Project tempo from midi track

[Pakewalker]

Hi, there are some guides on how to get a project tempo from an audio file, using the audio snap utility, but I have noticed that people forgot to write a similar guide on how to get the tempo from a midi recording. So I think asking the question might make the answer available in search engines for people looking for it. So, say I have a midi recording, and I want to know what is it's tempo. How do I do it? Thanks

[David Baay]

Open the MIDI file from File > Open, or by double-clicking it if you've let Cakewalk associate itself with .MID files at installation. When a MIDI fle is opened directly, rather than imported, Cakewalk will adopt the tempo (or tempo map if it's not a fixed tempo) of the file, and show it in the transport module and Tempo view.

[Pakewalker]

On 4/13/2020 at 2:35 AM, David Baay said:

Open the MIDI file from File > Open, or by double-clicking it if you've let Cakewalk associate itself with .MID files at installation. When a MIDI fle is opened directly, rather than imported, Cakewalk will adopt the tempo (or tempo map if it's not a fixed tempo) of the file, and show it in the transport module and Tempo view.

I`m not opening nor importing, but playing the midi keyboard.

[David Baay]

If the performance was recorded without a metronome, the tempo is going to be more or less variable over time, This procedure will fit the project timeline to the MIDI with tempo changes calculated for you:

– Drag the clip to align the first downbeat note to the nearest bar line (i.e. 1:01:000 if it starts on a downbeat or 2:01:000 if there are pickup beats).

– If isn’t starting at 1:01, snap the Now time to 2:01 and use Set Measure/Beat At Now (Shift+M) to pin down that point as the reference for subesequent timeline ‘Sets’.

– Start playback and stop the transport at the downbeat note that should be hitting the 9:01 barline. Tab/Shift+Tab to the beginning of that note, and SM/BAN that point to Measure 9, Beat 1 (or Measure 10 if the first downbeat is at 2:01). Cakewalk will change the previous tempo to make the beat fall on the specified absolute Now time, and insert a matching tempo at that point to serve as reference point for the next Set. That tempo is the average for those 8 measures though there will likely be some variation within it that you can address later.

- If there was a pick-up measure, go back and set the first pickup note to the appropriate beat or fractional beat (decimal, not ticks), and change the initial tempo to match the tempo between that point and 2:01.

– Go through the rest of the clip using a combination of playback (spacebar), Ctrl+PgUp/Dn for previous/next measure and Tab to MIDI notes to put the Now time on downbeat notes at 8- or 16-measure intervals, and ‘Set’ those beats out the the last downbeat or the point where a decelerando starts if there is one. (Note: If the rhythm doesn’t consistently have notes on downbeats, you can set a different beat or even a fractional beat somewhere else in the bar).  Once you get the hang of using the shortcuts, this goes pretty quickly.

– Enable the playback metronome, and listen through the clip, setting additional points as needed to further tighten up the timeline to the MIDI clip. Understand that SM/BAN is entering tempo changes to make the timeline fit the MIDI. MIDI event start times and durations will be recalculated to preserve the absolute playback timing of the original performance  at the new project tempos. Open Views > Tempo to see the tempo map being created.

– If you find that you’ve made things worse at some point, always Undo your way back to the last ‘Set’ before the mistake was made. Deleting a tempo will cause the timing of the MIDI to change, which you don't want.

- It’s best to do a periodic Save As with a new project name suffix at regular intervals so you can easily back up to a ‘good’ state if needed later on. I usually do these progressive saves with something like “Rough Set Thru 33;01” appended to the name to know where I left it.

- Once you have the timeline aligned to the MIDI throughout the performance, you can edit the tempo map to smooth the variations or delete all but the first to completely flatten the tempo and/or quantize to tighten up the performance.