Please help a Newbie with basic track clip editing, moving, copying etc.

[Roy Slough]

OK, Am new to CbB but have done work previously with audacity. I cannot find an easy guide to manipulating clips in  tracks.

If I split a clip and delete a section and then drag the edge of the remaining clip, the section I deleted is still there, revealed by the drag.
I understand this is because the original clip is not altered just reference pointers to it but is it possible to trim a section so all the previous and following audio/midi is gone. e.g. I have a vocal in the middle 8 I want to process differently. I split the clip to isolate the section, move it to a new track for different processing/mixing and I don't want all the previous and following sound/data.

Midi data has similar features. If I drag the edge of a midi clip (previously split) it repeats the notes contained within, but this includes notes from earlier in the clip which I didn't want even if I split it.

And lastly (for this question) I have imported several audio tracks, created Midi from the drums. I finally got the tempo sorted manually (if anyone knows how to set tempo from any of the tracks I would appreciate it) Now I find all tracks are .050 behind the beat. How can I move everything? I tried selecting all and dragging left (with Snap off) and the sound totally changed, effects on vox and guitars were lost, midi drums had new sounds etc.  

It may be that use of Ctrl, or Shift or Alt. may be the answers but I am having trouble finding in the CbB help.

Thanks

 

[Roy Slough]

On 6/23/2024 at 6:59 PM, John Vere said:

I’ve rarely ever had that issue. I think it depends on material. It most certainly won’t work with sustained music. I always use the drum track. I Can now improve on that thanks to Next stem separation tool. Split the drums out of any song. 

In the past I sometimes had to nudge a few tempo nodes but now I seem to get very good results. I’m not trying to have dead on midi anyway.

Mostly it really helps work on any song to have the beats and measures at least 1/32 or 1/64 note close enough just for visual editing. 
 

So if the OP has a drum stem to work with it is worth a shot. 
 

And yes I think you only need the very basic version of Melodyne which goes on sale for under $50. 
 

Dear John,

Thanks,  Can you point me to where Melodyne is under $50.   Celemony want to charge me £99  (yes thats UK pounds!!!) for the essential Package.
I have seen lots of upgrades cheaper but I don't have anything to upgrade. I even looked at buying an old version to upgrade it but it ended up near the same price.

Apologies for being a cheapskate, I am even considering trying to postpone until Black Friday but thats in November...... LONG TIME TO WAIT.

[John Vere]

Hold on to your money the sales are always Black Friday in November. 
 

You don’t need it for single track Audio to midi or tempo extraction. I tested this. 
 

I just fired up my Laptop which doesn’t have my Celemony account activation.
So Sonar is using something called Melodyne Player which is the free demo that never expires. This should be the same for everyone. 
I loaded 4 audio stems I created in Next from a random commercial song. Bass, Drums, Other and vocals. 
I converted the bass track to mono and dragged it to AmpleP bass and it converted the audio to midi as expected. 
 

I then dragged the drum track to the timeline and that also worked perfectly. 
 

The only difference is I don’t get a dialogue asking for what algorithm to use. 
 

So tempo extraction works even with out a license for Melodyne. 
 

[David Baay]

On 6/23/2024 at 11:59 AM, John Vere said:

I’ve rarely ever had that issue. I think it depends on material. It most certainly won’t work with sustained music. I always use the drum track.

You can drop the SM/BAN click track from the demo project I shared into a new project, set the time signature to 3/4, drag the click to the timeline and you'll get the same (bad) result. Melodyne just doesn't 'get' that you only need at most one tempo change per transient, and it has trouble with material that deviates more than a couple bpm or changes rhythm even as the tempo remains perfectly constant. Melodyne can do some really amazing stuff in the pitch realm, but I have never been impressed with its tempo extraction.

[John Vere]

This got my interest so I thought an experiment would be take a midi project that is static at 140 BPM. The song is a backing track so just drums bass and piano. Very transient rich. Export the song. 
Drag it to a blank project and drag it to the timeline. Results are 140.03 BPM? 
Song lines up perfectly start to finish with the grid? You figure it would drift after 3 minutes. 

So I took the song and added a bunch of tempo nodes one at each measure on the 1. for first 13 bars. I only deviate a few BPM like 138 - 143 

Export and drag to blank project and drag to timeline. First 13 measures are a mess of tempo changes NOT on 1 ever. At bar 13 it reverts to 140 and no more nodes until fade out. 
 

Experiment 2- A Song from a CD split into stems in Next. 
Only import Drum track to blank project. 
Try each of the different algorithms. Each gives different results. The Default one actually results in a less messy tempo map. 
 

I will now try your method too. It’s been a long time since I messed with audio snap. 

Edited June 25 by John Vere

[msmcleod]

Streamworks Audio's SWA Complete SONAR X2 is old, but covers 90%+ of what Cakewalk does:

@abacab has kindly listed a description and links to each chapter in this post:
 

 

 

[Roy Slough]

16 hours ago, John Vere said:

This got my interest so I thought an experiment would be take a midi project that is static at 140 BPM. The song is a backing track so just drums bass and piano. Very transient rich. Export the song. 
Drag it to a blank project and drag it to the timeline. Results are 140.03 BPM? 
Song lines up perfectly start to finish with the grid? You figure it would drift after 3 minutes. 

So I took the song and added a bunch of tempo nodes one at each measure on the 1. for first 13 bars. I only deviate a few BPM like 138 - 143 

Export and drag to blank project and drag to timeline. First 13 measures are a mess of tempo changes NOT on 1 ever. At bar 13 it reverts to 140 and no more nodes until fade out. 
 

Experiment 2- A Song from a CD split into stems in Next. 
Only import Drum track to blank project. 
Try each of the different algorithms. Each gives different results. The Default one actually results in a less messy tempo map. 
 

I will now try your method too. It’s been a long time since I messed with audio snap. 

 

On 6/24/2024 at 10:36 PM, John Vere said:

Hold on to your money the sales are always Black Friday in November. 
 

You don’t need it for single track Audio to midi or tempo extraction. I tested this. 
 

I just fired up my Laptop which doesn’t have my Celemony account activation.
So Sonar is using something called Melodyne Player which is the free demo that never expires. This should be the same for everyone. 
I loaded 4 audio stems I created in Next from a random commercial song. Bass, Drums, Other and vocals. 
I converted the bass track to mono and dragged it to AmpleP bass and it converted the audio to midi as expected. 
 

I then dragged the drum track to the timeline and that also worked perfectly. 
 

The only difference is I don’t get a dialogue asking for what algorithm to use. 
 

So tempo extraction works even with out a license for Melodyne. 
 

Dear John,  Thank you for trying things out for me.
My experience has been different,  When I first installed Cakewalk (in March) the first thing I wanted to try was convert to midi but it didn't work, I got lots of dialogue boxes to select percussive, melodic etc.  but no end result. It was because Melodyne hadn't activated the trial period, I say this because as soon as they correctly activated the trial everything worked!!!
Now the trial has ended it seems to be back as before = I get dialogue boxes but no end result. Same with the tempo, ATM  it looks like it's going to do it, but no end result.

The technique of SM/BAN explained to me will work for tempo until I get a working Melodyne that I can afford to experiment with. So thanks to all who gave me that advice.

In the meantime for vocal tuning I am trying out a couple of free plugins. However, so far these have proven to be in-line fx so it isn't easy to observe (with your eyes) what has been adjusted, also it is very easy to over apply and get "Cher" like vocal gymnastics which I don't want (or like much)

So thanks again and I will wait for a bargain.

As an aside how/why did you choose "Cactus" in your name. I have "Blue Cactus" because in the late 80's I set up my computer consultancy company and had to give it a name. I had a really good gif of a cactus for a logo which was slightly amusing and off beat (I had to remove the sleeping mexican below the cactus as this wasn't the impression I wanted to give)  AND it would also work if my music career took off (Which it didn't). So that was my choice of "Cactus"

 

 

[John Vere]

2 hours ago, Roy Slough said:

As an aside how/why did you choose "Cactus" in your name. I have "Blue Cactus" because in the late 80's I set up my computer consultancy company and had to give it a name. I had a really good gif of a cactus for a logo which was slightly amusing and off beat (I had to remove the sleeping mexican below the cactus as this wasn't the impression I wanted to give)  AND it would also work if my music career took off (Which it didn't). So that was my choice of "Cactus"

 

We had a band in the late 80's called Desert Heart and used a Cactus as the logo. I opened a Music Store/Recording studio/Lessons in 1991 and the Cactus was on the bands business cards. So Cactus Music was what I registered the business as. I own that name in Canada but not in other countries. The logo in my Signature was designed by one of the sales reps who was a graphic artist. I continued officially ( income taxes)  until around 2012 and I now use the name Cactus Studios which is not registered. 

I know realize why my version was working. The Laptop has Sonar Platinum installed ( I forgot I did that)  and that came with a demo of Melodyne 4.  Melodyne 4 works forever as the player and allows the midi and tempo conversion.  When Melodyne 5 came out they stopped the forever deal. 

[Roy Slough]

On 6/26/2024 at 2:58 PM, John Vere said:

We had a band in the late 80's called Desert Heart and used a Cactus as the logo. I opened a Music Store/Recording studio/Lessons in 1991 and the Cactus was on the bands business cards. So Cactus Music was what I registered the business as. I own that name in Canada but not in other countries. The logo in my Signature was designed by one of the sales reps who was a graphic artist. I continued officially ( income taxes)  until around 2012 and I now use the name Cactus Studios which is not registered. 

I know realize why my version was working. The Laptop has Sonar Platinum installed ( I forgot I did that)  and that came with a demo of Melodyne 4.  Melodyne 4 works forever as the player and allows the midi and tempo conversion.  When Melodyne 5 came out they stopped the forever deal. 

I don't think I own the name Blue Cactus any more as a business in the UK but I do "own" the domain so keep that for myemail etc.

So Melodyne 5 is more restrictive than 4 in its licencing and usage, having worked for over 30 years in I.T. I have become very wary of upgrading all the time. If I have something that is working for me and meets my needs I tend to stick with it. I only look at upgrades etc. if there is a product or feature I need.  Many friends call me a luditie for not wanting the latest OS, phone etc. 

[John Vere]

23 minutes ago, Roy Slough said:

So Melodyne 5 is more restrictive than 4 in its licencing and usage,

Melodyne 5 was a huge jump in improvements to the software. I gave up on using it on vocals back in the days of Melodyne 4. Lots of issues and even crashing. They seemed to have resolved all the complaints I had back then. They are a top notch company to deal with. 

It's now  as important as is Sonar to my workflow. The license change was just that, It probably had more to do with Cakewalk being free and what ever backroom deal was made with Gibson was no longer honored.  They basically included a free version called the Player back then. Now it's just a demo that expires and is conveniently built into Sonar.  It took Roland a lot longer to notice we were still using the TTS-1 for free. 

People think Melodyne is just for auto tune. That's the one feature I probably use the least. Timing, Amplitude, Fixing guitar chords, Bass audio to midi, Guitar audio to midi,  ( cool trick to double up on guitar solos)  Create a midi synth part from a guitar audio track.  Tempo extraction.

It is a super deluxe audio editor that uses blobs instead of waveforms. And ya, you can pitch correct your vocals if you want to sound "Modern" 

Edited June 29 by John Vere