How to ride the tempo

[jkoseattle]

I would like to be able to set tempo changes in my project based on the tempo of an existing recording. Because the recording is all acoustic the tempo fluctuates a little almost every bar. What I want is to import the audio recording to a track, then during playback, hit a keystroke or something to mark downbeats, and then Sonar adjusts all the tempos accordingly, so that I can stay in sync with the recording but still be able to add Midi and use actual Midi note values accordingly. This seems like a thing people must do all the time. How is this done?

[David Baay]

The keystroke you're looking for is Shift+M - Set Measure/Beat At Now - but it's not a real-time operation. You set the Now Marker at an absolute musical time, and use SM/BAN to tell Sonar what measure and beat that is. Sonar will insert the necessary tempo changes to make the specified timeline beat align with the muscal beat at each point. Depending on how variable the tempo is, you can start by setting downbeats every 8-16 bars, and then set additional points in between to tighten it up as needed. If the music doesn't start with a downbeat at 1:01:000, additional steps are needed to do it properly. If you Google "SM/BAN site:discuss.cakewalk.com", you'll find previous posts of mine on the subject with detailed procedures.

No doubt someone will suggest dragging the audio to the timeline to have Melodyne Essential create a tempo map for you, but I personally find the results are often marginal at best compared to SM/BAN.

It;s also possible to record a guide track of MIDI notes in real time, hitting a key on your keyboard at every beat (no more, no less)  and using Fit Improvisation against that guide track to create the tempo map, but you'll tend to get a rushing/dragging timleine from that as well.

Edited February 24 by David Baay

[Jonathan Sasor]

There's a few different ways to accomplish setting the project tempo from an audio clip. The above method works, but you can also do it via set project from clip in AudioSnap, or the Melodyne method. Editing the tempo in Melodyne for accuracy first yields the best results there, if your version supports that.

[jkoseattle]

Thanks! I doubt any mechanical beat-finding technology is going to help, as this is an orchestral choral thing without obvious hits at the beats. Think I'm going to use that Shift-M thing and see if that serves my purposes.

[David Baay]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Sasor said:

you can also do it via set project from clip in AudioSnap

My beef with Set Project from Clip is that a regression occured between S8.5.3 and X1 whereby the tempo change it creates are not exactly on timeline beats now. They tend to be a little after the beat where the tempo is increasing, and a little before it where the tempo is decreasing. Aside from simply looking and "feeling" messy when you view the tempo list or zoom in the timeline, this can make arranging by copy/cut/paste  with tempo changes problematic when selecting with snap to measures misses a tempo change or includes one it shouldn't. I  tried for years to get traction on fixing this regression to no avail. I ultimately wrote off using the function because of this, but also because I found that the time it takes to massage the  beat markers into position for Set Project to work correctly was better spent spent on SM/BAN which is a lot more flexible anyway, allowing you set only as many points as necessary, not always evey beat or even every measure. Aand it works the same for freely recorded MIDI!

[Amberwolf]

dunno if it's still there but there used to be a process called fit improvisation, if you can just record midi notes at the points you want the beats to be at.  

 

 

quote of the help file of my ancient  version if it's useful 

Quote

 

Editing MIDI Events and Continuous Controllers (CC) / Changing the Timing of a Recording / Fit Improvisation

Fit Improvisation

SONAR lets you record music from a MIDI controller without requiring that you use a fixed tempo. In fact, if you record without using a metronome, you are very likely to end up with a recording that does not fit onto a fixed tempo grid.

The Process > Fit Improvisation command lets you take a recording and create a tempo map (with measure and beat boundaries) that fits what you played. Your performance is not changed in any way, even though the note start times and durations are adjusted to fit the new tempo map. This is important if you later want to use any of SONAR’s editing features that depend on a proper tempo map for best results.

To use this command, you must record a reference track containing a single clip that matches your original track or tracks but has only a single note on each beat boundary. You should make sure that the reference track has one event for every single beat, with no extra beats or missing beats. The first beat of the reference track should be at 1:01:000. You can use any editing command to adjust the reference track.

If you want, you can use other types of events as markers on the reference track, such as a sustain pedal. Remember, however, that MIDI sustain pedals generate one event when the pedal is pressed and another when it is released. So if you want to use the sustain pedal for the reference track, keep this in mind. Click down, up, down, up, for one, two, three, four.

Remember that the better the quality of your reference track, the better job the Fit Improvisation command can do. You want each of your reference track events to be as close as possible to the beat of the music. Note that some keyboards transmit aftertouch events when you record your reference track. These extra events will prevent Process > Fit Improvisation from working properly. Therefore, you should delete these events before using this command, or filter them out when recording the reference track (using Options > Global > MIDI).

To Fit Tempos to an Improvisation

1.

Record the reference track.

2.

Select the reference track.

3.

If necessary, combine all clips in the reference track into a single clip using the Edit > Bounce to Clip(s) command.

4.

Choose Process > Fit Improvisation.

SONAR adds tempo changes as necessary to fit the tempo grid to the reference track. When you’re done, you should mute the reference track, since the reference track events are not rescaled.

 

Note: If the resulting tempo grid exceeds 250 beats per minute, you will see an error message. If this happens, you can shorten the start times of each event using the Process > Length command, decrease the tempo to compensate for the change, and then try again.

You can also use the Set/Measure Beat At Now command to align a freely played MIDI performance with the Time Ruler.

To sync the project tempo to freely played MIDI

If you have recorded a MIDI track without a metronome, you may want to align the project’s tempo map with the MIDI performance. The Set/Measure Beat At Now command allows you to create new bar lines to fit your project. This command does not stretch audio. It works by adjusting tempo so that measure lines line up with audio transients or MIDI data. The tempo will ramp up/down from the previous tempo change in order to arrive at the required tempo.

To use the Set Measure/Beat At Now command, you need to be able to identify where you want to put the downbeats of each measure, and possibly where you want to place some other beats of the measure, if the tempo varies a lot.

1.

Display the MIDI clip that you want the measure/beats to align with in the Inline Piano Roll view: click the MIDI track’s PRV Mode button . Zoom in enough to see the MIDI data clearly (you can also use the regular Piano Roll view).

 

Tip: To make it easier to visually align note events with the Time Ruler, drag the MIDI track to the top position so it appears right below the Time Ruler.

2.

If you want other MIDI clips that exist in the project to retain their current M:B:T positions, select the clips, right-click one of them, and choose Clip Lock > Lock Position from the pop-up menu.

3.

Turn off the Snap to Grid button, and use the PRV Select tool (it’s in the Track view toolbar) to click the MIDI clip at the place where you want to set a measure or beat. The Now Time cursor moves to the place you clicked:

A. Now Time cursor

4.

Press CTRL+M to open the Measure Beat/Meter dialog.

5.

Enter the desired measure and beat values, and click OK.

 

Note: SONAR attempts to guess the correct measure/beat, so you usually can just click OK to accept the default values.

6.

Move the Now Time to the next desired beat (click the start of the next note)..

 

Tip: Press TAB to jump to the next note, or SHIFT+TAB to jump to the previous note.

7.

Press CTRL+M to open the Measure Beat/Meter dialog, enter the desired values, and click OK

8.

Repeat steps 6 and 7 until the Time Ruler is correctly aligned.

After you align the Time Ruler to your clip, you can smooth out the tempo changes in the Tempo view, and your clip will retain its M:B:T position.

 

[msmcleod]

11 hours ago, jkoseattle said:

I would like to be able to set tempo changes in my project based on the tempo of an existing recording. Because the recording is all acoustic the tempo fluctuates a little almost every bar. What I want is to import the audio recording to a track, then during playback, hit a keystroke or something to mark downbeats, and then Sonar adjusts all the tempos accordingly, so that I can stay in sync with the recording but still be able to add Midi and use actual Midi note values accordingly. This seems like a thing people must do all the time. How is this done?

To do it as you describe:

1. Add a new MIDI track, and arm it
2. Start recording and hit the same note on every down beat throughout the whole piece
3. Select the MIDI clip you've just recorded, then select "Fit Improvisation" from the main Process menu at the top.

This will create a tempo map based on the timing of the MIDI notes recorded in step 2.