Slowing Down Track During Recording - Beginner Question

[Edgar Gutierrez]

I'm completely new to singing, recording, and music editing, so please bear with me! I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to slow down the backing track while I'm recording my vocals.

I'm having a hard time keeping up with the lyrics at the current speed (I'm not sure if "tempo" is the right term, but that's what I'm referring to). Ideally, I'd like to record my vocals with the backing track playing at a slower tempo so that I can sing along more comfortably. Is there a way to do this within Cakewalk Sonar? Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Edited Tuesday at 06:05 AM by Edgar Gutierrez
typo

[Amberwolf]

Assuming the background tracks (BGTs) are all pure audio, not MIDI playing synths or something like that, then if you want your vocals to end up the same speed as the other stuff, and the same quality, you'll ideally need to record at the same tempo.

If you don't mind some degradation of the audio you're recording, vs the backing tracks then you could use this method (there are probably others).  If the tempo it's all done at and the one you want to record your stuff at are very different, this will probably leave significant artifacts in your vocals when your'e done:

 

--bounce the BGTs to a single new track, and archive the "real" BGT tracks.  This is to preserve your actual tracks, and just use this new combined track as a guide for your singing.

--Enable Audiosnap on the new BGT track's clip, these steps are based on a google search (it's differnet in my ancient SONAR) so no guarantee they're correct  ... Select the clip, and choose Alt-A to enable Audiosnap.   This should turn the clip into something that will stretch or shrink based on tempo, without further action.  

--Change the song's tempo to what you want to sing at.  

Play the song to be sure it is now playing the BGT at the slower tempo.  If it doesnt', you'll have to check the Help or other info sources to get the exact steps of making the clip be able to follow tempo. 

 

If it's working, you can now do your recording at the slower tempo.

To get back to the real tempo, you need to now enable audiosnap on *your* track

Then change the tempo back to what it was before.   

Archive the BGT guide track, and unarchive the real ones. 

If the vocal sounds bad from the tempo change, you can try different options for the online (realtime) algorithm used to do the work, and you can also bounce it to a new track to see if it helps, and that can be done with differnet offline algorithms, each of which will have at least some difference on the result. 

 

 

 

Also, you don't have to record eveyrhting all at once.  If you can sing parts of your vocals, a little at a time, and keep up with the tempo, you can just record each little piece (even just a single word) and then go back and record the next one.   It can be done in different take lanes on the same track, or you can use a whole new track for each one if you like. 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:39 AM by Amberwolf