Have Click Tracks, Need Tempos

C

Chickenlips

New member
Hi everybody.

I made click tracks using Sonar Producer, then my computer crashed. So I have the click tracks in MP3 format, but I lost the project files. I need to somehow reconstruct the project files from the MP3s, because some of them still require editing.

In Producer X3, I tried importing the MP3s and using AudioSnap to get my tempos back, but it's not working. The wild tempo variations and buildups in certain sections are confusing AudioSnap, I reckon.

The transients are extremely clear, and every sound is a beat, because these are indeed click tracks. Does anybody know a way I can force the tempo to match each beat to every single transient? without trying to force some kind of "average tempo". If you know of a way using Cakewalk, great. But I'm willing to try other programs if it works.

Thanks in advance for your ideas.
 
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If the entire song is the same BPM, then just edit the MP3 so only a simple section of the music/drums is used and let audiosnap use that simplified version of the track to derive the bpm.
 
The entire song is DEFINITELY NOT the same BPM.

" The wild tempo variations and buildups in certain sections are confusing AudioSnap"

But I appreciate that _someone_ replied. Thank you.
 
When you made the click tracks in Sonar originally, did you use 'wild tempo variations' or did you use a constant BPM for the tracks?

I'm guessing that you used a constant BPM, and that the wild variations are just AudioSnap not knowing how to interpret the song beats.
 
He is saying that he had songs that had tons of time and tempo changes all tempo mapped.

He has an audio file with the click track made from the tempo map.

He wants to use that audio file to rebuild the tempo map, because his computer crashed and he no longer has the sessions.

I would love to help him, but I have never seen sonar producer 3.
 
Farview said:
He is saying that he had songs that had tons of time and tempo changes all tempo mapped.

He has an audio file with the click track made from the tempo map.

He wants to use that audio file to rebuild the tempo map, because his computer crashed and he no longer has the sessions.

I would love to help him, but I have never seen sonar producer 3.
Click to expand...

IF that were the case (unconfirmed) he could still apply my advice and segregate each section where the tempo changes in that click track, run the audiosnap app on each section individually to determine its bpm.

Chickenlips: A "click track" shouldn't produce transients as it's only creating a single sound at an interval.

It also appears you can manually nudge the beat markers to get the mapping corrected...

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X3&language=3&help=AudioSnap.07.html
 
The audio click IS the transient he is talking about.

His problem is that the function that detects the bpm is attempting to assign a single bpm for the whole song. This works poorly in a song with multiple tempos.

This used to happen to me a lot. The drummer would map out the tempos on a drum machine, record it, then come in to the studio and hand me the wav file with a clave or cowbell pounding out the tempo.

I would then have to take that and build a tempo map in nuendo to match that audio file.
 
Farview said:
This used to happen to me a lot. The drummer would map out the tempos on a drum machine, record it, then come in to the studio and hand me the wav file with a clave or cowbell pounding out the tempo.

I would then have to take that and build a tempo map in nuendo to match that audio file.
Click to expand...

Yuck.

I assumed his use of transient was to describe undesired/wanted detections, like might happen if a 'click track' was actually a full drum track and the mapping software was trying to make sense of odd hi hat embellishments, for example. I rarely use these functions because, as we're seeing, they're generally flawed. Compositionally I'd have access to all BPMs all the time. This being an exception (recovery of project data) it's unfortunate this has to be the process.

Back again to dividing up the track and getting the bpm for each part individually.
 
Pinky said:
I assumed his use of transient was to describe undesired/wanted detections, like might happen if a 'click track' was actually a full drum track and the mapping software was trying to make sense of odd hi hat embellishments, for example. I rarely use these functions because, as we're seeing, they're generally flawed. Compositionally I'd have access to all BPMs all the time. This being an exception (recovery of project data) it's unfortunate this has to be the process.
Click to expand...
He said "The transients are extremely clear, and every sound is a beat, because these are indeed click track", which I took to mean that he was bewildered as to why the function couldn't detect every single click accurately.

Pinky said:
Back again to dividing up the track and getting the bpm for each part individually.
Click to expand...
Probably the only way to do it, unless there is something simple that will just do it automatically. Nuendo has a feature that was designed to extract a tempo map from a song, so that you could tempo warp other audio in time with it. It works fairly well on extracting the groove from an old 70's R&B tune, it works brilliantly on a cowbell playing 1/8 notes. I was assuming that there was a similar function in Sonar.
 
Life is so much easier when you have backups, and then a safety copy of the backups....isn't it? :)
 
Farview said:
Probably the only way to do it, unless there is something simple that will just do it automatically. Nuendo has a feature that was designed to extract a tempo map from a song, so that you could tempo warp other audio in time with it. It works fairly well on extracting the groove from an old 70's R&B tune, it works brilliantly on a cowbell playing 1/8 notes. I was assuming that there was a similar function in Sonar.
Click to expand...

Audiosnap is their version. I recall using Nuendo for some midi stuff, good software. IMO Cakewalk's midi functions are fine, just not robust enough for apparently anything you throw at it. All the built in arpeggiation, snapping, randomizing, transposing, etc work well.

I probably needed to read his statements with more obviousness (was reading too much into things or assuming what was there wasn't actually the case).
 
Thanks for your advice, guys! Farview, you read and understood my words correctly. Exactly.

Yes, I could try dividing the song into sections and detect the tempos that way. But, first of all, it's very time consuming. Like I said - so many tempo changes! Sometimes small subtle ones, like for a fermata. And even with being able to nudge the beats to match the transients, it doesn't always work perfectly ... if you guys know of better software, I think I should try that before continuing with Sonar.

Another problem, though, is when the tempos build up. I can isolate and "beat-detect" (whatever it's called) those section, but the building tempo will simply not be detected when the software wants to assign one constant tempo for everything in an audio clip.

To ido1957: Yes, my computer fix-it guy and I tried that. All my 1's and 0's have been lost beyond recovery! Thanks anyways.

To everybody: thanks for your advice and help! Like I said, I might try different software. A friend suggested 'Studio One' as an alternative to CakeWalk. Farview mentioned Nuendo (never heard of it). Any other ideas for my unique problem?

Thanks again FarView for reading my post and understanding that _I_meant_exactly_what_I_said_. There were no hidden messages or wild mistakes in my post.

And to MiroSlav: Yep. Water under the bridge now. Spilled milk. But also, seriously; who makes backups every day, especially when the computer is running fine?
 
Nuendo is the fancy version of cubase.

Make sure that there isn't some setting that is making the tempo all the same. In mine, there is a switch to toggle between a single tempo and a tempo map. If I have it set to single tempo, it will ignore the map.
 
I do this in Protools all the time.
For example if I'm doing a cover version, or building a session around a live performance, I'll map out a variable click to match the song.
The only reason for doing it that it makes adding midi instruments a whole lot easier when you've got a grid to work to.

It takes about 5 minutes per song or so. Not that big a deal.


Hmmm...When you import a midi file in to your DAW does it ask you if you want to import tempo changes too?
If so, maybe I could take your audio, map tempo changes, then export a blank midi file as a means of sending you them tempo change data?

If you bounce the audio from 00:00:00 and import the midi to the same, it should work.
 
YesI can definitely get the tempos from a MIDI to make new click tracks.
Big thanks. Sooner the better, as we only have 3 more rehearsals before recording, to try out the new click tracks .
 
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