How do I sync NEW seq. to old reel to reel import?

[BonDarker]

About 14 years ago I transferred the contents of a 4 track reel to reel project into Digital Performer. It is a bout 23 minutes long and has a few movements, meter changes and tempo changes. It could be considered sort of a Classical/Rock composition.
• When I recorded the piece into DP I did not know the tempo of the original so I simply set the tempo at 60 bpm so there was—at least—a real time reference.

• One of the 4 tracks is a drum machine which was used as a metronome for guitars and synth. My hope is to use this track as a sort of tempo map.

I would now like to use the 4 track as sort of a template/blue print to expand on, to complete the composition’s potential that was unavailable with only a 4 Track reel to reel.

I am hoping to sync the sequence to the drum machine track so it would allow the Sequence to follow the tempo changes (none of which are at 60 bpm). I hope to add some MIDI V-instrument orchestration to incorporate into the piece.

Yes, I have viewed and reviewed some of the YouTube tutorials on this sort of thing but they only seem to deal with smaller sound bites and not an entire composition of multiple tracks with changing meter and tempo.

I know I could just go “old school” and record over/along with the existing parts "as is," but eventually I’d like to print out notation and having bar lines in the right place sure does help when all is said and done.

Can any one suggest a method of doing this? Do I need to chop it all up in to smaller parts and deal with it that way or is there some way to make faster work of this process?

Thanks in advance

[reedster]

Moving bar lines is accomplished with Project / Conductor Track / Adjust Beats

one way you could start is by adjusting sound bite start time so the beat 1 occurs on beat one of a timeline measure. I often start on measure 3. For now, If there are pickup notes you won't hear them.

play through the entire piece and record a MIDI note at beat one of each sound bite measure

in Adjust Beats, enable Drag Beats in Edit Window, Adjust Measures, the first pass through enable Apply Adjusted Beat Tempo to end of Sequence and Preserve Real Time Performance, snap to notes

Enable DPs metronome. You might set up the panning so the metro plays on the one channel and the soundbite plays in the other.

In Sequence Editor, view Conductor Track, MIDI beat track and soundbite.

Adjust Horizontal View to see several measures. Enable Conductor Track to control Tempo

In Measure Ruler find one bar after your start time.

In Conductor Track drag the bar line you found toward the MIDI note that's on beat one of bar two. When the mouse button is released a tempo indication should appear in the Conductor track. You may want to copy/paste this first tempo to bar 1 beat 1.

Repeat the dragging process for each subsequent measure - drag the next measure number to the next available Note-on. When the tempo is steady and the metronome matches the soundbites pulse skip ahead.

After the first pass, for Fine Tuning, you can change the Adjust menu to Beats and enable Move One beat at a time.

[FMiguelez]

I would try first the Record Beats function, and then Adjust Beats, like reedster suggested above.

The advantage of Record Beats is that your tempo/click will be as accurate as you can tap following your current recorded song, even if it's rubato.
Then, afterwards, it's easier to correct any inaccuracies with Adjust Beats, since your recorded taps will be already in the vicinity of wherever they're supposed to be.

[HCMarkus]

If you recorded each section to drum machine click, you might be able to just cut the tracks at tempo change points and insert tempo changes at those points. If you lock the downbeat at bar one and it is still solid at the end of a section, you are golden. Rinse and repeat until finished.

EDIT: Thinking this though again, the process may be a little more complicated... analog tape wow and flutter might be an issue.

[DAWdler]

There were a couple good videos on Adjusting Beats on YouTube. Maybe David Das? Can’t remember for sure. Having a drum track should really help. I’ve struggled with tracks with no real transients to lock to. Recording a MIDI note at the start of each measure sounds like a great idea.

As far as wow and flutter. Celemony, the Melodyne company, has a product called Capstan that claims to be able to clean it up. I haven’t tried it. Pretty expensive.

[BonDarker]

WOW! A whole lot of good suggestions. I truly appreciate it VERY MUCH. Much of this "new" information is going to take me to places I've not yet explored in DP — which is a good thing!

Last month I took-on an old song that had originally been recorded in 1980 on a 16 track reel to reel. The 16 tracks had been recorded into DP sometime back, so all tracks were aligned to each other - of course - but even though that tune had been recorded to a metronome to start with, the metronome was erased in favor of a real live drummer — after he played to the metronome. On this song the tempo was fixed from beginning to end so at least that wasn't as much of a challenge.

Having had no experience doing this sort of thing, I went through and separated sections of the whole song by "shifting Later" a verse, chorus or even a few measures at a time, to align to a MIDI drum beat — straight 4 and very simple. After I had finished I reconnected the verses, choruses, etc. by "snipping" out the measures I used to separate pieces and sections. The original recording was not tight to begin with, as it seemed many of the performing musicians were not used to playing to a metronome — especially the drummer So, there was a bit of slip-sliding on the groove, throughout. By stretching or shrinking small sections "Soundbites" at a time to align with the MIDI drum beats, I was able to tighten up the entire song better than before. It took a week of steady work to bring it back together. Of course I began with the drums, getting that solid and proceeding through the rhythm section...

But with this new project, the tempo and meter are all over the place so I had to call for help and guidance. It seems to have paid off as a few of you made some great suggestions. I have viewed the "Adjusting Beats" MOTU video and most other related tutorials that might apply to my quest. But I was looking for someone who had actually dove into such a project and dealt with a complex arrangement of some duration.

This link to a video tutorial caught my attention yesterday and I wondered if it could also work for what I'm trying to do. YouTube - of course!

Finding Tempo Using Markers in Digital Performer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKJ8hJhbRxc&t=3s
(this Only works with “Locked Markers” - I noted)

Anyway, I KNOW IT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED - one way or another AND I appreciate the help and suggestions offered by each of you. Now, to implement the information. Maybe I can add to this thread for future use by others, once I find out what works...
the best to you all, BD