Help needed with tempos and project mismanagement!

[Studio Llama]

Hi all...

I had a rather large tracking session yesterday in a new studio and unfortunately made a couple of rookie errors in planning along the way.

We were laying down about 10 different percussion parts to a piece of music that was already recorded. To save memory, I bounced down a stereo file of the original track with the bass and drums a bit higher in volume so the percussionist could follow the rhythm.

The files for the track were sent to me pre-recorded, no click and the tempo varies a bit as they are a trio playing live in the studio. I found the nearest BPM by ear and set the conductor track to 122. This has allowed me to sync vocal delays pretty accurately.

I imported the bounced stereo file to the percussion session, but left the BPM there at 120 whilst tracking.

After the session, I imported the pre-tracked drums and bass to the 120 session and it all sounds fine. When I bounced down the percussion tracks (highlighting till 1/0/00) when I import them to the previous session things don't line up properly, it seems in time more or less, but the ultra tight groove and swing is off, and I can't put my finger on it. Changing the BPM throws everything out even more.

At this point, I'm thinking to just import all previous tracks I had started mixing, vocals, keys, etc to the tracking session and continue the mix there, as the percussion and drums/bass sound good in that session file.

However in my first session file, I have done a tonne of complex automation for pan, sends, volume and plugins on the vocal takes that I don't want to lose as it took hours to do. Is there a way of exporting the vocal tracks (there are 7) with all automation data saved to it and then import to the tracking session?

I hope that makes sense, I realise I need to keep a tighter ship with these details right from the start, but any help is much appreciated.

Regards

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Could you bounce the automated tracks one at a time and import them (as individual tracks). That should write the automation (of course the automation won't be editable unless you go back to the original and re-bounce it).

I think I understand your dilemma...

[Studio Llama]

Thanks, yes that is a possibility, though I had wanted to maintain the ability to edit as I go through the mix, I may have to let that go.

[Studio Llama]

OK, so I've bounced down several times and double checked everything, I think the issue is that the soundbites were recorded in one project at 120bpm and now imported in to the original mix session which is at 122bpm.

Would this cause the conflict? I tried setting soundbites to sequence tempo, when I dbl click on soundbite and open waveform editor click the tempo tab, the main sequence changes to 120bpm, but the waveform shows 122 bpm. I'm pretty sure this is what is going wrong here, but how do I go about fixing this?

Many thanks in advance...

[Studio Llama]

*Bump*

This is really strange, I've bounced down the soundbites from the tracking session having cleared the tempo from file info. Import to the Mix project where all previous drums, bass and vox are, and the audio is out!

I'd be very grateful for any insight on this one, it doesn't make sense that in the tracking session everything lines up with the drums, but when I import to mix session drums no longer line up.

My only thought is when I bounced the original stereo bus down to act as backing for the tracking, it bounced down listed as tempo 122. Then I tracked perc with the session set to 120.

Would this create the conflict? How does one get round this? I guess what I'm asking is how do these changes in tempo effect what I have done? When I change the main tempo from 120 to 122 I can see the soundbite moving, but what is actually happening here and how can I trace back what went wrong with the recording on the soundbites and get them to line up?


Many thanks...

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Do all the sample rates match?

[Studio Llama]

Yes, and thank you for your reply, 44.1

[Studio Llama]

Listening to it now, it seems the recordings I did are faster, however, what is strange is that when the same drum audio that I am using in the mix are imported in to the tracking session, it sounds fine.

When I first went in to the studio in the morning, the converter was set at 48khz, I don't think I bounced down the stereo file whilst it was set at 48. I checked the soundbite info for the bounce and it says its 44.1.

[Studio Llama]

Perhaps something has happened when I bounced down the files from the tracking session.

The audio didn't start at 0, but I highlighted from the end of the bite to the beginning 1/0/000 is there any delay when bouncing? The other weird thing, is that all the percussion bounces seem slightly out of sync with each other.

[Studio Llama]

So I figured something out maybe.

I was using the bounce to disk option from file menu. Highlighting each soundbite, in this case percussion, and then importing in to the mix session project.

Everything was out.

So, I have now used, merge soundbites, then import the new soundbite.mg in to the mix session, once in the soundbites window, right click, clear tempo before dragging in to track view.

Hoever, I'm still not 100% pleased with how it sounds in terms of swing, so I have decided to set up my mix in the tracking session project.

I have now juts gone back to the mix session and bounced to disk the 4 tracks of keyboards, which had plugins on that I wanted to use printed to disk (rather than do again).

When you highlight a soundbite in the sequence window as you release the mouse, the waveform above, changes shape!!! Or it looks like something is moving.

When I import to new session the bounced files, they are not in sync anymore, they are out by a fraction of a second.

Really not sure why this is happening, but I think I'm going to have to swallow it and start from scratch again.