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MIDI Tempo from Audio


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Is there any software out there that can take an audio clip, even if it's just drums, and generate what would essentially end up being a tempo track for a MIDI sequence? I'm not talking about something real time for live. Say I have an entire drum track for a song where it's pretty tight, but drifts just enough to not be able to lock it up to a MIDI sequence. In the world of matching audio and midi in one project, it would be nice for editing purposes to have a tempo track so that anything MIDI would sync up. Of course the obvious answer is to start with a click track but we don't want to do that. To this point I've just been recording my parts as audio. But there have been times when we decide a patch needs some editing and I have to record it all over. If it was recorded as MIDI, I could make edits to patches, effects, etc and keep the good take. This is going to be big in this next song at the end when there's a big symphonic part coming up and I'd like to be able to edit articulations of individual instruments in the composition without having to re-record each one every time I want to make the slightest change.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I think Digital Performer can create a tempo map from a drum track, though I'm not sure. If DP can do it I would think the other major DAWs should be able to. I've never looked for this functionality but I do remember having to create a tempo map to a live track where the tempo was not exactly steady. It's not hard, just a little slow & ponderous as you have to insert tempo change events at the right time to keep things locked. Basically you find the tempo to start the track so it's locked up, then as soon as you hear drifting you back up a bar or two and insert a tempo event to either speed up or slow down a tiny bit. It takes a lot of trial & error to get the right values but of course you only need to do this once.

 

[EDIT - forget this, see later posts!! ha ha]

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In Logic I have imported a freely played audio file.

I then create a MIDI track and tap along to it.

Then tell Logic that I am tapping quarter notes or eighth notes or whatever and tell it that's the tempo map.

And the grid now matches the freely played audio track.

I found this route vastly more successful than using beat detective type functions which are more geared toward time stretching audio clips to conform to a specific tempo.

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

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Cubase can do it.

 

Yes, in my tests it works quite reliably for percussive tracks.

 

Dan, have a look at Cakewalk by BandLab. It also does tempo detection and is free. It's not as good as Cubase in my tests, but on drum parts will likely need very little editing.

 

CakewalkAudioSnap.jpg

471.jpg.cf7c6841013821eb712595d1e0726543.jpg

DigitalFakeBook Free chord/lyric display software for windows.
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Ya, that looks very much like beat detective in Pro Tools. Logic can do it too.

I think they all do this now.

Works great on drum tracks because the attacks make nice clear transients.

You can add and remove them, and use audio stretching to quantize audio like MIDI.

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

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Oh jeez, I totally forgot about creating a tempo map in DP!! Yes, you just tap a key on the computer keyboard or a note on a midi keyboard. Tap along to the live track and that's it. It's been such a long time, I'm not sure if I just forgot this feature or maybe it wasn't implemented yet. The other way, as others noted here, is for the program to look at drum transients to make the tempo map. You definitely don't have to do what I described in my 1st post in this thread, not anymore anyway.
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