Huge problem with the Tempo Map and audio following tempo changes

[Olaf]

Hi,

I'm working on my first project involving several tempo changes, and as I'm trying to seamlessly transition form part to part, and determine the best tempo relations between parts, I've noticed that you can't get audio to follow the tempo variations.

Basically, the entire function of of audio following new tempo values is non-functional. Not only that, but there's completely erratic behavior for the audio clips, that emerges as you set you set them to "follow project tempo".

These are just a few of the behaviors. There's more of them, but I couldn't replicate them all as I was recording the gifs.

1. The "follow project tempo" setting is not stored, for individual clips:

https://giphy.com/gifs/HdnHq1xUoenDk0y6le

2. The "follow project tempo" setting check occasionally returns an "invalid measure" response, even if the clip is entirely within the same tempo.

https://giphy.com/gifs/WZyiNZfSAXcHpq0AgN

3. The "Clip" mode (take lane) displays the transients.

https://giphy.com/gifs/u6rjFZjeCf78YH3IXt

4. Once "follow project tempo" is activated the clip automatically gets expanded (silence), even if no tempo change is applied. Furthermore, it cannot be properly resized, and trimming it down to size results in a clip automatically trimmed to fractions of the size.

https://giphy.com/gifs/d8jwxxL2TqqRzaUTEB

5. Trimming the clip to the left automatically results in expansion to the... right, that can be anywhere between hundreds and thousands of bars long.

https://giphy.com/gifs/G1GW0OS8zn7XjUR7Na

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf

[Olaf]

5. Trimming the clip to the left automatically results in expansion to the... right, that can be anywhere between hundreds and thousands of bars long.

https://giphy.com/gifs/RDOyUdYz7zfKL4x2pb

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf

[Olaf]

6. Trimming clips automatically splits and re-pastes adjacent clips.

https://giphy.com/gifs/HQK7DsURC6i3hEvhvG

7. Trimming clips occasionally causes the clip to be duplicated on another take.

https://giphy.com/gifs/jCfWDhOkXVCj9Mw7Hz

8. Moving an Arranger section in the timeline doesn't respect/copy the tempo, even with "Arranger Exclude" unchecked.

https://giphy.com/gifs/vd4A9nOfIvAUxtmkVI

9. Adjusting the tempo envelope on specific sections adds new, unnecessary nodes, that need to be deleted every time.

I don't have a clip for this one.

 

Questions/suggestions:

a. why is it necessary for a clip to be selected first, for the "follow project tempo" setting to be applied, instead of the setting being automatically applied on the clip that is clicked on? It's an unnecessary complication.

Suggestion: apply the setting for the clip that is clicked on, without need to select it first.

b. why is there a need to switch to "Audio Transients" viewing to select "follow project tempo" for a clip?

Suggestion: make the setting available in the default "Clip" viewing mode.

c. why does clicking on a tempo section automatically select the entire envelope? It's rare that you need to move the entire envelope, particularly since the overall tempo is more easily chosen from the tempo value/tap box.

Suggestion: make the section you click on the automatic selection for adjusting the tempo, on the first click. The second click selects the whole envelope.

 

Additional suggestion 1: clicking and dragging up or down in the tempo value box (both the Tempo Track and the Control Bar) increases or decreases the value.

Additional suggestion 2: Right clicking in the tempo value box (Control Bar) opens the Tap Tempo dialog (instead of Menu>Project>Insert Tempo Change) - needlessly cumbersome.

 

Many times the View Arranger Track setting state, in Track View doesn't get saved with the project. That's really annoying.

Same thing with the Browser/Synth Rack/Help windows order and size - need to be redone every time.

Basically whatever you save with the project should be there when you open it up - it's a simple principle. Is that so hard to fix?

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf

[Byron Dickens]

This is so much easier if you figure it all out in pre-production and then lay out your tempo map before recording.

[Byron Dickens]

.

Edited December 23, 2021 by bdickens

[Olaf]

7 minutes ago, bdickens said:

This is so much easier if you figure it all out in pre-production and then lay out your tempo map before recording.

it's not, that's the point. new parts keep on coming, i don't have a definitive structure, and i need to figure out how they work together and lead into each other, tempo wise. which i can't do, because i can't change any tempos. even with a lot of damage control, and preparing and arranging the audio, the function doesn't work. besides all that, i don't think any of this should be normal behavior, whichever way you do it.

[Byron Dickens]

So, I must be doing it wrong?

[Olaf]

10 minutes ago, bdickens said:

So, I must be doing it wrong?

dude, i don't see the point of your comments. particularly since the downloads show you haven't even bothered to check what the problems are. you might find it shocking, but this post is not about you, and seriously, it's late, i'm tired, and i'm tired of people speaking not about issues, but about their ego, and always trying to prove something to somebody, no matter whom, what or how related, to show how clever they are. you might be doing it wrong, you might not, really not important, and don't really care. this post is about something else. if you've missed it the first time, again, regardless of how you do things, it's about problems that should be addressed. so take care.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf

[Byron Dickens]

1) I'm not going to download any file I don't know what it is.

2) I'm trying to be helpful. I do tempo and time signature changes all the time. I have none of the issues you're describing because I figure everything out and lay in my tempo map and guide tracks. before hitting that red button. All the parts I record line up perfectly - or as near to it as I can play - and I don't have to fight with stretching,  squishing, finding and editing transient markers and forcing  things to conform to other things.

Look, I'm not trying to start an argument. But you're trying to tell me that the way I do it isn't easier, yet I have absolutely none of the issues you're describing my way most assuredly does work and as a matter of fact until pretty recently it's the only way that could be done. Either that or you'd be spending a million dollars to make your record.

I'm offering a suggestion. You're free to take it, or not. It really won't hurt my feelings. It just never ceases to amaze me how when I suggest something simple and obvious that people such as yourself act like I've questioned their ancestry or something.

[InstrEd]

1 hour ago, bdickens said:

act like I've questioned their ancestry

I think you did do that, it was written in between the lines ?  

Okay silliness aside I can see how Olaf wants to do it but CbB is not really the DAW for that style IMHO.   

@bdickens  I usually work like you do to.    

@Olaf   this is a forum with give and take and if you don't like the advice given just nod and move on.

 

Peace.

[Lord Tim]

4 hours ago, bdickens said:

1) I'm not going to download any file I don't know what it is.

Just FYI, those are .webp files which basically are a Google replacement for JPG. Unfortunately the forum software here doesn't recognise them as an image format. So they're safe to view, in case anyone was wondering and wanted to help.

@Olaf - it might be more accessible to people here to transcode them over to JPG or animated GIF to make them easier to check out. There's obviously big issues with how you're using CbB that looks like it's uncovering some pretty big limitations, so it'd be good to narrow that down to see if it's actually a CbB thing or local to your machine environment. It's always good to at least get issues onto The Bakers' radar, if not fixed right away.

[Olaf]

 

7 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

I'm not going to download any file I don't know what it is

Unfortunately, not knowing - or even caring - what something is doesn't stop people having opinions on it these days.

 

7 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

Just FYI, those are .webp files which basically are a Google replacement for JPG

You'd think people would know that. At the very least, not imagine somebody is posting stuff on the forum just "to infect their computers" - probably protected by three separate antiviruses. If do, at least not imagine opinions.

 

7 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

it might be more accessible to people here to transcode them over to JPG or animated GIF to make them easier to check out

I've tried to upload them as GIFs first, but the upload failed. AVIs are too large, so this was a compromise solution.

 

7 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

t'd be good to narrow that down to see if it's actually a CbB thing or local to your machine environment

I've thought about it, too, on several issues, but they get repeated on different Windows versions, and different hardware. Besides, it's hard to imagine that that sort of behavior, if you check it out, could be caused by anything other than CW itself.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf

[Olaf]

10 hours ago, InstrEd said:

Olaf wants to do it but CbB is not really the DAW for that style IMHO

If this poor implementation of things it actually purports to do were changed, it would actually be my DAW of choice, but this way many functions which are actual functions of the DAW - so they shouldn't be a stretch - are barely functional.

I've tried various stuff - Harrison, Reaper, after coming from Reason, but all have their limitations. They don't misbehave like that, but are limited or overcomplicated in other things. I'll look into them some more. Still waiting for Luna for Windows. Reaper actually has a knob by which you can vary the tempo - absolutely no issues - no clip rearangements, no trimming problems, no clips jumping 500 bars, no nothing.

10 hours ago, InstrEd said:

if you don't like the advice given just nod and move on

I normally do, until the guy gets butthurt that "he was doing it wrong" - it was about him after two lines - with an answer that didn't address the problem in the first place. You know, dropping by just to let people know they're doing things wrong - without knowing what they're actually doing, or bothering to check what the problem is - and he's doing them right ?.

Hey, @bdickens congrats, man!

@InstrEd This IS preproduction for me. You get to decide on tempos beforehand when you have a band to rehearse with, and have all the parts and structure figured out before recording. That's how I did it, too, when I was in a band - and if the guy had left smugness aside, he would have known that's normal - nothing revolutionary about it.

But since I record everything myself, the playback in the DAW IS my band, and rearranging parts and playing them at different tempos is exactly how  I can replicate figuring the parts out with "my band" - especially this song that comes out in pieces - the hardest to take shape of all my work - and now impossible, thanks to CW not working.

But regardless of all this, I don't think giving advice on your workflow - even if doable or relevant - is needed to justify reporting bugs in the program ?.

I fail to see how those (huge) bugs would be alright on a different workflow. It's like some people want the programs to work badly, just so they can prove some (imaginary) point. Egos get inflated, the problem stays.

Anybody want it fixed? I do. And, objectively, I think it should be.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf

[Glenn Stanton]

@Olaf you might want to reach out to @Noel Borthwick and have the team look at the project file you're using/created so they can try to recreate the steps you've described here. probably the fastest way to solve this.

[InstrEd]

The problem with all DAW's in general is that the makers have a vision for the program and  users come up with 1,000's of ways to use the DAW.    I also look at it another way Olaf if we were back in the tape era good luck doing what you want to do easily.    I'm not saying we should go back to the reel to reel tape era but saying if I have to adapt to get a project done it is what it is. I'm thankful we have all this tech I'm able to run on a Laptop!

Glenn Stanton's suggestion is a good one. Have the Bakers look at your project and at least you will get a clearer picture of  what you want to do is possible

Peace

[Lord Tim]

Ultimately, CbB may *not* be the tool for how you like to work at the end of the day - it's not out of the question to do one process in one DAW and then move to another for something else. In this case, you could sketch out your tempo/meter map elsewhere, once you're ready to track properly you would export a MIDI file with the tempo info in it, open in CbB and do your tracking in a fast and familiar environment. You wouldn't run into any of these issues because the timing changes would already be locked in before you added any audio.

From what I gather, the timebase that everything works to goes back to how it was originally implemented in the old Twelvetone days and has been enhanced over the years since (Bakers, please tell me to stop talking now if I'm way off base!) so there may be limitations with how tempo works with certain operations currently. It'd be good to know either way what's going on.

That being said, I've personally never run into this kind of problem because my workflow is quite different, despite doing music that can get fairly complex with tempo and meter changes, so how you're using it may shed some light on something that needs to be looked at.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Lord Tim

[Lord Tim]

1 hour ago, Olaf said:

I've tried to upload them as GIFs first, but the upload failed. AVIs are too large, so this was a compromise solution.

That's happened to me on occasions too. I solved that by uploading to somewhere like Imagur or Giphy and copying in the embedding link - that usually does the trick.

[Byron Dickens]

@Olaf  Butthurt? You're the one who responded as if I suggested that one of your parents is a canine and don't know who the other is.

From your reaction, its probably a good thing you're not struggling with pitch correcting your vocals; you really would be offended by my answer to that.

[Olaf]

https://giphy.com/channel/Tryggvasson

for those who about to comment before seeing what the problem is - for terror of getting infected.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf

[Olaf]

2 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

That's happened to me on occasions too. I solved that by uploading to somewhere like Imagur or Giphy and copying in the embedding link - that usually does the trick.

Thanks, I took your advice, and it worked like a charm. ?

I've replaced all the webp files with gif links.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Olaf