Can someone explain this tempo behavior?

[madFloyd]

I find myself fighting with the tempo in my song and don't know if I'm encountering a bug or I'm just misunderstanding how it should work.

In the screenshot below I show two tempo points, both at 115.00 yet if you look below at the actual tempo, it's 115.02.

Not only that but during playback it oscillates between 115.02 and 114.96

Any reason for this?

 

[SwitchBack]

What does it say when you hover your mouse over those tempo points? The numbers shown on the tempo track round off to one decimal I think, omitting the 0 when it rounds off to that.

If you want 115 throughout then select all tempo points (select one and click Ctrl-A) and delete, and then type 115 in the status bar below. Or you can right-click individual points and type in the exact bpm value you want.

 

[madFloyd]

What does it say when you hover your mouse over those tempo points? The numbers shown on the tempo track round off to one decimal I think, omitting the 0 when it rounds off to that.

If you want 115 throughout then select all tempo points (select one and click Ctrl-A) and delete, and then type 115 in the status bar below. Or you can right-click individual points and type in the exact bpm value you want.

The points (upon right clicking) show 115.00 (and I've re-entered that value more than once to be sure).

My song varies tempo so I can't just delete all the points.

And of course it doesn't explain why it oscillates.

 

[Lukas]

I can't reproduce this here, but my guess is that it's related to the 6/8 time signature. Tempo values in time signatures other than 4/4 seem to be converted internally, so the displayed tempo is different from the tempo used for internal calculations.

Seems steady here.

 

[SwitchBack]

Or maybe it's the residue of a curved section in there? A little experiment will prove that curve information is still there when tempo points before and after the curve are set to the same value: The line between the two points seems straight, but move one of the points up or down and the curve reappears.

 

[Lukas]

It seems I'm onto something. I'm investigating.

 

[madFloyd]

Or maybe it's the residue of a curved section in there? A little experiment will prove that curve information is still there when tempo points before and after the curve are set to the same value: The line between the two points seems straight, but move one of the points up or down and the curve reappears.

You might be on to something there. It certainly WAS a curve at some point and I was trying to figure out why and how to get it to be a straight line. I even asked the assistant how to straighten it but either I didn't understand the answer or it wasn't quite correct (not sure).

Going to investigate now, thanks!

 

[madFloyd]

You might be on to something there. It certainly WAS a curve at some point and I was trying to figure out why and how to get it to be a straight line. I even asked the assistant how to straighten it but either I didn't understand the answer or it wasn't quite correct (not sure).

Going to investigate now, thanks!

It's no longer a curve, so not sure how relevant that is.

Glad Lukas is looking into it

 

[Gary Shepherd]

I've always felt Studio Pro could do with list editing for tempo. Then you can be more precise - Digital Perfomer has this edit function and it seems a better system and probably less cumbersome than curves and tiny edit points.

 

[SwitchBack]

Horses for courses I guess. I like the tempo curves and the way it lines up with the song, but sometimes a list can be easier to manipulate multiple points...

 

[Sebastian Holtzer]

I encountered this too but i am rebuilding an old project while waiting for a update. what fixed it for me was deleting all points, setting new ones and setting max and low to exactly the values that are beeing used. no issues so far.

 

[lokeyfly]

I find myself fighting with the tempo in my song and don't know if I'm encountering a bug or I'm just misunderstanding how it should work.

In the screenshot below I show two tempo points, both at 115.00 yet if you look below at the actual tempo, it's 115.02.

Not only that but during playback it oscillates between 115.02 and 114.96

Hi MadFloyd, it'll be interesting to see what Lukas finds. Its likely some tracking variable around the decimal and precision. Keep in mind, these are undescernable tempo changes to any human, so while its worth asking, its pretty comforting (to many) that the tempo has seriously good precision. Of course some flanging or bi product anomoly could be discernible to the ear, but that hasn't been discussed as yet.

Your song has these tempo changes, but you might have been trying to correct time or groove feel, by tempo, and not potentially finding the fix by altering squeezing, or compressing the samples or general MIDI groove itself. That I cant say, but given the very small differences here, I am simply offering the alternative or possability.

FWIW, I like the tempo curves a lot, as charted. But some will want a list. Either way, fixes as stated all work. For me, the problem with a list is visibility against actual location. Still, some say toe-mah-toe, and some say toe-may-toe.

 

[madFloyd]

Hi MadFloyd, it'll be interesting to see what Lukas finds. Its likely some tracking variable around the decimal and precision. Keep in mind, these are undescernable tempo changes to any human, so while its worth asking, its pretty comforting (to many) that the tempo has seriously good precision.

Your song has these tempo changes, but you might have been trying to correct time or groove feel, by tempo, and not potentially finding the fix by altering squeezing, or compressing the samples or general MIDI groove itself. That I cant say, but given the very small differences here, I am simply offering the alternative or possability.

FWIW, I like the tempo curves a lot, as charted. But some will want a list. Either way, fixes as stated all work. For me, the problem with a list is visibility against actual location. Still, some say toe-mah-toe, and some say toe-may-toe.

I have no issue with tempo curves, I employ one at the beginning of the song. I mostly have issues trying to make part of the song have a stable tempo. I have the same issues with automation. You have to constantly insert points then use the trim tool to adjust the value (whether it be automation volume or tempo) and often a curve appears when I want a straight line and I have no idea why.

As for my motivation to adjust tempo, my song is a long song (or suite) of tiny songs and the tempo simply needs to change here and there. But besides that I do try to mimic some human 'naturalization' of the tempo (I grew up with music when there weren't click tracks).

I'm guessing my issues are combination of not fully understanding the tempo/automation tools and perhaps some growing pains from having a song started before the tempo changes made in 8.1.

 

[SwitchBack]

I'm guessing my issues are combination of not fully understanding the tempo/automation tools and perhaps some growing pains from having a song started before the tempo changes made in 8.1.

The Tempo track works absolutely brilliantly provided, and this is the tedious bit, that all audio files/events in the song have their correct tempo (map) data associated with them. Especially when you expect to fiddle with tempo and arrangement later on it pays off to tempo map every audio file used in the song which, depending on the situation, may take some painstaking time. Then remember that a lot of time can be saved by keeping tracks that have been recorded together together because the tempo map created for one of them applies to all of them.

Once the tempo data is in (and tracks are set to Timestretch) everything will play to the grid. The most brilliant thing (imho) you can do then is to drag a track from that free tempo session with the nice tempo flow to the tempo track, and the whole song will play to that, audio, midi and all. I love it!