Vari-Speed in Cakewalk by Bandlab

[Bill Phillips]

In Pro Tools tutorials, Pro Tools is put "into vari-speed mode" to temporarily slow down or speed up a track for various reasons. When they're done they take Pro Tools "out of vari-speed mode," presumably leaving audio clips unchanged. My question is can I do that in Cakewalk?

I know that audio can be tempo stretched and compressed in Cakewalk using Elastque and Radius algorithms. However, those changes actually modify the audio clip. The idea I get from the Pro Tools tutorials is that the audio clips are not modified. Can that be done in Cakewalk?

[John Vere]

In Cakewalk it’s found in the process menu. 

[reginaldStjohn]

Midi tracks will follow project temp so you can just slow or speed up the temp and it will follow. To get audio tracks to this you have convert them to groove clips, via the inspector, or use the audio transient toolbar to have them follow the project tempo. The quality of the affected audio varies depending on the material and how much you change the temp.

 

[Bill Phillips]

4 hours ago, John Vere said:

In Cakewalk it’s found in the process menu. 

Yes, thanks. I don't think I've ever used it but I just did on a reference track. When I compressed it significantly the results we garbled but when I slowed down significantly it sounded like playing a tape at lower speed so it looks like it would work similar to what I've seen in the Pro Tools tutorials and Undo, worked to restore the original clip. I'll have to pay closer attention to one of those Pro Tools tutorials to maybe better understand the process for Pro Tools.

[John Vere]

The Process Length tool does not change the pitch of the audio and you can go a certain percentage without noticeable artifacts. Any process to audio can cause artifacts as it is just re-arranging the ones and zeros. I myself use wave lab for this as I find the quality a little better. But I did try the Cakewalk tool a few times without audable issues. Can't remember the amount but I think I was only after speeding up a whole song by 20 BPM. I only processed the Mastered stereo file, not the whole multi track. 

[Bill Phillips]

30 minutes ago, reginaldStjohn said:

Midi tracks will follow project temp so you can just slow or speed up the temp and it will follow. To get audio tracks to this you have convert them to groove clips, via the inspector, or use the audio transient toolbar to have them follow the project tempo. The quality of the affected audio varies depending on the material and how much you change the temp.

 

I don't think groove clips are required. I'm not even sure that the stretching algorithm even uses the project tempo. I think the stretch algorithms detect the clip tempo. In my case the clip was not at the project tempo and stretching still worked.

[John Vere]

There's lots of info about working with clips. I never work with loops so I am not the right person to answer, But there's another thread just a few days ago and it sounded pretty simple to make loops match the song.  There will be a bunch of videos about it too.  I only showed the length tool as that is the closest Cakewalk comes to varispeed. True Varispeed changes the tempo and the pitch. 

Edited February 24, 2021 by John Vere

[Bill Phillips]

2 minutes ago, John Vere said:

The Process Length tool does not change the pitch of the audio and you can go a certain percentage without noticeable artifacts. Any process to audio can cause artifacts as it is just re-arranging the ones and zeros. I myself use wave lab for this as I find the quality a little better. But I did try the Cakewalk tool a few times without audable issues. Can't remember the amount but I think I was only after speeding up a whole song by 20 BPM. I only processed the Mastered stereo file, not the whole multi track. 

Thanks again. That looks like it works a lot more like Pro Tools varispeed. I used the "Fit to Time" option which does the same thing but is too precise for what I was trying to do. The example I was trying to emulate is this Jamie Lidell Alter Boy tutorial He doesn't say much about varispeed. So I guess I'll need to look for a varispeed tutorial to understand just how it works but the "Length" adjustment looks like it will accomplish the same thing.

[Unmuzzled Music]

Craig Anderton wrote an article in SOS about this quite a few years back (Sonar but still can be done in CWbBL).
The article is here:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/vari-well-then

 

[Bill Phillips]

14 hours ago, Unmuzzled Music said:

Craig Anderton wrote an article in SOS about this quite a few years back (Sonar but still can be done in CWbBL).
The article is here:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/vari-well-then

 

Thanks. I'm a subscriber and I'm sure I read that in 2014. Now I'll read it again. I think I'm more interested in that now.