Subject:Time stretching/loop sync issues

Posted by: krugerm1

Date:3/3/2002 2:17:32 AM

Hello

I am currently using a pent 4,1700mhz,512mb,dual hard drive, solely for recording purposes. No AOL or word processing on this system. I have been slowly losing faith in Sonic Foundry. 1st with Vegas being a joke(good concept aweful time stretching), then by the lack of CD architect upgrades, and now by ACID. It seems to me that ACID is more of a toy rather than a professional tool. It really pains me to say this.
I am currently creating midi tracks in Sonar and then recording them to audio, and editing and converting them to ACID loops using Sound Forge. Well my problem arose after recording everything perfectly looped in ACID at 132 BPM. I wanted to add some snare rolls so I used my MC505 and recorded some loops at 132BPM 32 beats in length. Well after editing the snare roll loops and setting the properties in Sound Forge I realized that the snare roll loops were terribly off beat with all my loops. It seems that the MC505 tempo is slightly off according to Sound Forge and ACID. Strange but ACID should sync the loop up anyways right ? Wrong. It seems that ACID doesn't sync up snare rolls for some reason. I have tried everything. Spent 3 hours on this.
I found out that the actual snare roll tempo is 130.7 according to ACID. Sound Forge lists the tempo as 132.1 This is strange. Anyhow if I slow the project tempo down from 132 BPM to 130.7 then all my loops sync up to the snare roll. But doing this I then get sound degredation.
Also when creating the Acid properties in Sound Forge they don't seem to keep once you bring them up in ACID. What good is this ?
I thought ACID was much better from when I played around with ACID Pro 2. However I didn't start working seriously with it until now, and I am using ACID Pro 3f. Did ACID get worse as it went to version 3 ?
I am not trying to bash Sonic Foundry but they should really try to concentrate on the quality. There close. But not quite there. However Sound Forge is pretty good for editing. Not sure on effects or mastering yet since I haven't mastered on there yet. They should concentrate on there music software not this video stuff or all the other things there getting into. I can't imagine any Pro's matching up snare rolls in ACID. They must be using MAC's or outboard gear. In fact most of them use MAC's. Any suggestions to my problem or advice on snare rolls are appreciated.

Thanks,

Swayne Solo

Subject:RE: Time stretching/loop sync issues

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:3/3/2002 10:47:17 AM

I'm not having any problems creating and ACIDizing guitar loops in Sound Forge and using them in ACID. That might be because I'm not too fussy about tempo if it's just a little off when I go to use the ACIDizing tools.

Have you tried using Process>Time Stretch on the menu bar within Sound Forge? This usually produces great results especially if you don't stray far from the original tempo. (Be sure to pick the right mode and specify "Tempo" under "Input format" before trying anything.)

HTH,
Iacobus

Subject:RE: Time stretching/loop sync issues

Reply by: krugerm1

Date:3/3/2002 4:13:29 PM

Thanks for the advice. I will work a little more with Soundforge. Being that I plan on submitting my stuff to some record labels everything has to be perfect. I don't have any problems with my other loops staying on beat. Its just my snare rolls get screwed up by the timestretching in acid.

Swayne

Subject:RE: Time stretching/loop sync issues

Reply by: spesimen

Date:3/5/2002 12:26:29 PM

maybe the timestretching isn't actually turned on for your snare loops. try changing the track type to loop instead of beatmatched or one-shot. the behavior you are describing occurs when a one-shot sample is at a different tempo than the song - it won't get stretched.

there shouldn't be any issue with matching loops from different tempos espeicially if they have the same number of beats (and/or multiples of that).

Subject:RE: Time stretching/loop sync issues

Reply by: krugerm1

Date:3/5/2002 10:44:09 PM

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I have tried it as a loop originally and for some reason I just couldn't get it to match with all the other loops. I even re edited the snare loop many times. Since the snare loop was very close to the project tempo it worked better as a one shot but I didn't want to use it as so. I will see if I can figure it out again later this week when I have time.
But for now I used Cakewalk to midi my snare roll from my MC505 into Sonar and it is completely on beat with my other tracks. Worse comes to worse I will just record everything in Sonar. I just like the looping controls of ACID so hopefully I can see if ACID doesn't like Snare rolls or it is just my luck. If you do dance music try editing some snare rolls and bringing them into ACID.

Thanks,

Swayne

Subject:RE: Time stretching/loop sync issues

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:3/6/2002 1:34:25 AM

Just had a thought:

What if you tried capturing just one snare hit and save it as a One-shot, then arrange the snare hit using the ACID's Paint Tool in conjunction with the CTRL key and the various grid spacing settings (alas, you can only go down to 32nd notes), paint whatever you need for one or two measures, and then render or bounce down the result using CTRL+M?

(This is how I usually compose my percussion tracks, minus the bouncing down part unless I feel lazy. Want a sample? Email me.)

Iacobus

Subject:RE: Time stretching/loop sync issues

Reply by: Erik_Nygaard

Date:3/7/2002 5:50:44 AM

Generally most human-played drumloops vary a bit in tempo
like 120,1 or 119.8 etc if you set them as loops in Soundforge.
Remember to open the Acid tool, set the file to the correct type,
hit OK and save.
Usually I set fills etc to beatmapped at the correct tempo
whenever they are not a full measure.