Hi all,
This is rather complicated, please bear with me.
I'd like to perform remixes of full length songs. I've been unable to do this in Cubase SX, primarily because of slight changes in tempo and inaccurate beat timing on these existing songs ( they are from the 50s and 60s ).
Is it possible to quantise full length AUDIO files in any sequencer ? Failing this, I'd like to align the bars/beats on my tempo track to follow the song. This is impossible with tempo changes in Cubase SX.
( I'm totally at sea with the hitpoint/matchpoint thingy, so if this feature can be used, some pointers would be appreciated. )
Could someone please help me out with this ? I've been going nuts trying to sync MIDI to my audio files.
Thanks
Kingp
help: full length song remixing....
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 65 posts since 26 Jul, 2001 from Coimbatore, India
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- The Teach
- 8273 posts since 23 Jul, 2002 from flatness
dont know about SX but both acid and live can do this dynamic timestretch thing by using warp markers (thats what theyre called in live anyway - dunno about acid) ...
... it does still require some donkeywork on the part of the user to set it up though
slainte
rob
... it does still require some donkeywork on the part of the user to set it up though
slainte
rob-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 65 posts since 26 Jul, 2001 from Coimbatore, India
Thanks for the reply pHz.
AFAIK, Acid has only a fixed tempo which you can set up using the Beatmapper. Can't align beats and bars individually to match the song.
How does this feature work in Ableton Live ? Again, I'd like to chop up bits of the original song and re-order them after beat-mapping. Is this possible in Live ?
I vaguely remember that Logic PC and/or Cubase VST/32 had some sort of audio quantise feature, or shrink-stretch feature. Unfortunately, these are not on sale anywhere in my country. Are these features present in SX, anyone ?
Thanks
kingp
AFAIK, Acid has only a fixed tempo which you can set up using the Beatmapper. Can't align beats and bars individually to match the song.
How does this feature work in Ableton Live ? Again, I'd like to chop up bits of the original song and re-order them after beat-mapping. Is this possible in Live ?
I vaguely remember that Logic PC and/or Cubase VST/32 had some sort of audio quantise feature, or shrink-stretch feature. Unfortunately, these are not on sale anywhere in my country. Are these features present in SX, anyone ?
Thanks
kingp
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- KVRist
- 64 posts since 6 Aug, 2003 from Local, UK
I guess your problem would be that there are fluctuations in tempo over time, which means that a simple time stretch thing isn't going to work, yes?
Given the tracks are so old, I am assuming that you are doing these remixes from a final mix of each song (rather than from a multitrack recording).
In this case, you basically have 2 options that I can think of:
1. create a MIDI tempo track that synchs with the song (by tapping it in maybe), or
2. timestretch individual phrases/sections within the song to try and get it to a solid tempo.
Option 2 is very time consuming, mind numbingly dull and quite possibly won't work very well - unless you have unlimited amounts of patience in which case you should rush off in a frenzy to the vatican and apply for a sainthood. There's also a good chance that you'll destroy the whole feel of the original recording (depending on the amount of fluctuation in the tempo and your editing skill) - this may or may not matter depending on how much you are mangling the track.
If there's only minute fluctuations in tempo I think option 1 is your best bet. Obviously, to do this you need software that will allow you to tap in a tempo for the whole song (or to define the precise location of individual beats) - can't help you there as I've not done this for a looooong time.
HTH
David
Given the tracks are so old, I am assuming that you are doing these remixes from a final mix of each song (rather than from a multitrack recording).
In this case, you basically have 2 options that I can think of:
1. create a MIDI tempo track that synchs with the song (by tapping it in maybe), or
2. timestretch individual phrases/sections within the song to try and get it to a solid tempo.
Option 2 is very time consuming, mind numbingly dull and quite possibly won't work very well - unless you have unlimited amounts of patience in which case you should rush off in a frenzy to the vatican and apply for a sainthood
. There's also a good chance that you'll destroy the whole feel of the original recording (depending on the amount of fluctuation in the tempo and your editing skill) - this may or may not matter depending on how much you are mangling the track.If there's only minute fluctuations in tempo I think option 1 is your best bet. Obviously, to do this you need software that will allow you to tap in a tempo for the whole song (or to define the precise location of individual beats) - can't help you there as I've not done this for a looooong time.
HTH
David
nope...nothing!!
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- The Teach
- 8273 posts since 23 Jul, 2002 from flatness
in live you load the audio and can then create 'warp markers' that tell the audio engine when to play each marker - so you could go through the audio marking the start of each bar for example and live would then ensure that each marker played strictly on the bar start of the new project tempo (by speeding up or slowing down each section of audio between 2 markers) ...kingpisser wrote:How does this feature work in Ableton Live ? Again, I'd like to chop up bits of the original song and re-order them after beat-mapping. Is this possible in Live ?
... and as for chopping up and reordering audio - this is what live was effectively written to do so yes - it is possible in live
slainte
rob-
- KVRAF
- 13110 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
Notes:
- I don't know how SX is handling things by now, I'm only familiar with Cubase versions up to V5. But as you're talking about hitpoints and the likes, I assume it's the same (they took that out of earlier SX versions)
- I don't know which parts of the originals you would like to use. This can make a huge difference...
OK, some sort of "tempo dynamic time stretching" doesn't exactly exist yet (even if that would be a great idea). It may work somehow in ACID or Live (I don't know either of them well enough) but I'm almost certain that you would have to live with an eventually severe sound degration...
So, no matter what you'll be doing, the first thing I recommend is to reclock the songs in question. Actually, In Cubase this was allways working very nice (much better than in Logic which is what I'm using now).
The deal is to create some hitpoints - you can create them manually in the graphic tempo list editor, record them via MIDI or let Cubase autocreate them, based on the transients of your original audio material. In case there's not too much drastic tempo changes I'd eventually got for a mix between the MIDI record and manual adjustment route. Just make sure you have some hitpoints at those significant tempo changing places. If tempo changes all over the place you'll better be off recording a MIDI track with, say, quarter notes.
After that you need to connect those with the socalled metric hitpoints (I don't know if they are called exactly like that).
In general it's like telling Cubase: "Here's my hitpoint 1, that should be bar 1, beat 1, then here's my hitpoint 2, should be bar 13, beat 2 - now please calculate a tempo for me."
In case you're using things such as a track full of recorded quarter notes or so, there's some helpful functions (such as "fill with metric hitpoints" and "connect hiptoints 1:1") doing the connection job automatically. I'm afraid you need to look those up in the manual.
Now you should have a songfile that would follow all the tempo changes of the original. In case that's fine for you allready, you could now start adding things, business just as usual...
But of course, for most remix situations you would eventually like to have one steady tempo and adjust the original material to it.
Now this all depends on what you would like to use of the original material.
Let's say it's just the vocal track. In that case everything is pretty easy (assuming the originals tempo changes don't exceed anything such as 10% or so). You could just cut up the vocal track into the most important lines or words, then delete all tempo changes and use one steady tempo. The cut up vocals will then still start at the correct musical places, which usually is good enough, only sometimes you may have to adjust their timing a bit.
Dealing with other rather accented tracks might not be too much of a problem either, maybe you could simply use SXs recycle-alike audio slicing function for quite a bunch of them (this should be done in the reclocked version).
Things will become quite a bit more difficult if you have to deal with some sort of mixed tracks or ones with a lot of sustained notes.
In that case you may have to cut things by "working bars" (which don't change their tempo too much), then adjust your beat to a steady tempo and then timestretch the cut up things to fit the new tempos bars.
But as said, that's a VERY tough task and the results might be questionable.
In any case you'll be doing way better if you got single tracks and just don't use all the critical things.
In most remixes I've been trying my luck on I've usually been using the vocals only anyways.
My usual method is to reclock a song, then reconstruct the structure "layout-style" (simple groove, simple bass, simple harmonies), then split up the vocal tracks and finally find a good common tempo that I will use all throughout the remix.
- I don't know how SX is handling things by now, I'm only familiar with Cubase versions up to V5. But as you're talking about hitpoints and the likes, I assume it's the same (they took that out of earlier SX versions)
- I don't know which parts of the originals you would like to use. This can make a huge difference...
OK, some sort of "tempo dynamic time stretching" doesn't exactly exist yet (even if that would be a great idea). It may work somehow in ACID or Live (I don't know either of them well enough) but I'm almost certain that you would have to live with an eventually severe sound degration...
So, no matter what you'll be doing, the first thing I recommend is to reclock the songs in question. Actually, In Cubase this was allways working very nice (much better than in Logic which is what I'm using now).
The deal is to create some hitpoints - you can create them manually in the graphic tempo list editor, record them via MIDI or let Cubase autocreate them, based on the transients of your original audio material. In case there's not too much drastic tempo changes I'd eventually got for a mix between the MIDI record and manual adjustment route. Just make sure you have some hitpoints at those significant tempo changing places. If tempo changes all over the place you'll better be off recording a MIDI track with, say, quarter notes.
After that you need to connect those with the socalled metric hitpoints (I don't know if they are called exactly like that).
In general it's like telling Cubase: "Here's my hitpoint 1, that should be bar 1, beat 1, then here's my hitpoint 2, should be bar 13, beat 2 - now please calculate a tempo for me."
In case you're using things such as a track full of recorded quarter notes or so, there's some helpful functions (such as "fill with metric hitpoints" and "connect hiptoints 1:1") doing the connection job automatically. I'm afraid you need to look those up in the manual.
Now you should have a songfile that would follow all the tempo changes of the original. In case that's fine for you allready, you could now start adding things, business just as usual...
But of course, for most remix situations you would eventually like to have one steady tempo and adjust the original material to it.
Now this all depends on what you would like to use of the original material.
Let's say it's just the vocal track. In that case everything is pretty easy (assuming the originals tempo changes don't exceed anything such as 10% or so). You could just cut up the vocal track into the most important lines or words, then delete all tempo changes and use one steady tempo. The cut up vocals will then still start at the correct musical places, which usually is good enough, only sometimes you may have to adjust their timing a bit.
Dealing with other rather accented tracks might not be too much of a problem either, maybe you could simply use SXs recycle-alike audio slicing function for quite a bunch of them (this should be done in the reclocked version).
Things will become quite a bit more difficult if you have to deal with some sort of mixed tracks or ones with a lot of sustained notes.
In that case you may have to cut things by "working bars" (which don't change their tempo too much), then adjust your beat to a steady tempo and then timestretch the cut up things to fit the new tempos bars.
But as said, that's a VERY tough task and the results might be questionable.
In any case you'll be doing way better if you got single tracks and just don't use all the critical things.
In most remixes I've been trying my luck on I've usually been using the vocals only anyways.
My usual method is to reclock a song, then reconstruct the structure "layout-style" (simple groove, simple bass, simple harmonies), then split up the vocal tracks and finally find a good common tempo that I will use all throughout the remix.
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
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- KVRist
- 37 posts since 19 Jan, 2003 from Netherlands
Isn't this a task for the timewarp function (as I recall it was named) in Cubase SX 2.x? I have never used it but it got rave reviews from cubase.net.kingpisser wrote:Hi all,
This is rather complicated, please bear with me.
I'd like to perform remixes of full length songs. I've been unable to do this in Cubase SX, primarily because of slight changes in tempo and inaccurate beat timing on these existing songs ( they are from the 50s and 60s ).
Henny
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 65 posts since 26 Jul, 2001 from Coimbatore, India
Sascha, thanks a lot for your tips. I'm now trying out what you said in SX to extract a tempo map ( works much better than quantising the audio ).
Linde, the Timewarp feature in Cubase rocks for changing tempo, as well as for quickly aligning the tempo map with a steady audio file. It is not of much use when the timing of beats in the audio file is slightly off.
pHz, I'm gonna try out what you recommended in Live as well, if the tempo map thingy in Cubase is unsatisfactory.
Thanks all
Linde, the Timewarp feature in Cubase rocks for changing tempo, as well as for quickly aligning the tempo map with a steady audio file. It is not of much use when the timing of beats in the audio file is slightly off.
pHz, I'm gonna try out what you recommended in Live as well, if the tempo map thingy in Cubase is unsatisfactory.
Thanks all
