Replacing/augmenting bass tracks etc using /Audio Snap/Drum Replacer

[Gary Shore]

Just watched some tutorials about using Drum Replacer and wondering about doing this same process w/a bass track...would using the ASP to analyze the transients then setting up a MIDI file be the way to do this or would getting into importing bass MIDI files into the Drum Replacement options be the way to go?

New to using CbBL ,just starting to get a sense of things and would appreciate breakdown of the steps involved here as it seems using sample replacement w/an existing track is just as viable an option as duplicating it,processing the new track differently(i.e.w/EQ/compression/FX etc) then grouping it w/the original....

[David Baay]

The limitation of both those options is that they won't extract the pitch information. Ideally you would want to use at least Melodyne Essential for this purpose.  I believe it's still available as a free add-on to CbB via the Bandlab Assistant. Beyond that,  if you are okay with finding the pitches yourself, and just want the rhythm extracted, I would suggest you just try the other options and see which works best. Audiosnap is more flexible in terms of controlling the transient detection, and i would be inclined to go that way. Drum Replacer is optimized for detecting drum transients so I suspect it might not do as well with bass, especially if the part has a lot of sustained notes.  And it won't be able to do direct replacement due to the lack of pitch detection. 

[scook]

4 minutes ago, David Baay said:

 Ideally you would want to use at least Melodyne Essential for this purpose.  I believe it's still available as a free add-on to CbB via the Bandlab Assistant.

A 30 day trial version of Melodyne (Editor?) is available as an optional add-on. Monophonic audio to MIDI conversion still works after the demo expires. Add-ons are found on the BA menu shown below

[Gary Shore]

Much thx to both people who replied above-

Appreciate the info about Melodyne and will be checking this out ...

After watching the tutorials yesterday my thinking was focused mainly on the idea of sample augmentation and/or replacement applied to bass(as well as other instruments)and the process shown in general without really considering the specifics of how to do this...appreciate the heads up re-pitch related concerns....

I'm under the impression that an audio track can be converted to a midi one fairly easily without having to get into all the aspects of working w/the Drum Replacer and that using both types of tracks together would allow for a MIDI-based sample to be combined w/the original track...

Interested in further feedback about this,especially from any one who's actually involved in doing this who might be able to describe the processes used...

For ex,could a drum audio track be copied to a midi track directly and then the same thing be applied as described above?

What are the advantages of using Drum Replacer vs.this if both options are available?

My concept of the ASP based on the tutorials I've watched was using it mainly in terms of quantization/setting up a rhythmic feel from a part of a track or a reference track/Groove Clip etc that gets applied to the rest of the tracks using the Pool;this was the first time I'd seen the Transients processes shown in terms of setting up samples....

Again appreciate the replies as well any continued info about all the related aspects of this stuff...

Edited October 25, 2019 by Gary Shore
Sentence

[David Baay]

Both Drum Replacer and Audiosnap allow extracting transient locations as MIDI, but the resulting note events will all have the same pitch (MIDI note number) and duration. So right away you've lost two of the most essential and difficult-to-reproduce elements of a bass part. So I really don't think either of those tools will be very useful for the purpose.

 If you have some flavor of Melodyne installed, dragging an audio clip directly to a MIDI track will automatically use Melodyne to extract the notes as MIDI data (including pitch and duration information if the trial hasn't expired as Steve mentioned).

One issue to beware of with reinforcing a bass part using a MIDI-driven synth is that you will tend to get undesirable phasing effects from the interaction of the harmonics unless you only reinforce the fundamental with a simple sine wave, as is more commonly done.

[scook]

3 minutes ago, David Baay said:

if the trial hasn't expired

AFAIK, monophonic audio to MIDI conversion continues to work after the trial expires. Other Melodyne features such as the Melodyne edit screen stop working when the trial expires.

[HIBI]

1 hour ago, scook said:

A 30 day trial version of Melodyne (Editor?) is available as an optional add-on.
Monophonic audio to MIDI conversion still works after the demo expires.

This is good things to know when recommending CbB to newbies.
Also tempo mapping with drag and drop to the timeline ruler is works?

[scook]

I believe so, it uses the same mono algorithm.

[David Baay]

1 hour ago, scook said:

AFAIK, monophonic audio to MIDI conversion continues to work after the trial expires.

 I misread this this first time to mean that pitch info was dropped from the conversion after expiration. I realize now you're saying the audio pitch correction/editing functions expire, but monophonic MIDI conversion (which is all Essential does in the first place) continues to work.

[Gary Shore]

Did a little research and according to Documentation,just dragging an audio clip directly to the MIDI track converts it(see Audio-Midi conversion a little ways down the page where it says,"Do one of the following" 

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X3&language=3&help=Region_FX.04.html#1679092

 

Also found a couple of YouTube tutorials,this one shows using Melodyne-

and coincidentally uses a bass audio track,while this one shows a different technique involving setting a synth up on the MIDI track prior to dragging the audio...

https://youtu.be/u4b5r7fm25o

Edited October 25, 2019 by Gary Shore

[scook]

Yes, drag and drop audio to MIDI conversion uses the Melodyne VST3 plug-in. The same plug-in supports audio drag and drop to the timeline to create a tempo map and the Region FX implementation of Melodyne. SONAR X3 came with a license for Melodyne Essential. CbB, being a free product, does not include a license for Melodyne, instead; it includes a trial copy.

To see the current help page substitute Cakewalk for SONAR X3 as the product in the url like this https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Region_FX.04.html#1679092. This substitution works for most of the Cakewalk help pages.

[Gary Shore]

Thx for the double tip man...

BTW new here as well as to CbBL and am glad to find people that know things and will offer info to the less-experienced,hope to keep these online rel.going as there's a ton of other stuff I could also post about as well....

How much of a difference in the end result is there between the features of Melodyne before/after,i.e.does the fact that it reverts to setting up a mono MIDI track mean much in terms of the interleave track/bus/master output options?

[user 905133]

Thanks for the info here.  Quite timely, in fact. I had stumbled onto the audio -> midi conversion a month or so ago and have been wondering if Cakewalk used Melodyne for this. Oddly enough, this thread starts addressing this today. Good to know I hadn't been imagining it. 

[Gary Shore]

Glad you joined the discussion..have you been doing this and if so w/what type of instrument?

[Gary Shore]

David-

My focus will be more on using acoustic/electric bass samples as available in the DAW(which I'd also appreciate an  overview of)along w/audio recorded using a keyboard workstation w/various bass options,rather than a synth bass.....

Aware of the SI Bass,the TTS-1,and seem to remember something else I found(MIDI options in one of the Browser dropdowns??)at one point.. 

Been working on figuring everything out and keeping track of things w/notes...at this point it's all still a bit undigested....

[Mánibranðr Studios]

I personally would suggest just using your ears for this task and manually tweaking note start times, durations and pitches.

[Gary Shore]

Thx for posting but not sure what you're referring to processwise...??

[Mánibranðr Studios]

20 hours ago, Gary Shore said:

Thx for posting but not sure what you're referring to processwise...??

What I mean is listening to the audio, and manually interpreting what notes were played.

[David Baay]

On 10/25/2019 at 2:41 PM, Gary Shore said:

How much of a difference in the end result is there between the features of Melodyne before/after,i.e.does the fact that it reverts to setting up a mono MIDI track mean much in terms of the interleave track/bus/master output options?

A MIDI track just contains performance instruction for a synth; mono/stereo and interleave are not relevant to a MIDI track.  'Monophonic' in this context is referring to the limitation that Melodyne Essentials can only detect pitches in recordings where only one pitch at a time is sounding. Bass lines typically are mostly - but not strictly - monophonic.

On 10/25/2019 at 4:12 PM, Gary Shore said:

My focus will be more on using acoustic/electric bass samples as available in the DAW(which I'd also appreciate an  overview of)along w/audio recorded using a keyboard workstation w/various bass options,rather than a synth bass

Assuming you're not talking about'loops' (typically short 2-4-measure recordings of instrument 'riffs') an 'instrument  sample' is typically played by a 'synth' (software or hardware) responding to MIDI. For example a MIDI track sends (or echoes from your keyboard)  a Note On event with note number 60 with a velocity of 100, and the synth responds by playing a recorded sample with the corresponding pitch (middle C) with proportional loudness and timbre according to it's programming. Some time later, the MIDI track sends a Note Off, and the synth responds by releasing the note (typically with some sort of gradual decay determined by it's programming or the recording of the sample). A 'keyboard workstation' is a type of hardware synth, so you're still talking about a 'synth bass' when the sounds are coming from a keyboard.

Edited October 28, 2019 by David Baay

[Gary Shore]

Again much thx to people for continue to post here and keep this thread active...hopefully it will add to this forums' usage as an invaluable source of info....

DB appreciate you taking the time to break things down;still developing a sense of what's what re-overall DAW/in the box recording -production approach...

See you know your stuff from your posts and would like to be able to contact you directly here by email as things come up while I get into using the DAW on a regular basis....

FGV-are you talking about setting up a MIDI track using a MIDI-triggering keyboard etc while listening to the audio track playback?

Although the replies here are all on target and have most definitely contributed to my getting an understanding of things as regards the thread title, some things were raised by various replies that haven't yet been addressed... if any of you who posted here( or anyone else)want to look over my comments following these posts,you'll see these...would be interested in knowing more about people's experience re-

-360 ° w/using Drum Replacer

-actual options for bass sample replacement /augmentation included

(i. e. SI bass/TTS-1 etc)

For ex U905133 -would  like to find out more about your approach to this stuff...

[David Baay]

I'm always happy to give guidance via the forum where everyone can benefit from it.  A lot of the more general quesions you have are probably better addressed by Googling the web at large for articles that that explain MIDI, synth, and DAW technology more broadly.

Although many forum members have enough knowledge to write a book (and some have), not many have the time or inclination to write more a than a paragraph or two at a time on the forum. Where the forum shines is in answering specific question about how to accomplish some relatively narrowly-defined task in Cakewalk.

You'll get the best mileage out of the forum and your time with Cakewalk by just diving in and trying some things, and asking more specific questions as they arise.

The way you use Cakewalk will depend greatly on what kind of musician you are (or aspire to be)  and how you personally like to work. Everybody's different in this respect, and you'll need to find your own way to a great extent.