Tempo question

[lapieuvre]

hi,

I just spent an hour creating a tempo map for a rubato song.

Now I realize that the music BEFORE the tempo map was at the wrong tempo. When I change the tempo before, the tempo map that took me an hour to do shifts...

How can I lock the tempo map so it stays aligned with my audio tracks?



Thanks for your help

[DC-Choppah]

I was working on a piece today and had the same issue come up and had to insert some new tempo changes in front of a section that already had a tempo map created using manual bar/beat markers.

What you have to do is create a marker at the original location where the tempo map started. Set this marker to be sample-based - it actually calls it 'absolute'. So now you have an absolute marker at the same location as your first tempo marker. That is how you can keep the alignment in absolute time. That marker won't move.

So as you work in front of this marker you can always see if what are doing changes the alignment of the two and undo anything that moves them apart.

What I do is add some empty time just in front of the original section using insert time. One measure is good. Then add a bar beat marker at the beginning of this empty measure. This isolates the original tempo map section from the stuff in front of it.

Now do what ever you need to in front, just make sure you don't add any bar markers that are greater than your empty measure.

After you get the tempos correct on the left side, and you can see that the two markers have not moved apart, you can just delete the empty bar and everything should be lined up.

If you get more confidence you can skip the part about lining up the first bar/beat with the absolute marker. But I still do it because this stuff is confusing.

[DC-Choppah]

Another thing, when you are working in front of a section where you already have a tempo map built from bar/beat markers, you can make the front section go at a faster tempo without affecting the tempo map in the second section. But if you try to make the first section go slower, then PT will push the second section ahead in real time to preserve your bar/beat markers. That is why your tempo markers moved.

So whenever you need to make slower tempos in front of an existing tempo map you need to add some time in between to make room for what you are doing in front to isolate it first. Line everything up then cut the blank time section.