Looking for assistance for mapping out an audio track.

[Ray T]

Hello All,

 

I have been working on a recording that a friend has given me. Its just him playing the guitar with a few nice chord progression etc. So I quite like it and have been trying to work with it to maybe add some keyboard and vocals. The problem is the structure doesn’t fit what exactly I want, so I will need to do a bit of copying and pasting.

 

I am fine with that concept, I hope! I have been using markers to identify the separate sections of the song for example, verse, chorus etc. I have then created separate audio tracks for each sections, just for being organised. I have then organised it as I want it, cut the bits I need in order to produce one track I can work with.

 

I know roughly what the Bpm is. So that can be adjusted also, because I might use some drum loop later.

 

The whole process is a bit manual, to get it all to fit right. I’m not complaining though I have enjoyed to some degree. I just want to make sure there isn’t a better way to do what I am doing? I would hate be spending all this time only to find out there is a much better way to do this?

 

Sorry if I am being a bit silly here, still learning.

 

If anyone can confirm if my process sounds about right or recommend a better way I would honestly be so grateful. Thanks in advance for reading and any time you can spare.

 

Regards

[Michael Richards]

Hello Ray, I am no genius in this area but I have been doing this for the past 3 years. I’m working with a instrumental songwriting partner that gives me a basic structure of a song with a bit of melody and chord changes. Unfortunately, the keyboard sounds are less than appealing.

At first, I worked with his terrible drum sounds but I eventually had him just sent me a basic drum track so I could sync it more accurately. I do what you do. I lay out the basic intro, verse, chorus, and bridge sections. This is the basic housekeeping duties that really hasn’t changed except the I find Melodyne is much better at tracking tempo changes.

At this point I start working with what I was given. I have a music composing and arranging background so I can’t resist slicing and dicing the bits and pieces and once this is accomplished I then add instruments.

i don’t know if any of this helps you but your story is very similar to how my journey started with my songwriting partner. We have now completed over 40 songs.

We live  several hours apart and my partner does not use Cakewalk, nor any other daw. He uses something like a 20 year old  Tascam Portastudio. We use Dropbox to up load tracks to one another. None of this is perfect but as you will find out it can be very rewarding.

[Ray T]

Hello Michael,

                               Thanks for the reply. It sounds like I am doing using the best method I currently can. I don't own Melodyne unfortunately. It was helpful to hear that someone else is doing what I am doing. It’s not exactly the most difficult thing to do, just takes a bit of time.

Thanks for the reply and keep enjoying your music.

[bitman]

When you are "finished" with the arrangement, select all (the clips) and "bounce to clips" so it's one big clip. Then click and drag that clip up to the timeline and drop it there. Cakewalk will then create a tempo map from the freestyle guitar track. Your drum loop will then follow that tempo map and be locked to the guitar track more or less like a human drummer.

[Ray T]

1 hour ago, bitman said:

When you are "finished" with the arrangement, select all (the clips) and "bounce to clips" so it's one big clip. Then click and drag that clip up to the timeline and drop it there. Cakewalk will then create a tempo map from the freestyle guitar track. Your drum loop will then follow that tempo map and be locked to the guitar track more or less like a human drummer.

Hello bitman,

 

Thanks for taking the time to respond. So I tried out what you suggested. So I can see that it automatically detects the current BPM and maps that out, as you have suggested. I can see that the BPM varies as the song goes on.

I tried using my drum looper, which can sync to host for timing and it sounded terrible, lol! It just sounded way of time and dis-jointed. I think the guitarist it too out of time. I need to buy him a metronome or something. It could be drum looper playing up as I have has issues before. The bpm varies between 82 – 86. Not sure if +/- 2 bpm is normal.

Either way that’s nothing to do with cakewalk by bandlab.

I can totally see how this could be very useful. I presume there is no way you can set a bpm and the song will be adjusted to maintain that BPM?

I can’t thank you enough for the info though, I had no idea this existed.

Thank you so much for you time, it is greatly appreciated.

[bitman]

I forgot you have to first trim the beginning and set the now time to zero.

 

[Ray T]

39 minutes ago, bitman said:

I forgot you have to first trim the beginning and set the now time to zero.

 

This video was so helpful, thank you. The drum loop-er sounded OK to a point then went weird but I think I need to experiment but the metronome sounded perfect just like the video. 

 

Again thanks a lot.

[Ray T]

Hello All,

 

Unfortunately I am getting issues again with this. So I did exactly as the video suggests and I now have 2 tracks, one for the intro that is not the beat marker and the other track that is, where the rhythm of the song kicks in.

So I loaded up my VST drum looper, its pro drummer by eastwest. I set up a groove, then played. The drums came in at the wrong bar and again sounded almost like very bad jazz drumming and that is not what I want. Very out of time and just random sounding. As this song is live recorded it does have multiple and frequent tempo changes. I just wonder the drum looper cant cope with that? Maybe it has to be certain BPM for a set amount of bars etc.

I also posted on the eastwest forum and the best answer so far has been my DAW is not supported by eastwest. So I really don't know what to do next?

Can anyone think of anything within cakewalk that I could try? Any setting that might be wrong or could be adjusted. Just to confirm the VST works fine when the project does not change tempo at all, so maybe it just isn’t an option.

So my next question might be would I be better trying to make these audio files all the tempo, if that’s even possible? I presume that means sections of the song are going to need to be stretched to make it fit. I don’t even know how that would sound.

Sorry to be asking lots of questions here, its just I am really stuck and I don’t have the knowledge to know what to do next. If anyone can spare a few mins or has any ideas I would be very very grateful.

In the meantime I will read the manual for the VST (it quite long) and see if I can find anything at all.

Thanks

[David Baay]

A few thoughts:

First, I agree that there is really no better way of approaching the arranging process, except that it might be simpler to use lanes of one track for the different sections of the original guitar part, rather than different tracks.

Second, you might want to consider getting the timinng locked in first so that you can then copy tempo changes when duplicating sections, rather than having to map the tempo multiple times.

While Melodyne and Cakewalk's own Audiosnap tempo mapping features can be helpful. I still find that manual tempo mapping using Set Measure/Beat At Now is more flexible, more precise, and ultimately doesn't take much more time (and possibly less) vs. all the massaging of tracks that may necessary to get the 'automatic' process to deliver the desired result.

And, yes, once you have a good tempo map, you can 'smooth' or completely 'flatten' the tempo varations by enabling Audiosnap Clip Follows Project in Autostretch mode on the original track(s), and then adjusting or deleting the tempo changes that were needed to make the timeline follow the audio.

If you're only going to add MIDI parts, it's easier to leave the tempo variation intact and quantize the MIDI to the variable tempo, but if you're going to record audio, it can be tough to follow someone else's tempo changes, and harder to tighten up the timing after the fact without introducing undesirable audio artifacts.

That caveat applies to flattening the tempo of the original recording as described, but if it ends up being only one part in a multitrack mix, the artifacts will be masked to some extent, and it will making recording more parts with good timing much easier.

I've posted many times about using Set Measure/Beat At Now to align the timeline to audio  (or MIDI) on the old forum.cakewalk.com, and you can Google my  old username, brundlefly, with 'SM/BAN' against site:forum.cakewalk.com to find them. It's pretty straightforward but there are some extra tricks for dealing with free-form or rubato intros, pick-up beats, rhythms that deliberately hit off the main quarter-note beat, etc.. This is the real world stuff that the automatic processes don't handle well.

If  you're interested in trying this, the best way for me to explain the process might be to share an example of what you're starting with, and I can map it (or part of it) for you, and tell you the steps I took.

 

[Ray T]

14 hours ago, David Baay said:

A few thoughts:

First, I agree that there is really no better way of approaching the arranging process, except that it might be simpler to use lanes of one track for the different sections of the original guitar part, rather than different tracks.

Second, you might want to consider getting the timinng locked in first so that you can then copy tempo changes when duplicating sections, rather than having to map the tempo multiple times.

While Melodyne and Cakewalk's own Audiosnap tempo mapping features can be helpful. I still find that manual tempo mapping using Set Measure/Beat At Now is more flexible, more precise, and ultimately doesn't take much more time (and possibly less) vs. all the massaging of tracks that may necessary to get the 'automatic' process to deliver the desired result.

And, yes, once you have a good tempo map, you can 'smooth' or completely 'flatten' the tempo varations by enabling Audiosnap Clip Follows Project in Autostretch mode on the original track(s), and then adjusting or deleting the tempo changes that were needed to make the timeline follow the audio.

If you're only going to add MIDI parts, it's easier to leave the tempo variation intact and quantize the MIDI to the variable tempo, but if you're going to record audio, it can be tough to follow someone else's tempo changes, and harder to tighten up the timing after the fact without introducing undesirable audio artifacts.

That caveat applies to flattening the tempo of the original recording as described, but if it ends up being only one part in a multitrack mix, the artifacts will be masked to some extent, and it will making recording more parts with good timing much easier.

I've posted many times about using Set Measure/Beat At Now to align the timeline to audio  (or MIDI) on the old forum.cakewalk.com, and you can Google my  old username, brundlefly, with 'SM/BAN' against site:forum.cakewalk.com to find them. It's pretty straightforward but there are some extra tricks for dealing with free-form or rubato intros, pick-up beats, rhythms that deliberately hit off the main quarter-note beat, etc.. This is the real world stuff that the automatic processes don't handle well.

If  you're interested in trying this, the best way for me to explain the process might be to share an example of what you're starting with, and I can map it (or part of it) for you, and tell you the steps I took.

 

Hi David,

 

                    Thanks for your post, it really is appreciated.

                    I had a read through everything you said and understood most of it. 

                   I will also try and have a read through you're old posts on the old forum. 

                   Yes if you wouldn't mind and it wont take too much of your time? 

                   The tracks are not the best quality in terms of recording but its only to get some ideas together. 

                   I currently have them the stored on soundcloud. 

                   I might be able to PM you the track or I can PM you a link to soundcloud. 

                  Which ever you prefer?

                  Thanks again.

           

Edited October 2, 2019 by Ray T

[David Baay]

Glad to help. PM me a link to anywhere I can download. MS OneDrive or other cloud file store that you might already be using would probably be best, but Soundcloud is fine if it allows direct download. Or even your friendly, neighborhood Bandlab sharing facility. ;^)