Real Time Tempo Track Recording

[Marcelo Quinones]

Remember that I sent a request for you to work with Real Time Tempo Track recording to make tempo recording more natural and better to adapt to record better and more accurate tempo tracks along with digital audio.

[chuckebaby]

Have you tried using Melodyne (drag to timeline) function ?

Melodyne Tempo drag and drop

[Marcelo Quinones]

No. Didn’t know it exists...any tutorials?

[chuckebaby]

25 minutes ago, Marcelo Quinones said:

No. Didn’t know it exists...any tutorials?

ya.

The link I left in my comment above. Click on that orange thing ( "Melodyne Tempo drag and drop)

[Marcelo Quinones]

Thank you!!!

Any comments about the DRUMSPLI.CAL malfunction in Cakewalk?

[Jim Fogle]

1 hour ago, Chuck E Baby said:

Have you tried using Melodyne (drag to timeline) function ?

Melodyne Tempo drag and drop

@Chuck E Baby   I never knew that existed!  Thanks for sharing the video link while answering the question.  You have to love how ARA2 allows Melodyne and Cakewalk by Bandlab to be so tightly integrated.  That is just an awesome video!

Do you know if the drag to timeline function works with all Melodyne editions (Essential, Assistant, Editor and Studio)?

[chuckebaby]

5 hours ago, Jim Fogle said:

Do you know if the drag to timeline function works with all Melodyne editions (Essential, Assistant, Editor and Studio)?

Yes. The minimum requirement is Melodyne Essentials.

Glad it helped Jim.

[Marcelo Quinones]

Thank you!!

[Marcelo Quinones]

Hey! There is something else very important that I still need Cakewalk to implement. I mean, when I want I to make an accelerando, ritardando, rallentando, etc., I need the specific function of recording a tempo map with my MIDI keyboard or computer keyboard by tapping the keys and recording a natural tempo change. It is still missing in Cakewalk and in other software is being implemented for many years (since the late 80’s by MOTU Performer). Any ideas? 

 

To Cakewalk by Bandlab:

Please elevate and upgrade the features of Cakewalk comparable to other professional DAW’s like Digital Performer. 

[chuckebaby]

1 hour ago, Marcelo Quinones said:

It is still missing in Cakewalk and in other software is being implemented for many years (since the late 80’s by MOTU Performer). Any ideas? 

Cakewalk can do this as well. Its called Fit to improvisation.

 

1 hour ago, Marcelo Quinones said:

Please elevate and upgrade the features of Cakewalk comparable to other professional DAW’s like Digital Performer

It seems you might be new to Cakewalk by Bandlab.

It might help to read up on some of the existing features first before recommending new features.

[Marcelo Quinones]

I’ve been using Cakewalk since 1990. The fit to improvisation is not the same as record a tempo track in real time. 

 

Look at this feature from MOTU’s DP 10. It is non-existent in Cakewalk:

(This text below was taken from MOTU’s DP 10 Owners Manual-All rights reserved for the authors and creators of the software and manual as well)

”Tap Tempo is Digital Performer’s real-time tempo control feature. Tap Tempo lets you slave Digital Performer to a tap entered from any MIDI controller before, during, or after the recording of your sequence. You can ‘conduct’ an existing sequence by tapping the tempo, complete with
accelerandos, ritards, and rubato passages; Digital Performer will follow precisely. More importantly, you can record your tap into the Conductor Track for use in subsequent playback and recording.
Tap Tempo can be used during virtually any stage in the creation of a sequence. For example, if you have acoustic music on tape, two completed tracks in Digital Performer, and three more Digital Performer tracks to record, you can ‘teach’ the two existing tracks to follow the prerecorded music. Your remaining tracks will be recorded into a sequence that has all of the temporal nuances of the prerecorded music.
Preparing for Tap Tempo
The following are general points to consider when preparing to use Tap Tempo sync.
Establish a meter
When slaving to Tap Tempo, Digital Performer must know how many of your taps to group as one measure. Before recording or playing back a passage in Tap Tempo mode, make sure you’ve entered the correct meter using the Change Meter command (Project menu>Conductor Track>Change Meter).
Establish a metronome click value
Your taps correspond to the current metronome click value, specified using the Change Meter command. For example, the tempo of a 4/4 passage can be tapped and expressed in whole notes, one tap per measure, or in sixteenth notes, sixteen taps per measure. Each tap becomes a tempo change event, so the smaller the click value, the higher the resolution of the resulting tempo map.
Choose a tap source
You can use any standard MIDI event as your tap source. Digital Performer will interpret this MIDI event as a tap whenever it occurs on the specified input channel. If you plan to record music while slaved to Tap Tempo, choose a combination of MIDI event and channel that won’t be needed in the musical passage. For example, let’s say you’re tapping C3 on a controller keyboard, transmitting on channel 1. The result? Any other C3’s transmitted on the same channel will not be recorded. Again, this is only true for C3’s transmitted on channel 1. C3’s transmitted on other channels will be recorded normally.
Note that although pitch bend and controller events are acceptable as tap sources, the most common controls for sending them (wheels, joysticks) make reproduction of a single, specific value difficult. For example, to define your tap you enter a pitch bend value of 392 using a pitch bend wheel. To slave Digital Performer, you’ll need to generate values of 392 or higher — you send a 392 value by going precisely to it, but also by going past it. That much is easy, but remember that Digital Performer will treat only the events with 392 values as taps. All other values sent by your mod wheel will be recorded and interpreted as normal pitch bend events. This makes bend and controller events less practical tap choices than events with precise triggers or more limited values, such as a note or a Controller #64 (sustain pedal) event.
MIDI beat input data
Source
Choose the MIDI device you will be tapping from in the menu provided.
Event
Specify the MIDI event you wish to use as a tap. Tab to the Event box or click in it, then enter a MIDI event from any MIDI controller connected to the specified port (play a note, tap a sustain pedal, etc.). The event appears, highlighted; click on the highlighted event if you wish to change it. You can use any standard MIDI event as a tap source.
Countoff beats
Specify the number of times you wish to tap as a countoff. The default number of sync countoff beats is four, but the countoff can be any number between 1 and 127. If you enter a number outside this range, the computer will beep when you click the OK button and the number will be highlighted. If this happens, click on the highlighted value and enter a new one.
Using Tap Tempo mode
After you have made the Tap Tempo settings as needed, follow the steps explained in “Using Tap Tempo” on page 959.

 

[chuckebaby]

Very similar

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X2&language=3&help=EditingMIDI.39.html

Fit Improvisation

SONAR lets you record music from a MIDI controller without requiring that you use a fixed tempo. In fact, if you record without using a metronome, you are very likely to end up with a recording that does not fit onto a fixed tempo grid.

The Process > Fit Improvisation command lets you take a recording and create a tempo map (with measure and beat boundaries) that fits what you played. Your performance is not changed in any way, even though the note start times and durations are adjusted to fit the new tempo map. This is important if you later want to use any of SONAR’s editing features that depend on a proper tempo map for best results.

To use this command, you must record a reference track containing a single clip that matches your original track or tracks but has only a single note on each beat boundary. You should make sure that the reference track has one event for every single beat, with no extra beats or missing beats. The first beat of the reference track should be at 1:01:000. You can use any editing command to adjust the reference track.

If you want, you can use other types of events as markers on the reference track, such as a sustain pedal. Remember, however, that MIDI sustain pedals generate one event when the pedal is pressed and another when it is released. So if you want to use the sustain pedal for the reference track, keep this in mind. Click down, up, down, up, for one, two, three, four.

Remember that the better the quality of your reference track, the better job the Fit Improvisation command can do. You want each of your reference track events to be as close as possible to the beat of the music. Note that some keyboards transmit aftertouch events when you record your reference track. These extra events will prevent Process > Fit Improvisation from working properly. Therefore, you should delete these events before using this command, or filter them out when recording the reference track (using Edit > Preferences > MIDI - Playback and Recording).

[Marcelo Quinones]

I respectfully disagree. It is not the same. In MOTU you can record the tempo track while you listen to the MIDI or audio recording and the software will make the appropriate changes and recordings in real time not after you recorded all the beats and then tell the software to process be “fit to improvisation”. It is really real time tempo recording. 

[chuckebaby]

3 hours ago, Marcelo Quinones said:

I respectfully disagree. It is not the same. In MOTU you can record the tempo track while you listen to the MIDI or audio recording and the software will make the appropriate changes and recordings in real time not after you recorded all the beats and then tell the software to process be “fit to improvisation”. It is really real time tempo recording. 

I've never used digital performer but it sounds like one extra step in Cakewalk. Because you CAN also listen to the midi/audio files while recording your click track. Then simply use Fit to Improv and your done.

The one step process is trivial to me, because you will always need to go back and fine tune a recorded tempo click track/map that you have produced from a live recording unless you are awesome and mistake free at doing your parts in one take.

[chuckebaby]

Example, I have a song that fluctuates in tempo through out the whole song.

I listen to this song and tap out a click sample on my keyboard. I use Fit to improv on the click sample track. Done.

Tempo is mapped out. But because im not perfect, I may want to go back and move some of those sample clicks, to line up better with the parts of the fluctuating tempo. Its easily done manually in PRV.

[chuckebaby]

It appears Motu digital performer takes some tweaking as well not really a one shot thing).

 

[User 905133]

3 hours ago, Marcelo Quinones said:

In MOTU you can record the tempo track while you listen to the MIDI or audio recording and the software will make the appropriate changes and recordings in real time not after you recorded all the beats . . . .

This is an interesting thread to me as I might want to do something like this at some time.  Clarification: Are you talking about a two-pass process or a one-pass process?  Two pass = (1) Record audio/midi track, (2) record tempo/conductor track. One pass = Record audio/midi track and while making the recording using a controller of some sort to change the tempo.

If you are talking about a one-pass process (recording notes/audio and at the same time recording tempo changes), I can imagine how it might be possible using CCs, PB, etc.  "To slave Digital Performer, you’ll need to generate values of 392 or higher — you send a 392 value by going precisely to it, but also by going past it." Is this what you meant by "real-time?"  I did not get that at first because you said "you can record the tempo track while you listen to . . . " not while recording the MIDI or audio track.

In either case, thanks for the discussion.

Edited September 9, 2019 by MusicMan11712 (aka Dr. Steve)

[Marcelo Quinones]

2 step procedure. Step 1 will be Recording or inserting MIDI or Audio. Step two will be recording the tempo and or fine tuning the tempo changes depending of it is MIDI or audio. 

[Jim Fogle]

On 9/9/2019 at 6:46 AM, Chuck E Baby said:

Cakewalk can do this as well. Its called Fit to improvisation.

It seems you might be new to Cakewalk by Bandlab.

It might help to read up on some of the existing features first before recommending new features.

That link didn't work for me.  The link circles back to this message thread.  If it helps, I've made the same kind of mistake many, many times!

@Chuck E Baby Here is a YouTube video that details how to use "Fit Improvisation".  Perhaps this is what you meant to link to? 

https://youtu.be/MnAqjtXglOQ

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Jim Fogle

[Blogospherianman]

I’ve done this very thing with Bome’s midi translator.  I created a Tap tempo script that  sends out Midi time sync following your Tap tempo.  I even added a Glove pie script to ‘Conduct’ the tempo via Nintendo Wii mote.  So all the midi is recorded first, then I set Cakewalk to follow Timecode.  Then conduct the time code.  Another program can be used to record the Midi of the beats, in fact you could record multiple takes of your conducting.  After that you can import the midi beats to actually change Cakewalk’s tempo map. I did it more to show proof of concept. 

Yeah I’ve requested these features in Cakewalk many years ago. 

It’s pretty easy to just draw in tempo changes of ritards and accelerandos in the Tempo map view with a graphics tablet and active pen though. (Mousing is a lil tougher).  Tempo map is your conductor you just have to tell him what to do. ?

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Blogospherianman