Tempo changes in CS6?

[music-dude]

Hi there,

Will CS6 allow users to have tempo changes in sessions? 

This is a very common feature that has been missing in Audition but is offered by ever other DAW out there.

Cheers.

[djwayne2000]

Maybe they should eliminate the record enable feature too. After all it's only an editing program now, not for music production.

Sounds to me somebody is just making excuses.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

djwayne2000 wrote:

Maybe they should eliminate the record enable feature too. After all it's only an editing program now, not for music production.

Sounds to me somebody is just making excuses.

No excuses - just reasons, which Durin has explained further - and also the reason that it really wouldn't be that simple to implement. If Audition didn't record, it really wouldn't bother me that much - of necessity I use dedicated hardware for this.

_durin_ wrote:

However, if what you're asking for is Dynamic Metronome to help with changes while recording, that's another matter.  I could certainly see incorporating keyframe parameter adjustment to the Metronome track to trigger changes to click track tempo and time signature.  Right now, it's a session-level property set.  In the meantime, one could set the metronome for their initial settings, make a time selection of 4 bars, and bounce the master to a new track.  Mute this, change your tempo, and repeat.  Loop enable these clips and you'll have a set of metronome "clips" you can drag around as needed to accomodate your changes.  (Be sure to mute or disable the original metronome track after you've made your changes or things are going to get very syncopated, very quickly.)

That makes a lot more sense - a souped-up version of what you might be able to do with a metronome on a multitrack recorder anyway.

[djwayne2000]

Well somebody better tell Roger McGuinn that Audition  isn't music production software.

[Paul_Ferguson]

Hey, Roger - Mr 33 Posts since 2003 wants your attention.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

djwayne2000 wrote:

Well somebody better tell Roger McGuinn that Audition  isn't music production software.

So you've looked at how he uses it, have you? Bet you haven't...

He treats it like a studio multitrack machine - just as I described. Hear a lot of MIDI tracks on what he does, do you?

[djwayne2000]

Point being Audition IS music production software, not just editing software. Midi would only enhance it's capabilities, not detract from it. Apparently Steve you've never worked with midi and do not know how powerful of a tool it can be. With the gorgeous sound sample programs that are available today, midi can be an extremely valuable tool for anyone who is into music production, including radio editors. To turn your back on midi is a big mistake, it should be look at as a goal to achieve. Personally I don't care what you do, I'm covered with Sonar X1 Essentials. To say Audition isn't a music production program is complete BS.

And yes I have worked with Audition as a muti-track recorder. It works just fine. I have no reason to post endless posts about it, because it does work well for me. I haven't had any problems with it, so why post hundreds of posts ??

[djwayne2000]

Steve, here's an example of what I was able to do with midi....

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=8808447&q=hi&newref=1

Without midi, I could have never done this.

[djwayne2000]

Steve, here's one we did using Audition as a multi-track recorder and the drums are all from Loopology.

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=3708255&q=hi&newref=1

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

djwayne2000 wrote:

Point being Audition IS music production software, not just editing software. Midi would only enhance it's capabilities, not detract from it. Apparently Steve you've never worked with midi and do not know how powerful of a tool it can be. With the gorgeous sound sample programs that are available today, midi can be an extremely valuable tool for anyone who is into music production, including radio editors. To turn your back on midi is a big mistake, it should be look at as a goal to achieve. Personally I don't care what you do, I'm covered with Sonar X1 Essentials. To say Audition isn't a music production program is complete BS.

'Apparently' you haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about. Your example proves what has always been the case with MIDI, all the time I've been using it - for best part of the last 20 years. It has no soul. It's not a valuable tool for anything. For a start, it's really old technology, and it's damned for ever to run really slowly, even more so if you try to impart any degree of expression into what you're doing with it. And that's the reason that McGuinn doesn't use it - because he's a musician, not a MIDI manqué. You can just about play one instrument via a keyboard with it - any more and the latency kicks in big time.

The only music I've ever heard that was created by electronic means that had any soul at all was all played manually (on a variety of synths, etc) into a multitrack recorder a track at a time - for instance, go check out 'Switched On Bach' and weep. Just listen to the last movement of Brandenburg 3 ('68 version) - absolutely not possible to perform it like that using MIDI, and never will be because of its severe limitations.

Audition isn't a music creation program - which is what I actually said. If you're going to quote things, try to get them right please.

[ryclark]

Hear,hear.

[djwayne2000]

You obviously don't know what you're talking about. With midi you can play with all the "soul" you want as it records your playing on a keyboard.  It's not just a bunch of notes enetered into a computer. You obviously don't know much about latency either.

Gotta go, I've got things to do.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

djwayne2000 wrote:

You obviously don't know what you're talking about. With midi you can play with all the "soul" you want as it records your playing on a keyboard.  It's not just a bunch of notes enetered into a computer. You obviously don't know much about latency either.

Gotta go, I've got things to do.

It's not often you're right - but this time, you're you're just plain wrong. Latency errors arise simply because it's a serial protocol, and you can't make two notes start at exactly the same time, whatever you do. And these errors get absolutely appalling when it comes to drums. I suggest that you read this SOS article, and bear in mind that the author is attempting to put a good spin on it - in reality for a lot of people, it's worse than he claims.

Whether you like it, or are prepared to admit it, or not, I've probably forgotten more about this than you appear to know...

[Teetow1]

Actually, MIDI is bit of an ambiguous term in this case. It's both the hardware protocol (SteveG's criticism of which is entirely valid) but it's also shorthand for the all-software solution of feeding notes to VST Instruments, where virtually none of the hardware-inherent restrictions (such as latency and polyphony) are applicable. I assume this is what djwayne is talking about.

Anyway, I still think this feature set is a Pandora's box best left unopened. Feature creep is an ugly thing to watch.

[djwayne2000]

Sorry Steve, but you're dead wrong. Goto East West's Sounds Online website and lisen to some of the demo's that are scored with thier sound sample programs using a midi host. They are producing movie soundtracks with this stuff !! Latency is a problem that's been solved many years ago. Do you think sound sample companies could survive if midi didn't work right ?? Hardly. Try listening to some of Ivory's II piano sample programs sometime, they sound fabulous but require a midi host program to operate. Why do you think the most poular music production programs (Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar, Logic, Reaper) host midi ??  Because it works and is a fabulous tool in the right hands. In the wrong hands it's a disaster. Obviously you don't have any midi production skills, or else you wouldn't be making such outlandish statements.

By the way, that Beethoven's 5th example I gave you was done using and old Sonar's Home Studio program. I think I paid $99 for it.

If Adobe wants to compete with the big boys, they've got a lot of catching up to do.

[djwayne2000]

Here's a link to East West's Hollywood Strings sound collection...these demoes were made all with midi and the sound sample program.

http://www.soundsonline.com/Hollywood-Strings

Try doing that in Audition. You'd have to hire an orchestra....do you know what that would cost ?? That's the power of midi.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

djwayne2000 wrote:

Sorry Steve, but you're dead wrong.

No I'm not - Teetow1 has expressed it quite well. And it's one of the reasons that (elsewhere) I expressed the view that having Rewire back might be the way to go. MIDI as a hardware protocol is a disaster area - always has been. Do I know what it costs to hire an orchestra? Yes I do - I record them sometimes, and I have a pretty good idea of how much they cost, and also, compared to any of the libraries available, how much better most of them are. And the concept of 'MIDI production skills' I find laughable - that's about as close to a musical non-sequitur as you can get!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

djwayne2000 wrote:

If Adobe wants to compete with the big boys, they've got a lot of catching up to do.

Er, they are the big boys. Which of the companies making MIDI software is anywhere near as big? Yeah, none of them.

Look, there is no point at all in putting a MIDI sequencer in Audition. It would be just plain inappropriate - a bit like dropping a turd in your gold-plating bath...

[Teetow1]

djwayne2000 wrote:

If Adobe wants to compete with the big boys, they've got a lot of catching up to do.

They shouldn't.

[djwayne2000]

Sorry Steve, but you have thousands of Sonar users who will disagree with you. We all think midi is a great tool to have in our audio toolbox. Now that I know what I can do with midi, I won't give it up. Just my Ivory II program is worth thousands to me. How else could I get a fantastic piano sound short of going out and buying a Steinway, micing it up and having a room for it ?? Midi allows me to do that. How else could I fit  a whole orchestra into my home studio ?? I'm telling ya, there's guys out there that are scoring complete movie soundtracks with midi, and you'll never know the difference. Those big choirs that you hear, do you really think they are real ?? They are mostly sound samples of choirs played with midi.

You'll get a lot more "soul" and realistic playing out of midi than you will using Loopology, yet you still put midi down. What a fool you are.

[_durin_]

Dynamic Tempo Mapping is a feature that is in our feature database backlog, and has been for a long time.  We prioritize it along with everything else during each development cycle and so far it has failed to make it above the cut line.  This isn't because Adobe hates musicians or that video takes priority over everything else, nor does the team have some set criteria to weigh feature priority.  It usually comes down to demand and dependencies. 

Demand comes from this forum, absolutely, but also via email, customer visits, large license-holder requests, other teams and Suites at Adobe, management, industry trends, and our own intuition.  Dependencies, prerequisite features needed before implementing another, are also a critical factor in how a feature is prioritized. 

As an immediate example, our Player - the component of Audition that handles the summing, mixing, and output of audio to devices, treats time and velocity of the playhead as static.  We can change the way the ticks on the the ruler are aligned, but a sample of audio is a sample of audio and plays back at 1/n the sample rate of the session.  To support a dynamic tempo map for playback, our player would either need to adjust the speed of the playead across the timeline but keeping the session UI linear, or maintaining the current playback speed but warping the displayed content so that two identical clips might represent completely different durations.  Now, there may be a more clever, simple way of addressing for the clip-based workflow, but demand has not been high enough to devote time to researching this.  It also doesn't really make sense as a playback mode without a MIDI sequencer implementation to take advantage of it,

However, if what you're asking for is Dynamic Metronome to help with changes while recording, that's another matter.  I could certainly see incorporating keyframe parameter adjustment to the Metronome track to trigger changes to click track tempo and time signature.  Right now, it's a session-level property set.  In the meantime, one could set the metronome for their initial settings, make a time selection of 4 bars, and bounce the master to a new track.  Mute this, change your tempo, and repeat.  Loop enable these clips and you'll have a set of metronome "clips" you can drag around as needed to accomodate your changes.  (Be sure to mute or disable the original metronome track after you've made your changes or things are going to get very syncopated, very quickly.)

[AftersixSeven]

I'm not even a Midi guy, never used it myself, but reading Steve's posts whenever people complain about ''missing features'' with each new release of Audition is hilariously depressing. When Midi is eventually implemented (not half assed), you guys will get what you want, and he'll look for something else that's missing to defend.

For now, just accept it for what it is, and hope in the future (update or completely new version) they'll have more of the basics (as well as advanced features included or not included in traditional DAWs or "audio editing software")

If you're a fan of Audition/Cool Edit, read _Durin_'s posts. Because even when things are missing, he isn't speaking from ignorance.

Like I said, I'm not big on Midi. But DJwayne2000 (and others) has a point that shouldn't be easily dismissed or ignored. Artists all over the internet are hugely into Midi and would completely ignore a program that is weak in that area. For post-work, Mastering, editing, etc... Audition is still perfectly capable. I'm curious to see how well you guys are doing with Audition since the release of CS5.5.

I want to see you guys do well. Despite what happened with CS5.5, I am still a fan. CS6 looks like a major upgrade. And I believe it'll do well. There are a whole lot of artists who need really good Midi to really consider a piece of software. Many respectable forums lead me to believe this is so. No use putting down features/tools (and forum members) just because Adobe hasn't been able to implement them correctly. You risk pushing away a lot of current and potential customers. But you know that.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Well, you'd be entitled to your comprehensively uninformed views. Unfortunately.