Syncing MIDI with Audio

Gtrshop

Gtrshop

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I'm having some difficultly syncing an audio track and a MIDI track. I'm using Presonus Studio One 6.2.
Workflow is something like this... I open a template with my in and out mappings, sample rate etc, and a bunch of empty tracks. Some for Audio some for MIDI.

I import audio tracks to the project ( tempo is set to what it is supposed to be). Tracks all play fine. Now, I drop a MIDI drum track in. I line up the audio tracks with the MIDI tracks on an event (says kick or a snare) in the first bar. It wont take too long before the MIDI track and audio tracks are falling out of sync. I can see the events in the two drum tracks aren't lining up anymore. I can't figure out how to prevent this. It can't be as complicated as I seem to be making it. It would seem obvious to adjust the tempo, but the audio tracks are at the tempo I've set in the project, and the MIDI file will just adapt to whatever tempo I set.
 
The audio tracks. Where have they come from? Recorded to a click the DAW has created, or from somewhere else? My guess is the project is set to a tempo, the MIDI is locked to the project tempo, but your audio tracks are not.
I do quite a bit of creating show tracks, and bring in the original tracks to then re-record. Its very rare to have a track that sticks at one bpm setting.

If the audio tracks you have are generated in your DAW, im stuck with a guess. If they’re from elsewhere, theyre the culprit.

The test would be to take your drum track, zap that out as audio, then import that track back in, align it and see if you get drift. My guess would be you dont, pointing at the audio track.

You'll then have to adjust the tempo, bar on bar to keep sync, and that i can tell you is a totally manual procedure. Cubase, my DAW, has a tempo match facility. And it works on certain genres of music very well. Not mine!
 
rob aylestone said:
The audio tracks. Where have they come from? Recorded to a click the DAW has created, or from somewhere else? My guess is the project is set to a tempo, the MIDI is locked to the project tempo, but your audio tracks are not.
I do quite a bit of creating show tracks, and bring in the original tracks to then re-record. Its very rare to have a track that sticks at one bpm setting.

If the audio tracks you have are generated in your DAW, im stuck with a guess. If they’re from elsewhere, theyre the culprit.

The test would be to take your drum track, zap that out as audio, then import that track back in, align it and see if you get drift. My guess would be you dont, pointing at the audio track.

You'll then have to adjust the tempo, bar on bar to keep sync, and that i can tell you is a totally manual procedure. Cubase, my DAW, has a tempo match facility. And it works on certain genres of music very well. Not mine!
Click to expand...
Hey Rob... my initial post was a bit brief, because otherwise it would have been a novel. LOL. The audio tracks are the raw files from a previous DAW,(Sonar) , not what I'm using now (Studio One). They were recorded with my equipment, I know the particulars of the session(s) - sample rate, etc. If the session was at 154BPM, we'd have had a click from the DAW for that, at least to the drummer.

There's a bigger question/issue that I am trying to find an answer to beyond what I've posted... which has to do with more of my own recorded tracks. But the MIDI part is relevant to both.

I have of the audio drum tracks isolated, and when compared to a MIDI file (admittedly not one I generated) they fall out of sync. So, maybe slight variations in tempo across the song. I'll have to investigate that.
 
Its possible i suppose the midi file is flowing in tempo, but that usually shows in the screen display. You’re left with the problem unresolved. Your midi files, your old audio file but nothing certain. I suggest knocking up a static click recorded as a midi track you can see, with the static bpm, and a quantised click, then zap this out as audio and reimport it as an audio track. Check they stay in time visually and audibly. Then bring in the midi file and see if the click peaks align with the peaks in the track, then bring in your old audio track and look at that. Your two rigid tracks should remain locked and the offending track should be obvious.
 
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