How to Snap To Beats

[bayswater]

How does this work? The manual says to have the audio track containing the beat you want to snap to under the cursor. But if I want a MIDI Note to snap to a beat in an audio track, I can't move it in the MIDI track, and at the same time move the tool over the audio track with the relevant beat. If I want to snap a Soundbite to a beat, I can pick it up with the selection tool, drag that over the beat I want to snap to, and it does snap to the beat, but now it's in the wrong track.

If I select the audio track and then the MIDI note, moving the MIDI note moves the soundbite. If I select a note, then shift click the audio track to it has the same range selected, it works the same way as is does with nothing is selected.

I must be missing something obvious.

[wvandyck]

....The manual says ...

Page number?

[bayswater]

p 631

"The Beat Grid can be enabled with the Snap to Beats checkbox in the Snap Information window, and can be used in the Waveform Editor or the Sequence Editor. In the Sequence Editor, you can extend the selection across multiple audio tracks. In this case, your actions snap to the beats in the track under the cursor, so move the cursor over the track that contains the beat you wish to snap to."

[wvandyck]

I read that before asking for a page number as I didn't see any mention of snapping MIDI, only audio. Maybe I misunderstood the question.

[bayswater]

It says you can "edit to audio", not edit audio. There is nowhere it says this applies to audio and not to MIDI. "Essentially, the Beat Grid allows you to edit to the audio data, instead of to the project’s time ruler."

And... in the case of audio, how do you snap audio in one track to a beat in the audio in another track? You can drag the audio to the other track and snap it to a beat there, but then it's in the wrong track.

The manual says to extend selections to the track with the beat. You can do that, but then no actions that move a specific object are possible without losing the selection.

[wvandyck]

It says you can "edit to audio", not edit audio. There is nowhere it says this applies to audio and not to MIDI.

"Essentially, the Beat Grid allows you to edit to the audio data, instead of to the project’s time ruler."

The sentence after that reads "This is very powerful, especially when making edits thats must remain faithful to the feel or "groove" of the audio..." I do not see any mention of using the MIDI. That whole page is about audio.

A few pages back at the beginning of Chapter 50, "Beat Detection Engine", the Overview mentions DP's beat detection an tempo analysis which give the user "unprecedented rhythmic and tempo control over your audio." I simply do not see any mention of MIDI.

Your's is a good question for Magic Dave or MOTU.

[bayswater]

I guess I'll have to ask Dave.

Usually, the manual tells you when MIDI or audio is excluded, otherwise the general rule of thumb is an operation applies to both. There are three things you can snap to: grid, marker and beat. All of these are nothing more than a specific location in the timeline, so it's not apparent why snapping to some would include MIDI, and others don't

Do you know how to snap Audio to a beat? You have a beat defined in track one, and a soundbite in track two. How do you snap the soundbite to the beat? However you do that, I expect MIDI would work the same way.

[csavetman]

How does this work? The manual says to have the audio track containing the beat you want to snap to under the cursor. But if I want a MIDI Note to snap to a beat in an audio track, I can't move it in the MIDI track, and at the same time move the tool over the audio track with the relevant beat. If I want to snap a Soundbite to a beat, I can pick it up with the selection tool, drag that over the beat I want to snap to, and it does snap to the beat, but now it's in the wrong track.

If I select the audio track and then the MIDI note, moving the MIDI note moves the soundbite. If I select a note, then shift click the audio track to it has the same range selected, it works the same way as is does with nothing is selected.

I must be missing something obvious.

If I'm understanding you correctly...
Couldn't you just cut the MIDI note in question, highlight the audio track and MIDI track together with crossbeam, starting at the beat in question in sequence editor (assuming snap to beat is enabled and making sure to start your selection with the audio track), then deselect the audio track (but not MIDI), and paste the note to MIDI track?

Would that do what your wanting to?

Carlos

[bayswater]

Can't get a cross hair selection to snap to a beat. It just selects the whole Soundbite. I-beam will, and using that will put an I-Beam insert point on the MIDI track, but the paste doesn't put the MIDI note to the spot. It goes to where it was before it was cut.

Even if this did work, it would be a rather convoluted way to simply drag a MIDI note and have it snap to a beat in the way you can snap a MIDI note to a marker or grid line.

[wvandyck]

Perhaps this is a work around. Then again, it's time to call it a day.

All tracks are hidden except for one audio and MIDI track.

"I" beam time range selection in the ruler, Copy, click on the ruler to set an insert point, Paste.
Audio and MIDI notes are pasted in the same relative position to each other at the new location.

[bayswater]

Thanks. That will work in a pinch.

I'll probably keep trying to figure this out, particularly the part that says the track under cursor is the one used for the snap. If I can get it to work more simply it will save me a lot of time setting up tempo maps.

[wvandyck]

...particularly the part that says the track under cursor is the one used for the snap....

How about this?

Make a Snap to Beat selection.
⌘-click beat markers in other tracks to extend the selection.
Or ⌘-click on the track names in the Track List. This action will include MIDI notes.

The manual clearly does not indicate how to do this. Maybe it's assumed discussion of ⌘-click elsewhere is generalized throughout.

[bayswater]

Yes, that works to make selections that are snapped to beats, and to expand them to adjacent beats. What is not clear is, with that selection in place, how to grab a MIDI note and drag it to the beat so it snaps. Deleting it first, then pasting at a beat will work I guess, but not really feasible for my purposes.

Thanks for your help on the selection bit. I'll take this up with MOTU.

[bayswater]

FYI,

I posted a tech link. The reply said the manual is misleading on this feature and DP doesn't do what I want.