How Do You Vary the Tempo Throughout a Song?

[Richard Strickland]

I want the choruses of a current project to be a little faster than the verses and I was hoping somebody could explain how to get the metronome tempo to change as required.

Thanks.

[S.L.I.P.]

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X3&language=3&help=Arranging.52.html

[Gswitz]

I play the parts I'm good at faster. ?

[bitman]

If you play rhythm guitar and who doesn't, and some version of melodyne installed then here is the recipe.

1. Turn off the metronome so you can't hear it.

2. Record your song the way you would play it.

3. (Work around step today) create a big melodyne region effect from your rhythm guitar track.

4. Drag the rhythm guitar track up to the time-line and drop it there.

Sonar and Melodyne will modify the tempo map to match your playing. Now all midi can be quantized to that varying tempo map and time based effects will follow it too.

Game changer

 

 

Edited March 18, 2019 by bitman

[Trevor]

Hey Richard I think you are looking for the Tempo View. The shortcut is Alt + Shift + 5. Once you have it open hit the Plus symbol in the corner (I have highlighted it in the screen shot) to create a new tempo event. it will ask you the location that you want it start at, and you want to choose the start of your chorus. Then create another event at the end of the chorus to return to your original tempo. if you aren't sure what the tempo should be exactly there is a tap tempo button so that you can tap the tempo out if you have it in your head, and Cakewalk will choose the new tempo for you. hope that helps!

[John Vere]

What is critical as to how this question is answered is if the project is midi or if there is audio recorded.  

If this song is only midi then drawing a tempo map will work but that will certainly make no difference to the audio.

If there is audio then you need to:

A-Record  all audio to a metronome that follows a tempo map ( easy to difficult depending ) 

B- Record all audio  with a midi backing track  that includes the tempo changes  (easy)

C-  Learn how to use Audio snap that can speed up and slow down audio that is already recorded ( Difficult and mixed results ) 

D- Play your song they way you want it on the guitar or piano and add parts without quantizing them ( easy but song might be sloppy) 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Cactus Music

[chuckebaby]

- Put the NowTime where your chorus begins

- Choose Project > Insert Tempo Change to display the Tempo dialog box.

- Make sure the "Insert New tempo" is checked off.

Repeat this process for every tempo change needed.

FYI, You can use the Tempo Tap button to find your new tempos.

[Gswitz]

10 hours ago, bitman said:

If you play rhythm guitar and who doesn't, and some version of melodyne installed then here is the recipe.

1. Turn off the metronome so you can't hear it.

2. Record your song the way you would play it.

3. (Work around step today) create a big melodyne region effect from your rhythm guitar track.

4. Drag the rhythm guitar track up to the time-line and drop it there.

Sonar and Melodyne will modify the tempo map to match your playing. Now all midi can be quantized to that varying tempo map and time based effects will follow it too.

Game changer

 

 

Caution: lots of time based fx like delays locked to varying project tempo will click through tempo changes.

Try it and see.

When i want to put tempo based fx on a live performance, i approximate the tempo for the song to a single tempo.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Gswitz

[Notes_Norton]

I sometimes speed up the B sections, sometimes increase the tempo as the song progresses, and sometimes slow down sections. It depends on the song and my artistic (or non-artistic) vision.

Notes

[Blogospherianman]

First off, it's good to be posting in the new forum.  Always enjoy sharing and learning.  Interesting people and fun characters here.

Tempos can really add the extra bit of human expressiveness or emphasis of certain parts, be it a vs, ch, bridge. even just a lick or a line.  "Give me one reason to stay here"  gradually picks up the whole song.. I mapped one reference track last week that gradually slowed as the song went.  Maybe they were settling in. Sometimes it's the drum fills that pick up momentarily.  It's fun to study the various tempo maps of different songs.. Also fun to straighten them out and see what's lost by forcing a fixed tempo.  Note: Meloydne will try and map your tempo and sometimes get it right, but I still prefer to map by hand  to insure accuracy.(metronome On and tempo draw view open, drawing tempos to keep the metronome in perfect time)

I like to use the Tempo view and my graphics tablet (or a mouse) and draw the changes in by hand. Depending on the song, I might get a scratch performance of the song and map that tempo to see what occurs naturally.. Sometimes smooth it out a little or a lot or just leave it.. 

When recording myself, I sometimes sing a song feeling one tempo, but then on drums or piano start to feel differently about the tempo.. I also like to dance to it and see how that feels as well.

Tempos are much like gravity in that even the small apple is pulling the earth ever so slightly towards it as well.. Variations can give the impression of multiple humans interacting and reacting to each other.. It's not always needed, but how do you know unless you hear it (in or out of your head) that way.. Audio snap allows your audio to follow any and all of your tempo changes so you can experiment to find what the song wants.. I use it in the beginning to manipulate the scratch, as well as on multi-track mixes with great results.  It's fun to experiment.  Don't take my word for it!

Cheers to all!

 

 

 

[Gswitz]

I made this video to demonstrate what I was talking about above.

When I first learned of this, the first thing I thought was... the expensive VSTs won't have this problem, but I've learned they do. As a matter of fact, I haven't found a VST delay that doesn't have the problem. I suppose to avoid the problem the delay would have to span new threads for new tempo changes and persist them until the last sounds at that tempo complete and return to zero. 

The problem would be the number of threads that might be required. I suppose for continuous tempo changes the delay could resist new threads for windows of time reducing over-all processing.

I'm probably way off-base.  I don't really know how to write VSTs. I'm just appreciating the problem.

All of my VSTs I've tested have the same problem. When they are tempo-sync'd and the tempo changes, the can clip audibly.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Gswitz

[John Vere]

The OP has had 3 day's or more to respond so we still don't know if this is midi or audio or both.

[Blogospherianman]

On March 18, 2019 at 9:09 PM, Gswitz said:

I made this video to demonstrate what I was talking about above.

When I first learned of this, the first thing I thought was... the expensive VSTs won't have this problem, but I've learned they do. As a matter of fact, I haven't found a VST delay that doesn't have the problem. I suppose to avoid the problem the delay would have to span new threads for new tempo changes and persist them until the last sounds at that tempo complete and return to zero. 

The problem would be the number of threads that might be required. I suppose for continuous tempo changes the delay could resist new threads for windows of time reducing over-all processing.

I'm probably way off-base.  I don't really know how to write VSTs. I'm just appreciating the problem.

All of my VSTs I've tested have the same problem. When they are tempo-sync'd and the tempo changes, the can clip audibly.

There are a few Delays I know of and use when I want to Sync the delays As Well As have various tempo changes without clicking.

1. Native Instruments Replika (set on modern mode)

2. NI Replika XT (modern mode)

3. NI Guitar Rig 5 Psychedelay.

Some of the tape like delays don't have clicks, but rather when the tempo slows the tape delay slows dropping pitch till it's steady and rises when the tempo rises.. Waves HDelay, BT Tempo delay, Guitar Rig tape delay.. pretty cool effect.. You can also set the tempo to not sync and then automate the BPMs for cool tape delay FX.

 

Sometimes I Just set the delays to free and manually enter the delay times if it's a delay that's not so tempo-varying friendly.  Old school days you wouldn't really be synced to a tempo map. 

You can also bounce the delays with varying manually set delay times and then crossfade to the appropriate ones as well.. Or just use the friendly ones.

Alternatively, RX7 can declick your delay channel as well if you must.

My 3 cents...

[James Argo]

On 3/18/2019 at 8:39 AM, bitman said:

If you play rhythm guitar and who doesn't, and some version of melodyne installed then here is the recipe.

1. Turn off the metronome so you can't hear it.

2. Record your song the way you would play it.

3. (Work around step today) create a big melodyne region effect from your rhythm guitar track.

4. Drag the rhythm guitar track up to the time-line and drop it there.

Sonar and Melodyne will modify the tempo map to match your playing. Now all midi can be quantized to that varying tempo map and time based effects will follow it too.

Game changer

 

 

Sweet !!!!! Thanks for the info ??

Anyway, instead of dragging the clip to time line, I had to manualy right click on the clip, RegionFX, Melodyne, then apply region tempo. It works.

Thanks!