, and change it back to 4/4 (or whatever it is) at 2:01.

Edited February 14 by David Baay

[jono grant]

On 2/13/2024 at 5:49 AM, msmcleod said:

Have you tried setting the clips time-base to absolute before locking them? This should lock the start time to their absolute time in seconds/samples.

While they're in musical time, they will move in "real time" because their musical position remains unchanged, even though the actual time in seconds changes due to the change in tempo.

That worked! Thanks! I should have asked that question 20 years ago...lol

[jono grant]

On 2/13/2024 at 1:49 PM, David Baay said:

Assuming you want everything to be on their respective bars/beats as well as their absolute start times, you need to do  the following (after aligning the first clip to the video):

- Snap the Now time to the beginning of that first clip (assuming it's cropped to the first audio transient), and SM/BAN that point to the nearest measure (probably 2:01:000). Don't worry that this is going to temporarily throw the timeline wildly out of sync with the rest of the project, initially.

- If there is a clip in the project starting at some known bar, snap the Now time to that clip and SM/BAN it to the bar it should be hitting (+1 if you started at 2:01). If there are no easily-found audio/MIDI 'landmarks in the the piece, play the project, count out 8 measures, and stop the tranport near the downbeat that should be 9:01. Tab to the downbeat transient (or MIDI note) or visually set the Now time there with snap disabled, and SM/BAN that to 10:01 (assuming you started at 2:01).

- If the audio was recorded to a click, the whole thing should now be in sync with the timeline. If it varies, you can set additional points as needed to get the timeline in sync everywhere.

- If you want the first measure to be at the same tempo as the first measure of music, you can set a matching tempo at 1:01:000 without affecting anything that happens after the point you snapped in the first step.

The one issue I foresee is if the start time is very shortly after 1:01:000, CbB won't be able to set a high enough tempo for the first measure to bring 2:01 back to that absolute time. In that case, you might need to set the meter of the first measure to 1/4, and change it back to 4/4 (or whatever it is) at 2:01.

msmcleod's post above worked in 2 seconds. Set all clips to absolute time and then lock them. 

[David Baay]

2 hours ago, jono grant said:

msmcleod's post above worked in 2 seconds. Set all clips to absolute time and then lock them. 

If it's all one fixed tempo I suppose it would. I was thinking you wanted to use SM/BAN because the tempo was varying which is my usual use case.