Import Stems with Mismatching Tempo

[Raphaeld]

I have a master session that has a few measures of 84 bpm for the intro then it jumps to 87 for the rest of the song.

I provided a backing track mix to a client who imported it into a PT file and sang a LV to it. The file’s tempo was 120 (yes, I should have thought this out better).

I now need to import the session data (one track w/playlists) for the LV into my master session and I’m at a loss. The timing is all off. For example, even though verse 1 is aligned and in time, verse 2 is way late because it thinks it’s at 120. If I manually line up verse 2 it’s in time. I could manually fix this for the comp and all the playlists but I was wondering if there’s a better way.

I’ve been at it for a few hours and I’m banging my head against the wall.

Any ideas? Thank you

[Tweakhead]

Originally Posted by Raphaeld

I have a master session that has a few measures of 84 bpm for the intro then it jumps to 87 for the rest of the song.

I provided a backing track mix to a client who imported it into a PT file and sang a LV to it. The file’s tempo was 120 (yes, I should have thought this out better).

I now need to import the session data (one track w/playlists) for the LV into my master session and I’m at a loss. The timing is all off. For example, even though verse 1 is aligned and in time, verse 2 is way late because it thinks it’s at 120. If I manually line up verse 2 it’s in time. I could manually fix this for the comp and all the playlists but I was wondering if there’s a better way.

I’ve been at it for a few hours and I’m banging my head against the wall.

Any ideas? Thank you

1. Open the session your friend sent you back, and save a session copy as "export" or something. (I'm assuming he sang the vocal in time with your backing track, so ignore the incorrect tempo value in his session.)
2. Place your backing track above the vocal track in the Edit Window.
3. Select the entire waveform of your backing track.
4. Change the vocal track below it to "Playlists" View instead of "Waveform" View.
5. Make sure the little a-z button in the top+right of the Edit Window is yellow. (ie. Command-Focus Mode On)
6. Press the ; key to move your selection down to the first vocal take (make sure it's highlighted)
7. Press Shift + Option + 3 (not the numeric keypad #3) to render the audio for that playlist to match the length of your backing track.
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 for each subsequent take of vocal.
9. Save. Close session.
10. Open your original master session, and import the consolidated vocal WAV files into your master session starting at the same original mixdown range position.

[Dizzi45Z]

Open the session at 120. Change all of the tracks to sample based (most important step) and switch the vocal track with the playlists to playlist view. Close the session and then import the vocal and the backing track into your session. Now highlight the imported backing track with the vocal track and all the playlists and love them until they are lined up as close as possible to your session.

[Raphaeld]

Using both methods allowed me to pull all the track data into my main session. After import, changing it to ticks allows it to respond to the tempo ruler properly.

Then I tried Melodyne ARA. When I loaded it into Melodayne ARA the timing was still perfect allowing me to edit it. I’m using 2023.3 which makes Melodyne-ARA sensitive to the tempo based on the ruler when sent to ticks. That all worked as advertised.

So all is good. I can get back to making music. Thank you both for your quick replies.