Freely played MIDI: How toadjust timing of overdubbed parts?

Hi -

Can I ask for some advice please?

I have a song that is freely played on MIDI piano - some significant slow downs, pauses, etc. I’ve used TimeWarp to to tweak the timing of this part (not to flatten it completely, but just to fix some timing errors to make it more “musical”). So now it’s freely-played, and has a click track that follows it perfectly. Just to clarify, because of all the tempo changes, it is about as far from “quantizing” as one can get.

Next, on a separate track, I’ve overdubbed a MIDI horn part on top of the MIDI piano part. As it turns out (surprise, surprise!), I’m a little bit off on the timing of the horn part, relative to the freely played MIDI piano part. So, I’d like to adjust the timing of the horn part to to the tempo of that freely played MIDI piano - so the horns are on the click track as well, for example.

That’s where I’m stuck - what’s the best way to make the horn part follow the piano part? I’ve tried using the MIDI editor to move around the notes in the horn part, but it doesn’t work well at all, it gets all out-of-timing sounding. If it were audio, I’d just use AudioWarp on the horns, but since it’s MIDI I’m not really sure the best way to go.

Thanks for any help!

Have a look at “Merge Tempo from Tapping” under the Midi menu / Functions.
Create a separate percussion track to tap to (any sharp percussion should do, cowbell or snare rim-click) the original piano track and then see if the horn part will lock / quantise to that satisfactorily.

Conman - thanks for your answer!

I’m not sure how to do what you suggest though … isn’t “Merge Tempo from Tapping” a way of creating a tempo track, rather than locking/merging a MIDI track to an existing tempo track? When I’ve used it in the past, I’ve only used it to create a tempo track, and when I looked it up, I didn’t see how I could get it to merge the new MIDI track to the existing beat (p. 469 C6 manual).

Am I missing the obvious (50/50 odds, I’d guess …)? How do I get the horn part to lock/quantise to the piano part?

Thanks for explaining!

  1. Are you happy with the piano part, and its timing?
  2. You say you are also happy with the click track now (so your piano track sounds o.k. when you switch on Cubase’s metronome?)
    If “yes” to #1 and #2, then you can simply quantize your o/dub’d horn part.

Thanks, vic_france!

1), and 2) are correct.

But when I quantized, I could only see how to quantize MIDI note beginnings, lengths, or ends. Trying each of those options never did sound quite right (I haven’t said yet, but the horn part is not single “stabs”, but more like runs up and down).

I think that’s because what want I to hear is to “stretch” the entire MIDI horns track to match the metronome click=MIDI piano timing. I’m thinking perhaps simply adjusting note start, length, or finish points isn’t quite the same as “stretching”. Or, perhaps I’m not just understanding how to use the MIDI quantize functions effectively …

Thanks for any further hints, conman, vic_france, or others :smiley:. If there’s no other option, I’m fine with just rendering the horn track to audio, and using AudioWarp to tweak it into place.

:open_mouth: What other part of the note would you expect to be able to quantize??

Trying each of those options never did sound quite right (I haven’t said yet, but the horn part is not single “stabs”, but more like runs up and down).
I think that’s because what want I to hear is to “stretch” the entire MIDI horns track to match the metronome click=MIDI piano timing. I’m thinking perhaps simply adjusting note start, length, or finish points isn’t quite the same as “stretching”. Or, perhaps I’m not just understanding how to use the MIDI quantize functions effectively …

  1. How fast are the runs? (and do you want to actually quantize the notes within them?)
  2. If you played the horn part to the piano backing, why would you need to stretch it? (you’d only consider doing that if the last note was way later or earlier than intended)
  3. Are you sure you shouldn’t simply rerecord the horn part? (with Cubase’s metronome “on”)

btw, you can in fact stretch MIDI, in the Project window, by setting the Select tool to “Sizing Applies Time Stretch”, and then dragging the bottom corner of the MIDI Part.

Thanks, vic_france - as usual, your response is uber-helpful -

… MIDI note > beginnings, lengths, or ends> . > :open_mouth: > What other part of the note would you expect to be able to quantize??

None, really! But there are enough notes that I think I would get old(er) quantizing each of them.

  1. If you played the horn part to the piano backing, why would you need to stretch it? (you’d only consider doing that if the last note was way later or earlier than intended)

“Stretch” wasn’t the best word, sorry. I played the horn part a bit sloppier than I wanted to, so I was looking for the MIDI equivalent of AudioWarp.

Based on what you’ve said, I’ll either re-record, or render to audio/Audiowarp the part. I’ll also take a look at the “sizing applies time stretch” option, but I think it might be meant for a different situation than here.

Thank you everybody!

Have you opened the horn part in the MIDI Key Editor? (a bit of manual tweaking will probably help in choosing the best quantize settings).

Yes, thanks - 1st thing I did (1 trick pony that I am). I’ll re-look at that with an eye towards Q, though -

Thanks -

You tap along (on a new percussion track which can be discarded after the tempo track is created) as the piano track is playing, keeping time with the piano tracks live variations (I take it that quantise was off). If Quant was off then when you’ve created your tempo track by “Merge tempo from tapping” it will naturally be matching to the piano track. Then any midi track will follow the new tempo track.
I use this method under live audio tracks all the time and sometimes the odd midi track where I don’t want to be metronomic. And when done you do have to turn on an appropriate quantise value so all your tracks play ball. You may have to try a few different quantise settings to find out what your timing “outness” is (I rarely find musicians are randomly out and are usually predictable where they bend timing) and find the right quantise for you or the part. It will not always be perfect and you may have to go into the midi editor to tweak odd notes into shape.
Once you get the hang of it the routine becomes fairly rapid.

To address the original topic heading I suggest either moving the overdubbed part to a later empty part of the track or muting it so it doesn’t distract you. Then move it back and apply the quantise it will / should follow from the tempo track.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration, Conman :smiley: ! I will take this to the computer tonight and work through it with my project open.