Synching Imported Sound to your Rhythm -- Measure twice, cut once

[Ted]

Synching imported sound to a song's rhythm is, I imagine, infinitely easier when you have a graphical user interface—unlike the Micro BR.

I've struggled with this several times, with trial and error.  Recently, however, I relearned the old adage:

Measure twice, cut once. 

It was glorious.

I had sent Satchwood a backing track for Old King, but I had trimmed off the first couple of measures where the count-in had been.  Of course, when he sent me back his guitar parts, the beginning of the files did not match up with measure 001-1-00 of the song in the Micro BR.

That's

[Measure]-[Beat]-[100ths Beat]
  001    -  1   -      00

When I imported the track to the song, I made my best guess at putting the guitar where it belonged.

But when I listened to it, it was still off by more than a measure.  So I would have to move it.  I prepared myself for a long session of micro moves until I got it exactly right.

I played the song and tapped along, and figured out that the guitar part was four-and-a-half beats late.  It came in on 004-2-00, but it was supposed to come in on 002-4-50 (on the upbeat of four of the second measure).

The solution is to move the entire part four-and-a-half beats.

Click on any image to biggify.

	I sketched out what needed to be done. I decided to begin a full beat before the guitar started, just to make sure I didn't cut off any sound.  So the move I wanted was:
	Start Meas  004-1
	End Meas    070-1 (beyond the end of the song)
	To Meas     002-4-50 Oops!  See that "-50?" That would be the upbeat of four.  But the Micro BR doesn't allow you to move by MEA (measure) to anything but a quarter note. So I had to figure out how to move by TIM (time), which meant I had to accurately convert those measures and beats to their time equivalents. The start and end were easy, because the were on quarter notes. Start Meas  004-1 = 00:00:08-17.1 End Meas    070-1 = 00:03:17-04.2 I wrote them down.
	But when you are in the Play mode, you can't cursor to or manipulate the 100th beats.  Grrr...
	So I cursored to the thousandth of a second, and clicked the value up until the measure-beat-100th beat read 002-4-50, and again I wrote down the time equivalent. To Meas     002-4-50 = 00:00:05-11.3
	This allowed me to move the track by time. I checked my conversions--measure twice--and then I gave it a shot.
	St     00:00:08-17.1
	En     00:03:17-04.2
	To     00:00:05-11.3
	To my delight, it worked perfectly the first time!  Cut once! "To my delight" is an understatement.  I believe I said "What the fuck!" right out loud in a public place. When you listen to Old King, you hear the result.

This is my 200th post, so I thought I'd make it special.

[Greeny]

Nice work Ted! It's very satisfying when things work out like that. I've had a few miracle moments myself as I've got to grips with the BR. And congratulations on your 200th post.

[Ted]

Nice work Ted! It's very satisfying when things work out like that. I've had a few miracle moments myself as I've got to grips with the BR.

I got this sage advice when I was shopping for a micro recorder:  "Do your research, and stick with what you buy."

You have to live with any device (or software) for awhile before you have these revealations--no manual, DVD, or forum posting can give them to you.

It's moments like this when I realize how high would be the cost of switching to another recorder.  It's the investment of the time that you lose when you switch devices, or when you choose devices poorly.

[Pedro]

Great tutorial, Ted!

You found a very ingenious way of doing this.

[guitarron]

that sort of cut and paste in the mbr can be somewhat tedious
that is quite a lesson in perservance and patiece-i tend to resort to using a DAW for such tasks
nice tutorial

[Sprocket]

This is my 200th post, so I thought I'd make it special.

Ive done "how tos" with pics for forums in the past...its always difficult to actually do it, take photos...and then to get it right...then uploading the pics, posting the pics and then typing it all out.

Very special indeed, thanks!
And BTW, very smart...you refused to let it beat you, and youve outsmarted the MBR!

[Ted]

Ive done "how tos" with pics for forums in the past...its always difficult to actually do it, take photos...and then to get it right...then uploading the pics, posting the pics and then typing it all out.

One of the things that I do for a living is document technical step-by-step instructions, so doing this is mostly second nature to me. The HTML to SMF Code Converter makes it even easier.

[Oldrottenhead]

my head hurt reading that ted, i use a daw every time, at least you can see the wav pattern so its pretty easy to sync things on the pc.

[Ted]

When I made this glorious achievement I was at a coffee house, happily nowhere near my computer.

my head hurt reading that ted, i use a daw every time, at least you can see the wav pattern so its pretty easy to sync things on the pc.

Hush, siren of the DAW.  I know of your intention to enslave me to forever stare into the glowing rectangle.  But I shall repel you with my magic silver brick!

[Oldrottenhead]

but i too have a magic silver brick varlet, with my silver brick and daw combined hahahaha i will rule the world .yah hahahaha yah hahaha                       chortle chortle                               guffaw guffaw