Having click and audio recorded in another DAW fall on the beat/tempo in Cakewalk -will pay to have you fix -4 tracks

[Michael Fogarty]

I have a client who does not understand tempo and is meter-challenged. He has only ever played by himself and has been doing it for years, and though I have tried to teach him how to count, he can't. He also can't follow a drum loop or a click. He recorded a song in Logic and the .wav in SoundForge shows 100's  of tempo changes -foreign to me and SoundForge almost didn't accept it.

To the point. He did seem to manage to learn to follow the click this time but it is not a steady tempo. Somehow Logic fluctuates and follows the performance?  Mystery to me. I would like to get Cakewalk to follow it so it lines up with the click so I can make the many edits as they fall on the measure. Explanation -he will come in 1/4 note too early or 1/2 a bar too late, so I need to cut it all up to make it fit. This is not a problem for me, but what I would prefer is that it all falls on the beat not just with his click but in Cakewalk so that I can be sure of a steady cut. If someone were to do the work for me, I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO MAKE THE EDITS. I want you to make his audio click track, vox, and two guitars fall on the beat in Cakewalk.  It doesn't have to fall on the measure as I can change all that, but it would be nice if it fell on the beat.

I have looked at audiosnap, etc. but this is beyond my expertise

I can pay you or trade services. I am a session keyboard player.

Hopefully yours

Edited October 20, 2023 by Michael Fogarty
changed a word

[mettelus]

Quick question to clarify the OP... are all of the tracks synced to each other? One of the quickest (manual) methods is to Set Measure/Beat at Now (Shift-M) as you work through the track. As long as the tracks are in sync with each other, this will let you insert a tempo map point each time it drifts. Typically every bar or every other bar is common, but sometimes you need to go to a beat level if it is all over the place. This does not adjust the audio at all, it only adjust the tempo map to line up that audio.

[Michael Fogarty]

23 minutes ago, mettelus said:

Quick question to clarify the OP... are all of the tracks synced to each other? One of the quickest (manual) methods is to Set Measure/Beat at Now (Shift-M) as you work through the track. As long as the tracks are in sync with each other, this will let you insert a tempo map point each time it drifts. Typically every bar or every other bar is common, but sometimes you need to go to a beat level if it is all over the place. This does not adjust the audio at all, it only adjust the tempo map to line up that audio.

thank you for your response -and I was just about to add this but went to lunch -you caught it. Yes, all of his tracks are lined up with each other including the audio click. . Insert each time it drifts -way too much work. what does that mean "go to a beat level"?

[Max Arwood]

What mettelus said works. It can be labor intensive. 

You can google a video. I have watched a couple. Once you get the hang of it you will be able to move fairly quickly thru the song. 

If is doesn't sound close to correct there is no software that will fix this. You have to manually cut sections out and scoot things around. Once you have it close you could use Set/Measure Beat At Now. It works great.

If it’s a great song or he is paying you well for you services, I can understand why you would go to the trouble to fix it. Good songs can rarely be created by fixing things. You can get the notes to line up with a beat just fine with software, but good music is not usually lined up perfectly to a beat. It usually has small ebbs and flows. It pushes the beat on a chorus then falls back on a verse. How could you line this up? 
If it is electronic or such it’s ok to have exact timing. On the far other side is a ballad which probably does not lock to the beat. 

Here is a very good explanation of Set/Measure Beat At Now by Noel Borthwick 

 

 

https://noelborthwick.com/cakewalk/2014/09/12/sync-your-daw-audio/

 

 

[Michael Fogarty]

Hi Max. Don't know why you feel the need to tell me that good music is not usually lined up to a beat, but here is an explanation. Yes, it is a good song,. Yes, he is paying me well, and why do I want it to match the measures? First of all, I have to make multiple edits of the 4 tracks because he skips meaning, he doesn't let it come around to the 1 before he starts singing again -he is random -and he jumps in at the most random places. So, I have to cut and move his guitar playing and voice many times through the song, and of course, move everything forward to make space to do so. If lined up to measures, I can easily cut, paste, and move around, but if not I am doing it to his audio click which is much more tedious. Once I do this,  I need to outsource drums (sends me 13 tracks) and multiple instruments so nice to have it line up to the measure (not the beat) so I can see who is off timing to the measure and cut and paste easily when grafting.  All songs I produce follow the measures. I am not talking about quantizing it and making it fit the beat. And the main reason I am doing this, is because he desperately wants a professionally produced song. Pray for me. (smiles). The things we do for love.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Michael Fogarty

[John Vere]

Irrelevant answer

Edited October 21, 2023 by John Vere

[mettelus]

I guess I need clarification on this still. Your first reply made me think it was a simple "tempo map doesn't follow the performance," but when you said

7 hours ago, Michael Fogarty said:

I have to cut and move his guitar playing and voice many times through the song

It sounds like you are doing a multi-session project and what he has done so far is synced to the tracks he performed, but not to the tempo map, so that you can edit with snap-to-grid enabled and line up additional tracks. If you are doing track-based surgery, ripple editing seems to be what you are looking for (i.e., not aligning the tempo map to his performance, but altering his timing to make it fit more appropriately). Creating a tempo map will not alter the audio, but once you say "cut and move," that sounds like ripple editing (perhaps on a track-level, and not a session level). Is that accurate?

[John Vere]

Not needed 

Edited October 21, 2023 by John Vere

[Max Arwood]

I’ve done my share of fixing bad tracks for people. I wasn’t insinuating anything about you or this guys playing. Just trying to help.

What mettlus said 

Did you read what Noel wrote? He is one of the Main programmers of cakewalk. 

Set/Measure Beat At Now could help  you

Do this once per measure or once every 2 measures. 
 

I would probably do quick groups and edit the really bad parts with quick  group edits. With quick group you can simultaneously  edit as many tracks as you want at one time. Then I would pick one  track that is the best and do Set/Measure Beat At Now. 
 

Lastly I would do individual edits to move the worst timed parts/notes/phrases closer to the correct timing. 

[msmcleod]

Try this: https://youtu.be/I7D3wZldUJw?si=jQFIi2OErLzB7NCw
 

This will create a tempo map based on the recorded audio, accounting for all the changes in tempo. 

At this point, the audio is "aligned to the grid" - however the "grid" is following the audio.

You can then set the audio to follow the tempo (in the clip properties part of the inspector),  remove all the tempo entries, then set the project tempo to the tempo you want.

This will cause the audio to follow a single tempo.

You could of course opt not to delete all of the tempo entries, instead adjusting a few of them to give a more natural feel.

Once you've finished, "bounce to clip(s)" to render the audio using the higher quality stretch algorithm.

[Michael Fogarty]

Thanks, everybody. I thought I would put what I was dealing with and what I ended up with.  I just cut and edited. It's difficult to explain this, at least for me. If you listen to Dog Blue Thyme orig that is what was there. It seems that maybe Logic has a function where the metronome follows you. So, the click is following him. As you will be able to see. he has very good timing very good feeling once he's rolling, and an interesting approach to chords -definitely unique compared to a typical 12-bar.  It's just that he can't count to four. He couldn't follow my track, and he couldn't sing and play the guitar at different times. (aka multitrack). He can't follow a click -it is going, but he doesn't follow it -he had it set to follow him. Thank God for your natural gifts. He wants to release his material so badly and I plan on helping him to reach that goal. What I did have him do is go back and follow his track and give me a clean guitar track even if he has to punch just so I get all the sections. This worked well and I will keep this formula for the next many songs. I actually ended up leaving some of the idiosyncrasies to make it interesting. I was/am not happy to make a shoddy production. I want him to have his dream come true.

I would still be interested in the best way to do this for the other songs -or pay somebody to do it. So far msmcleod's idea makes sense to me.
John Vere, ever since the old forums, every time I see your name the word association makes me see a green tractor out in a field in Idaho. Not a bad image.

dog blue thyme (the top track) is the track he sent me
dog blue for drums (lower track) is my edit with a quick one take bass and wurlie (after writing out the chords and measures for the drummer and talent.

Thanks, everybody. I really appreciate this

 

 

 

.

[henkejs]

2 hours ago, Michael Fogarty said:

dog blue thyme (the top track) is the track he sent me
dog blue for drums (lower track) is my edit with a quick one take bass and wurlie (after writing out the chords and measures for the drummer and talent.

Thanks, everybody. I really appreciate this

 

 

.

Nice job, Michael. It's great what you've been able to do for this guy.

[Max Arwood]

Great job. He should be happy with the song and glad he chose you to produce his music. 

[David Baay]

4 hours ago, Michael Fogarty said:

I would still be interested in the best way to do this for the other songs -or pay somebody to do it. So far msmcleod's idea makes sense to me.

Hi Michael, I would be happy to take a look at one of these for you. It may not be so much work that it requires payment. I've been recording without a click for years and using Set Measure/Beat At Now to align the timeline to the music when needed. I'm a MIDI guy, but the process is essentially the same for audio; it just takes a little longer to make sure you're setting the timeline too transients accurately. If the click from Logic is truly well synced to the performance, it will be easier. But if that's the case, you might also look into having the client export/save the tempo map as a .MID file that you can open in CbB to bring in the map.

P.M. me a link to a download (a zipped CbB project folder or OMF file). Should be able to get to it tonight if not sooner.

P.S. Had a listen to the MP3s and snapped the first 8-10 bars of the raw one. Client definitely has a unique sense of how long a phrase should be and where chord changes should happen in addition to the drifting timing. I don't envy you, but the basic chore of finding the beats and setting the tempo is not too difficult. Would be easier with a guitar track alone.

Edited October 21, 2023 by David Baay

[Michael Fogarty]

6 hours ago, David Baay said:

Hi Michael, I would be happy to take a look at one of these for you. It may not be so much work that it requires payment. I've been recording without a click for years and using Set Measure/Beat At Now to align the timeline to the music when needed. I'm a MIDI guy, but the process is essentially the same for audio; it just takes a little longer to make sure you're setting the timeline too transients accurately. If the click from Logic is truly well synced to the performance, it will be easier. But if that's the case, you might also look into having the client export/save the tempo map as a .MID file that you can open in CbB to bring in the map.

P.M. me a link to a download (a zipped CbB project folder or OMF file). Should be able to get to it tonight if not sooner.

P.S. Had a listen to the MP3s and snapped the first 8-10 bars of the raw one. Client definitely has a unique sense of how long a phrase should be and where chord changes should happen in addition to the drifting timing. I don't envy you, but the basic chore of finding the beats and setting the tempo is not too difficult. Would be easier with a guitar track alone.

thank you David. Lot to think about here. At this point song 2 isn’t done yet, so nothing to send. I am more worried about the “how long a phrase should be part”. You put that into words well. I used to do this same work on 8 track TEAC recorders, splicing and moving so cutting and dragging on computer is much easier, but would be much more accurate if I could cut at and paste to a measure.

  So, is it better that he sets his logic to not follow him, or leave it as is, and send me a midi file? I read online a day or so ago that the tempo map won’t translate to another DAW.

edit: probably a dumb question, but is what you will be make it accurate enough to soft quantize parts of a midi take on a VST? - or just helps it to line up. I assume since he is drifting it wouldn’t work.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Michael Fogarty

[msmcleod]

21 minutes ago, Michael Fogarty said:

...I read online a day or so ago that the tempo map won’t translate to another DAW...

Saving the project as a Standard MIDI File will export the tempo map inside it.

This is the standard way of transferring tempo maps between DAW's.

Just for clarification, within CbB:

• File -> Save As .mid will include the tempo map,  File -> Export MIDI will not.
• File -> Open a .mid as a project will import the tempo map,  File -> Import MIDI will not.

[David Baay]

5 hours ago, Michael Fogarty said:

is what you will make be accurate enough to soft quantize parts of a midi take on a VST? - or just helps it to line up. I assume since he is drifting it wouldn’t work.

That's one of the reasaons I fit the timeline to the MIDI, so I can do a partial quantize to tighten up the performance. With MIDI, you can also reduce the varability or completely flatten the tempo if desired. You can do the same with audio but the quality of the audio stretching will tend to be unacceptably distorted for a delicate solo guitar performance as you probalby know. But, yes, you will be able to quantize added MIDI parts.

I'm not familiar with Logic's tempo-following feature, but all DAWs can read the tempo from a MIDI file into a project/song file in whatever format they store it, and CbB can copy-paste tempos between projects so you can take the tempo map from a MIDI-based project and bring it into an existing audio project.

[Michael Fogarty]

On 10/22/2023 at 8:42 AM, msmcleod said:

Saving the project as a Standard MIDI File will export the tempo map inside it.

This is the standard way of transferring tempo maps between DAW's.

Just for clarification, within CbB:

• File -> Save As .mid will include the tempo map,  File -> Export MIDI will not.
• File -> Open a .mid as a project will import the tempo map,  File -> Import MIDI will not.

I saw the video - great stuff. Is that you? 

I understand how to save Cakewalk project files as SMF. I send these to all the talent I work with. In Logic I tried to find a link for my client to “save as” so that I can use his midi file but I can’t find anything online., only select regions and export.