OT: Creating a Click Track

[Jonny Lost]

Hey everyone,

I have a pre-existing piece of recorded music that I need to make a click track for. Does anyone know of a good way to do this other than adjusting the metronme throughout the entire tune? There may not be.

I have both Digital Performer 5 and Cakewalk Sonar Home Studo 6XL.

Thanks for the help.

Jonny

[Cerrabore]

Doesn't Sonar have a tempo tap feature? I'm not sure how to use it, though.

[marce]

Hey everyone,

I have a pre-existing piece of recorded music that I need to make a click track for. Does anyone know of a good way to do this other than adjusting the metronme throughout the entire tune? There may not be.

I have both Digital Performer 5 and Cakewalk Sonar Home Studo 6XL.

Thanks for the help.

Jonny

You need sync it to midi, or only you need a click for follow in practice?

[reberclark]

If it was me, and I didn't need locked sync, I'd import the audio, set up a percussion midi track to record stick clicks and record clicks "on the fly." But, as I am constantly reminded on these boards, I am NO expert. Perhaps R. Bowser (new moderator and all around good guy and SONAR expert) would be worth contacting on these boards. Best of luck!

[Jonny Lost]

I need to sync it to MIDI so I can create an orchestral arrangement. Then, I'll export MIDI and import into Sibelius for final score preparation.

Thanks,
Jonny

[reberclark]

Hmmm. So the final product is an orchestral arrangement for live players that will sync up with the audio? If this is how it is, is the audio the same or different from the live performance?

[Skysaw]

I'm doing very similar work now. The process kind of depends on what the original source material is like. What kind of audio tracks do you have to work with?

[marce]

So, the "Tap feature" will be what you need, i think. It allows you to tap the tempo, and adjust the durations automatically to your original wav file. Sonar has it, i dont know about the DP.

[reberclark]

In SONAR (Producer 6.2.1) the only "Tempo Tap" feature I could find was when inputting a new tempo. I would love to know how to use the "Tempo Tap" feature in Sonar. Please enlighten! Thanks.

[marce]

The feature is called "Fit improvisation" in Sonar (not tap, sorry) and you can read an explanation about how it work here:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=995543&mpage=1&key=fit%2Cimprovisation&#995923 Look there for the "Mick" answer.

But thinking well about it, DPDan has made some very marvellous synchonizations between midi and real orchestra videos with Digital Performer, so maybe it has better tools than sonar for that. Just you need to ask him.

[rbowser-]

I'm just now finding this thread--and Especially considering the endorsement of me Reberclark posted, I better speak up! --AHem! Bluster--bluster.

I think Marce has the good solution there, to use Sonar's "fit to improvisation" tool--I use Home Studio 4XL and we don't have that feature.

But I've done exactly what you're talking about many times Jonny, and have had great success--How? By turning on the metronome in Sonar, discovering by trial-and-error what the opening tempo is, and then with the Tempo Map open, fine adjusting throughout the piece when changes occur. You want to have the snap-to-grid map in the Tempo Map turned off so when you draw with your pencil tool, it doesn't make quantized ramps, but curves. And remember the grid in that view is independent of the one in the Track View.

And that's pretty much what you first said was the way you thought you'd have to do it. It's really not all that time consuming. I've set up pieces between 4 to 10 minutes in an hour or so. And then once that's done, of course you can do all the MIDI tracking you want along side the imported audio. Fine tuning is sometimes necessary in the MIDI tracks themselves, pushing notes ahead or back.

If a song is exactly one tempo throughout--There's a free tool for extracting that tempo--But I seriously doubt you're dealing with something which is literally at one unwavering tempo.

If you haven't gotten Marce's tip to work, I assure you doing it the trial and error method in the Tempo Map can work out fine.

Randy B.
(rbowser)

[Skysaw]

The trouble comes, of course, if you are expected to stretch the audio to match a quantized click. Here's hoping you never have to take that on... What's the opposite of "super fun?"

[Bosco Adama]

The trouble comes, of course, if you are expected to stretch the audio to match a quantized click. Here's hoping you never have to take that on... What's the opposite of "super fun?"

Very true!
I'm currently in the middle of that train wreck.
I sometimes compose free form - no click track. Then I go back and clean up things. But this time I made the mistake of recording the draft vocal track... wobble, wobble, slo-mo... super fun!

lesson learned!~|

[rbowser-]

"...I made the mistake of recording the draft vocal track... wobble, wobble, slo-mo... super fun!..."

OH wow, Bosco - Will you be able to salvage anything? If not, hopefully you can get the singer to come back for another session, working with the cleaned up version of the tracks.

It's a new work habit to get into, but it is possible to compose in a fairly free-form way, but still be setting up measures and a tempo map as you go. Obviously it avoids these kind of train wrecks. I'm here to encourage you that it's possible to have that kind of grid work down early on in a project without it stifling your composing creativity.

Randy B.
(rbowser)