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Emergeny tempo issue

Posted

Hi,
I'm working on a score with a scratch track due tomorrow.

I have the video in Ableton Live and I'm setting the tempo using the cues. The cues themselves work fine.

When the tempo changes in Synfire the audio track in live skips forward. The audio track is not set to warp. The audio just jumps forward when the tempo changes.

I'm linking the two by rewire.

Any thoughts on how I can get this working correctly?


Mi., 22.07.2009 - 21:02 Permalink

In testing more extreme tempo shift it is clear that the the audio jumps severely.

If it is set to warp then the tempo of the audio bends ways out of proportion.

Obviously when scoring to picture neither of these are remotely workable.

Mi., 22.07.2009 - 21:28 Permalink

Here is what I think the the issue is, but I don't know how to solve it.

The transport is playing 120bpm at bar 5 we are 8 seconds into the audio clip.

The tempo changes to 240BPM.

Live is now referencing the time it would expect the audio to be at had it been at 240BPM from the start. Live is unaware that the BPM was ever 120BPM because it is given the tempo on the fly. It does not know that from bar 1-4 the tempo is 120.

So at bar 5 we are not 8 seconds into it but 4 seconds. The audio jumps backwards becuase Synfire syncs to the bar not to the time.

I'm scrambling to see If I have a install of my full version of Chaingang. Hopefully it works in Windows 7. If it works, then i can run it on mtc from synfire.

Perhaps Synfire needs a built in video transport if it is going to use rewire and still be a functional scoring tool. Else we are completely dependent on Chaingang which is known to be a little flakey.

If Synfire were to get a video transport, perhaps the audio could be sent to the DAW through the rewire connection.

p.s. I had noticed this in Nuendo before but I didn't understand why. I am sure it is a problem in every sequencer dealing with audio while receiving tempo changes from Synfire with rewire.

Mi., 22.07.2009 - 22:16 Permalink

[quote]In testing more extreme tempo shift it is clear that the the audio jumps severely.

Hm. Synfire just sends the tempo changes following the ReWire protocol. If the audio jumps, that's a DAW issue (I would rather like it to see it working, but can't change it).

Would disabling tempo change messages over ReWire in Synfire help? That would be an easy workaround. I mean, video doesn't need to know them anyway. They're just for the music.

Mi., 22.07.2009 - 23:14 Permalink

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I've switched back to using mtc with ableton and SO FAR it seems to be working well enough. It will get me through this little deadline.

I understand the problem is really on their side, or rather that rewire isn't a very workable solution in the long run.

If the Tempo changes aren't transmitted, then the grid in the daw will not line up with the events, which makes it pretty inconvenient for audio editing. If it has the tempo, I don't see how it can avoid the issue I described.

The only advantage I see to rewire sans tempo is if MTC is not a reliable sync but there aren't many occasions where I need to listen to a single play through of an hour of material. Starting and stopping resets the sync and should work fine. Rewire by in large has been buggy so Im happy not to have to use it.

I don't foresee DAW's getting any more intelligent about their rewire implementation in the near future (by keeping track of what tempo changes happen where and storing them to avoid this problem)

I'm not fond of music at a static tempo, so it seems for the time being Synfire will not be able to work with the DAW audio. I am glad I can at least score to a single audio track now, and potentially record rough bits here and there.

Eventually I would love to lose the DAW altogether but I know that is a tall order and probably far off.

Again thank you for the prompt reply

Do., 23.07.2009 - 00:14 Permalink

You might want to try the two different options generally available when slaving to MTC, etc. Your DAW should have options between "Trigger and Freewheel" and "Full Chase Lock" (or something similar.)

The two can have different tendencies depending on what you are doing.