Change tempo without adjusting midi note duration

[Janiak]

Hi All,
As quoted from PTLE 6.1 user's guide: (chapter 21)
"Tempo and MIDI and Audio:
When editing or moving tempo events, the Bars:Beats Ruler expands or shrinks, as neces-sary, to accurately reflect the placement of audio regions (which remain constant in terms of sample location). This, in turn, affects the rela-tive placement of MIDI notes, and ensures that the visual relationship between MIDI and audio is accurate. "

OK. This means that midi notes expand or contract in time when you place or move bar or tempo markers. Therefore, any relationship with audio is lost.
Now I want to be able to place bar:beat markers or change tempo WITHOUT PT automatically ajusting (absolute, audio) note duration. I have not found any way to do this. Anyone found a way to handle this? Is there a workaround, other than writing my midi track as audio ?

Thanks all.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

No

MIDI data is tick based and audio data is sample based.

Rail

[Infa]

Well its just a little more work, but after you change your tempo, just go into your midi notes manually and drag the duration back out to where you want them... Realistically for most music, you can just do the first 8 bars, then copy the rest, being careful of your changes (bridges, etc.) and then go do them manually as well....

It really aint that much more work.....

But yet another reason why I don't do Midi anymore, not to mention it's inconsistancys , etc. ---

Well hope this helps --

[Janiak]

No
MIDI data is tick based and audio data is sample based.
Rail

Well, THAT is refreshingly clear...
Tho', one could imagine a function which would allow to compensate MIDI tick duration variations and rescale note durations and starting points accordingly, in order to remain aligned with audio. Feature request!

Are there sequencers which can do that?

Is there a way to do it manually in PT? I am aware of note duration rescaling, but this doesn't rescale starting points. And I dont like to quantize my MIDI data, I want the program to reflect my playing.

Best,
jan

[Infa]

Ahhhh, I see. I didn't know you were ALSO referring to the Starting points, and did not use the grid, for that is how my therory would only work...

Man ,, I see your dillima now... Ohh, I just thought - How about laying all your midi in "Reason" or "Ableton Live", then changing your tempo accordingly ( I think Reason and Ableton Live does what you ask with Midi),, then once you have FOR SURE FINALLY picked the final Tempo that the song is going to be.. Then just import all the midi into Pro Tools.... Will that work ?? Have you thought of that already ? If so,, well sorry - But those 2 things would be my only suggestions

Hope that helps --

[Janiak]

Well, thanks for your suggestions,

I never messed with Ableton Live of Reason, so I'm gonna have to check that out.
I suspect, though, that as my compositions are not loop-based and sometimes very "rubato" (irregular tempo), loops will no do.

But for the time being, the only solution I see is to be very clean and avoid mixing midi editing and audio editing. For example, if I start from an audio track (say vocals) on which I would like to add midi Keyboard and edit the midi later (needing the grid and tempo and bars and all the stuff), the process turns out to be as following:
1. place audio on track
2. spot upbeats on the audio, for example by moving audio beats on a (manual) audio click track
3. then identify beats (apple-i) and place the bars, thus defing the tempo
4. then only record midi, and edit it.

and from step 3. on I will be stuck with the bar markers as they are ; if I move them, I mess up the midi.

But if anybody sees a way to add flexibility to the process, suggestions are welcome!

Best,

Jan

[lnl]

hi Janiak,

Maybe you should have a look at Melodyne (do a Google on it), they have a free trial. You can do incredible things with that program, like aligning midi and audio, quantizing audio and a lot more. Perhaps useful related to your issue.

Cheers!