What do they have against Tempo?

[jkoseattle]

Why is it that the Tempo functionality has remained pretty much unchanged in all these years? It's simply awful. I could start a list of things I hate about dealing with Tempos in CbB but it would be a long list, and I don't have any time left because I've spent the last half hour trying to get my tempos right. I just needed to vent.

[Colin Nicholls]

I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure there is much that you could do to make it easier to use - except perhaps to have the list available by default. You can show it by pressing the "Show List" button:

How would you improve this display of Tempos in a project?

[Promidi]

13 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

How would you improve this display of Tempos in a project?

1). To be able to select a range of tempos and move them all with the mouse the same way you can controllers in the PRV Controller lane - including the ability to constrain the movement horizontally or vertically.

2). Have the transform tool available on the tempo view - to allow horizontal and vertical scaling.

[Roger Wicks]

I know, Right?  ?

What it needs mainly is a way to change the whole tempo map by percentages or by selecting sections and adjusting by percentages or simply moving all tempos up or down. (If this is possible)

Perhaps you have a lot of tempo changes, and you just wanna make the whole project a little faster or slower. Got hours of free time?

Yes CbB, it's way past time for a Tempo Upgrade. Thank you & Good Night  ?

[Jim Fogle]

Can Cakewalk by BandLab do this?  Highlight a selection of the project up to and including the complete project and then enter a time and the highlighted section shrinks or expands to that time.

Example 1:  I want the instrumental break to last for no more than thirty seconds.  I highlight the instrumental break section of the song, enter thirty seconds, hit preview, like it and done.

Example 2:  My client wants various music beds of exactly 15, 20, 30, or 60 seconds.  Again, highlight a section, enter the time, preview, like it and done.

[user 905133]

I only tested "Fit-to-Time" once. Does that do what you want?

Quote

Process > Fit to Time stretches or shrinks the selection so that it ends at a specific time, expressed in either measure:beat:tick
(MBT) or hours:minutes:seconds:frames (SMPTE) format. This command gives you a choice of modifying the events or modifying
the underlying tempo. This is useful when you want to alter a portion of a project to have an exact length. The start time of the
selection does not change, but the end time is altered as necessary to fit the required time interval.
Audio can be stretched or condensed up to a factor of 4 (e.g., it can be shrunk to as little as 25 percent of its original length, or
expanded to as much as 400 percent of its original length).

For more information, see “To stretch or shrink to a specific length” on page 681 and “Stretching and shrinking events” on page 680.

Update: For a second round of tests (single 2' 47" audio track rendered from a midi soft synth project), I ran into an upper limit of 400% stretch and lower limit of 25% shrinkage.  One test converted a 44 sec slice (Start -> Thru) and made it 30 seconds. Forgot to mention: I didn't see a way to do an instant preview; audio conversion took time to do.

Update 2: Took the same 44 second slice and made it 60 seconds. Again, if there's a way to preview it, I didn't see it.  Had to wait until the "Processing audio data" gauge finished. 

Footnote: On my 1st attempt with the 2' 47" track, I accidentally entered 1 hour as the target length.  That's how I saw the 400% max. The track did expand to exactly 1 hour; however, the actual audio "only" expanded to 400% of the original.  The rest was silence.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by User 905133
to update with info on stretch test; to comment on "instant preview"; to fix typos; to udpate info

[Promidi]

39 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

I only tested "Fit-to-Time" once. Does that do that you want?

 

It does work for me.  However, selecting a section and entering a percentage would be an excellent alternative.  It's a pity the EditToTime and EditToTime40 CAL commands are broken in later versions of Cakewalk.  Otherwise, we could write a CAL script to do it.

What this also tells me that the underlining code for adjusting a tempo map has already been written as is available.  The bakers just need extra dialogue boxes that calls the appropriate routines with arguments.

[Some Guy]

They need a better solution.

Samplitude devised an easy solution to this problem.  You just allow tempo automation and use the first Track with it as a Global Tempo Track.

 

Then you just drag the Tempo Track to the top of the arranger, and edit it as automation, and it will show tempo markers (which show up as Red Markers) in the Marker Lane for reference (i.e. when you scroll down and the Tempo track isn't in view).  You can set the track to display only the Tempo Automation.

This is an elegant way of solving this problem "easily."

I like the multi-dock, in principle, but its existence seems to have really  had negative consequences, as they have gone out of their way to give it purpose by forcing you there when you honestly shouldn't have to go there.

EDIT:  Lulz @ the blatant translation error ?

Edited November 23, 2019 by Some Guy