How to change whole project tempo and stretch audio tracks to fit?

[saxon1066]

Well, gosh darn it, I have recorded about 12 audio tracks in a Sonar project and then realized that the tempo is too bouncy and I need to slow the song down by maybe only a couple of beats-per-minute.  Luckily, my drums are provided by Superior Drummer, so they will change with any project tempo change.  But I would appreciate any advice on how to change the entire project tempo and stretch the audio tracks to fit.

Should I just change the project tempo from the start and then grab and stretch the ends of each track to the ends of the (altered) measures?  There is a video on YouTube about finalizing the stretch with Elastique Pro.  (I have paid SONAR.)   Any other tutorials or documentation you are aware of?  Thanks for any help!!!

[Bass Guitar]

In Mixcraft I first set the audio tracks to " Use Project Tempo" and then just change the master tempo. I'm pretty sure you can also do this in Cakewalk Next. 

I don't think I ever got this to work smoothly in Sonar. It's a complicated procedure. 

Here's the answer from Googles friendly AI

To change the tempo of an audio track in Sonar, you can either change the project's global tempo using the Control Bar ( Note :this is wrong) or use the Audio Snap palette to synchronize individual clips to the project's tempo. For more advanced control, you can automate tempo changes in the Tempo track or insert tempo changes using the Project menu. 

Select the audio clip(s) you want to change.

Enable Groove Clip Looping on the clip by right-clicking it and choosing "Groove > Clip Looping" from the menu.

Open the AudioSnap palette by pressing ALT+A.

In the palette, select "Set Clip Tempo From Project" from the "Average Tempo" drop-down menu. This will make the clip follow the project's tempo map.

You may need to manually adjust the clip's beat markers in the Tempo view for the best results. 

 

 

[mettelus]

Depending on the number of tracks (and clips) involved, this can get into a fairly convoluted and often frustrating process. If you are waist deep into a project, another alternative is to finish the mix and do tempo refinement on a mixdown track (can pull that into another project), so you are only working with one combined audio track, which is far simpler and straightforward. If you suddenly decide to tweak tempos again, working with one audio track (even a mixdown as a demo) avoids going through the convoluted process repeatedly.

[saxon1066]

Wow, this sounds more difficult than I thought.  Could there be a feature request here, something similar to what Mixcraft does?  I was hoping it would be just that easy.

[mettelus]

Melodyne can assist with this as tempo adjustments can be mirrored into the project's tempo track via ARA2. The hurdle lies in adjusting clips that span across tempo changes (even Groove clips and REX clips); there is no way to assign audio clips to "fit to project tempo" and have the DAW do (ALL of) the grunt work that exists seamlessly elsewhere. Sonar uses the Melodyne tempo algorithm to create tempo tracks, but the ability to have "everything and anything" adapt to tempo track adjustments would be a good feature request.

[Bass Guitar]

What Im learning is that a lot of Daw’s like Next and Mixcraft, Waveform etc are designed with audio loops in mind.

So it’s part of the plan to allow for a zillion different loops and a zillion different tempos. 
 

Sonar and a few other old school Daw’s are sort of designed based on the old tape machine and mixing board concept. 
Im not a loop person as I actually play all my instruments. But I’m slowly learning how having solid tempo management is something that even I need from time to time. 

it totally blew me away the day I discovered that out of the 4 Daw’s I currently use that Mixcraft had the changing the tempo thing down solid like that. Trouble with Sonar is it is a beast. It’s become way overly complex and therefore just about everything you try to do is super complicated. 
 

Im a big fan of simple! I hope Cakewalk Next gets enough development time to grow. I really like the idea and the simplicity of what it does so far. It needs ARA!! 
 

 

[saxon1066]

In the past (like 10 years ago), I have exported each track and processed them individually in Sound Forge with Elastique Timestretch, which doesn't seem to be available anymore.  Its functions now seem to be included in Elastique Prol.  Somehow, since it's on my computer, Timestretch has shown up in the Sonar plugin manager as a DX plugin.  I assume I can just use it in Sonar.  

But don't we get Elastic Pro included in the paid version of Sonar?  I can't seem to find it.

[sjoens]

1. Bounce all track clips to one clip per track
2. Stretch the beginning of each clip to -0-
3. Stretch the ends of each track's clip to the same length
4. Change the tempo
5. Slip-stretch the ends of the audio clips to match the midi clips
6. Bounce the audio clips

You can set the stretch algorithm in Preferences

[saxon1066]

16 hours ago, Bass Guitar said:

In Mixcraft I first set the audio tracks to " Use Project Tempo" and then just change the master tempo. I'm pretty sure you can also do this in Cakewalk Next. 

I don't think I ever got this to work smoothly in Sonar. It's a complicated procedure. 

Here's the answer from Googles friendly AI

To change the tempo of an audio track in Sonar, you can either change the project's global tempo using the Control Bar ( Note :this is wrong) or use the Audio Snap palette to synchronize individual clips to the project's tempo. For more advanced control, you can automate tempo changes in the Tempo track or insert tempo changes using the Project menu. 

Select the audio clip(s) you want to change.

Enable Groove Clip Looping on the clip by right-clicking it and choosing "Groove > Clip Looping" from the menu.

Open the AudioSnap palette by pressing ALT+A.

In the palette, select "Set Clip Tempo From Project" from the "Average Tempo" drop-down menu. This will make the clip follow the project's tempo map.

You may need to manually adjust the clip's beat markers in the Tempo view for the best results. 

 

 

Ok, I found Elastique Pro in the AudioSnap Palette, but I have no experience in using that function.  Is there any tutorial or documentation on how to use AudioSnap generally?  I would hope that I could convert each track to a new tempo using it, as you explain above, Bass Guitar.  

Hey BandLab, how about some updated video tutorials or text documentation how to use this and other functions in Sonar?  I really miss the days of printed Sonar manuals.

[saxon1066]

14 minutes ago, sjoens said:

1. Bounce all track clips to one clip per track
2. Stretch the beginning of each clip to -0-
3. Stretch the ends of each track's clip to the same length
4. Change the tempo
5. Slip-stretch the ends of the audio clips to match the midi clips
6. Bounce the audio clips

You can set the stretch algorithm in Preferences

Awesome!!!  Thanks sjoens.

[msmcleod]

This is the method I use on more complex projects.

Note:   Do this BEFORE you change tempo.  Also, check you've not got any existing stretched clips - if you have, do step 9 followed by step 11, so any existing stretches are committed before proceeding.

1. Ensure your the Time Base for all your audio clips is set to "Musical". 
CTRL + A and check the Time Base in the Clip Properties Inspector. This ensures that the start times of your clips are aligned to their original measures after changing tempo. If it says "(Multi)" that means some are different, so select Musical so its the same for all.

2. BEFORE you change tempo, pick ONE clip, select it, and extend the end of the clip by dragging it to the nearest measure, taking note of the measure you chose (e.g. 94).

3. Change your tempo

4. On the clip you chose in step 2, hold down CTRL+SHIFT and drag the end to stretch it so that its end is at the measure in step 2.

5. Within the clip selected, expand the AudioSnap section in the clip properties, and take note of the Stretch Amount(%) - e.g. 77.88%

6. Press CTRL + A to select all.

7. CTRL + click the clip you chose in step 2 to de-select it.

8. Use CTRL + SHIFT to stretch the selection by a small amount - e.g. 99%

9. Edit -> Select -> All AudioSnapped / Slipstretched

10. With the selection intact, edit the Stretch Amount in the Clip Inspector and set it to the value in step 5 (e.g. 77.88%).

11. Right click on any clip, then choose "Bounce to Clip(s)"  - this ensures the clips are rendered using the Offline Render method (e.g. Elastique Pro).

[AlexHomeStudio]

Sonar has a great tool called AudioSnap. Select the entire project by pressing Ctrl+A, then launch AudioSnap. Click the Clip Follows Project button and select Auto stretch from the context menu on the right. After these steps, any changes to the project's tempo will be applied to all audio clips. It's important to select the Elastique Pro algorithm in the Offline section. This will significantly improve the rendering quality.

[Bass Guitar]

Why don’t you try Cakewalk Next? 
Go to page 63 of the user manual and see how simple it is. 

First save your Sonar project as a Cakewalk Interchange Format CXF file. 
This will allow you to open the project in Next. 

Change the tempo and either carry on or transfer back to Sonar. Next doesn’t have a Console view so that part is a deal breaker for final mix down. 

Edited 39 minutes ago by Bass Guitar