As a tempo guide for musicians I recorded who didn’t have a drummer, I set up a standard kick/snare/hi hat pattern on a midi track triggering the VST Superior Drummer. The kick and snare played quarter notes and the hi hat eighth notes.
During the session, the band wanted to do a take with a faster tempo, So, I changed the tempo in the transport bar. Now, the audio and midi drums are in sync, but the drum hits in the drum editor aren’t on the bars. They are shifted, as you can see in the first image.
Is there a solution, so that the notes are on the bar,like in the second image? I want to produce a more dynamic drum part, but it’s difficult because the notes are between bars.
Musical Mode is activated on both the Audio events and the tracks.
I think this is an issue about/between musical (tempo related) and linear (time related) time base for the audio tracks and the Midi Drum VST track.
However, the manual says “Switching between linear and musical time base results in a very small loss of positioning precision. Therefore you should avoid switching repeatedly between the two modes.” So, I’m hoping your expertise will help me avoid trying things that migh not work and thus affect any loss of positioning.
Musical Mode of the Audio File = after the change of the tempo, the audio file will be stretched, to match the new tempo.
Musical Timebase = All events of the track will start at the same Bars & Beats position, after the tempo change, as the started before the change. The time changes. Also all MIDI event will keep it’s position regarding to the Bars & Beats.
Linear Timebase = All events of the track will start at the same Time position, after the tempo change, as the started before the change. The Bars & Beats changes. All MIDI events will be shifted in Bars & Beats, and will keep the Time position.
So from my point of view, the MIDI track with the drum was in the Linear Timebase, when you made the tempo change.
I changed the tempo before I recorded.So, the band played to the drum track at a tempo of 117 beats per minute. No audio was stretched, the band member, playing to a faster drum tempo, played live to the midi drums…
You can see in the screen cap below where the audio is being played on the downbeat of what is the first bar (measure) of the song to them, but it’s between bars on the timeline because the band was playing to the shifted drum VST notes, which apparently was in Linear Timebase.
Is there anything I can do either to the timeline or to the Midi drum track to sync the audio and the midi to make it look like both start the song on bar 1 of a 4 beat bar and stay together throughout the song through all the bars of the song?
The only explanation I can see is, the MIDI track was in the Linear Timebase, at the moment, when you changed the tempo (for the take with different tempo). Then the MIDI data shifted.
As a Steinberg Certified Training Partner, is it your job to provide me an answer to my question that I asked above and I’ll ask again:
Is there anything at this point I can do either to the timeline or to the Midi drum track to sync the audio and the midi to make it look like the start the song on bar 1 of a 4 beat bar and stay together throughout the song through all the bars of the song?
I am way too busy at this time to go try and answer my question through hours of going through the manual. I need to fix my problem, finish the song and go on to my next client. So, please let me know.
My role is exactly the same as the role of all others. If I have a question, I ask and wait for the replay. If it’s nit clear, then I cooperate. At the other hand, I try to help, if I know an answer to someone else question. Of course, I don’t know everything.
I can see 2 options, here:
Set MIDI Track to the Linear Timebase and all other tracks to the Musical Timebase. Change the tempo back to the original one. Switch the MIDI Track to the Musical Timebase (same as other tracks) and set the tempo back.
Use Time Stretch tool to change the “speed” of the MIDI events.
What do you mean by “sped up”? Do you mean, the length of the note changes? The position in Bars & Beats changed? Then it’s correct. But the time has to be kept. So if the note was 1sec long, it has to be 1sec long even after. If the Note starts at 10sec, it has to start at 10sec even after change of the tempo (but Bars & Beats position will change).
