Analyze soundbite tempo issue

[gavspen]

Trying to use this command so that I can change tempo and have the soundbites follow (that's the way to do that, right?) and I get this:

"There are not enough beats in the following audio files to analyze the tempo".

Wot? They're not very long, but all are 4 measures at least and one a lot longer. I then tried to use "Set Soundbite Tempo" and DP unceremoniously quit. Twice.

Any ideas?
Gavin

[bayswater]

Analysing soundbites for tempo requires some transients that the analysis can use to interpret as useful points in time. So a long cello note with a long attack, for example, would tell it nothing. You can use the Waveform editor to manually enter beats etc so there is something that can be used to establish a tempo.

[gavspen]

Analysing soundbites for tempo requires some transients that the analysis can use to interpret as useful points in time. So a long cello note with a long attack, for example, would tell it nothing. You can use the Waveform editor to manually enter beats etc so there is something that can be used to establish a tempo.

Really? But if DP knows the length in real time of a sound bite, which it does, and if it knows the bpm of the piece, which it does, and it knows where the beats fall on the grid, which it does, there's no command which just carves the sound bite up into beats regardless of transients, which may or may not be on beats anyway? It's vocals and guitar. Feel like I used to do this fairly regularly.

They gotta work on that

[bkshepard]

If that's all you want to do, then Audio > Soundbite Tempo > Copy Sequence Tempo to Soundbite should do the trick.

[bayswater]

Analysing soundbites for tempo requires some transients that the analysis can use to interpret as useful points in time. So a long cello note with a long attack, for example, would tell it nothing. You can use the Waveform editor to manually enter beats etc so there is something that can be used to establish a tempo.

Really? But if DP knows the length in real time of a sound bite, which it does, and if it knows the bpm of the piece, which it does, and it knows where the beats fall on the grid, which it does, there's no command which just carves the sound bite up into beats regardless of transients, which may or may not be on beats anyway? It's vocals and guitar. Feel like I used to do this fairly regularly.

They gotta work on that

Maybe I don't understand what you're trying to do.

The assumption with this process is that the soundbite has a tempo of its own that might be different from what you have in the project, and that the tempo might vary, while the tempo of the project is fixed. If you analyze a bite that has 8 bars of kick drum hits on the first beat of each bar, it will probably take the transients of that signal as the start of each bar, particularly if the whole thing starts on an downbeat. If the tempo in the soundbite varies it will add a tempo event at each bar to reflect that.

If you know the tempo of the project and simply want that to be written into the soundbite, just use the command to copy the sequence tempo to the soundbite. There is no need to analyze the soundbite. You might have to delete any existing tempo info in the soundbite first and there is a command for that too.

If you want the tempo of the soundbite to be used as the tempo of the sequence, then you have to use the command to analyze the soundbite, and add the tempo into to it. If there isn't any apparent transient in the soundbite that DP can detect, you have to supply the beat info. Then you copy the tempo in the soundbite to the tempo of the project using the command for that purpose.

I think that covers all the possibilities

[gavspen]

Thank you Bays, for that very detailed reply.

Simply put, I have a sequence with MIDI and audio. I need to up the tempo and I want to have the soundbites change tempo (time compression, in other words) along with the MIDI.There's a lot to digest in your post but I will unpack it in due course.

Also, thanks bk. Sounds like that might be it as well. Will try it.

Gavin

[bayswater]

Thank you Bays, for that very detailed reply.

Simply put, I have a sequence with MIDI and audio. I need to up the tempo and I want to have the soundbites change tempo (time compression, in other words) along with the MIDI.There's a lot to digest in your post but I will unpack it in due course.

Also, thanks bk. Sounds like that might be it as well. Will try it.

Gavin

In that case, try this.

When you increase the tempo you’ll see the MIDI notes change position with respect to the soundbite. Now you can position the start of the sound bite so it happens at the same time as the corresponding MIDI note. Then drag the right edge of the soundbite so it ends where the corresponding MIDI event at the end of the passage is.

When you drag the right edge, do this by holding the mouse over the edge near the top until it turns into a hand. You’ll want Snap turned off, and the Pitch and Time Stretch preferences set to change the sound the way you want it. ZTX with Formant Corrected works quite well. When you do this, the audio will play faster or slower depending on which way you drag the edge.

If you want the audio tempo to vary, or you need to fine tune the way audio and MIDI line up during the passage, you can chop up the soundbite and edit each piece separately.

[gavspen]

Yes Bays, I ended up time compressing them one by one, which I knew that was an option but I had hoped to find a better way. I made each soundbite the length of the sequence which made things easier, but what a pain!

Nothing worked. None of the seemingly pertinent commands under Audio>Soundbite Tempo did a darn thing. Couldnt "Set Soundbite Tempo", and "Adjust Soundbites to Sequence Tempo", which sounds like it ought to be useful, reliably crashed DP (yesterday, but not today.)

I figure it out one of these days. Or maybe I wont.

[bkshepard]

You need to first copy the sequence tempo to the soundbite. That puts the beat markers into the soundbite. Then, when you change the tempo, you'll need to adjust the sequence to soundbite tempo which will move the soundbite beat markers so they line up with the new tempo beats. HTH

[gavspen]

I'l try that, bk.

And while we're about it, isnt there a way to time compress several soundbites at once? I spent time to make them all the same length, thinking I would be able to shift click them all, and do them all at the same time. Not so, it seems.

[bkshepard]

Correction in my third sentence. You adjust the soundbite to sequence tempo, not the other way around. My apologies for the confusion.

[gavspen]

Correction in my third sentence. You adjust the soundbite to sequence tempo, not the other way around. My apologies for the confusion.

No problem. Thanks.