Mixcraft6 : How to do a gradual tempo change?

[JonInc]

Hi,

Say I want to apply Ritardando (gradual slowdown) over a six bar phrase -- how would I go about doing this?

Coming from other DAWs, I guess I'm used to seeing some sort of tempo automation, where the change is put in via a numeric range or drawn in an envelope.

I've been through the MC6 manual twice, and the only tempo based topics I see have to do with time-stretching loops (At least, the instructions seem to focus that way). Should I be reading up on FlexAudio for what I need to do?

Or, is there another way I'm just missing?

Thanks.

[Acoustica Eric]

Flex Audio is not for this sort of thing, I don;t think there's a way to do this other than adding a bunch of tempo markers.
I will submit the idea for an enhancement.

[JonInc]

Ah, okay.

Hope this gets implemented soon. It's a fairly basic and common function.

Thanks for the quick response.

[GrizzKarizz]

This would make a great feature!

I've always just wigged it. But adjusting the tempo in the midi instruments and just played slower in those parts by turning off the metronome when I want to slow the tempo. Much like what I would do if recording with a band, as naturally as possible.

Chris

[Scythe]

agreed! being married to only mixcraft I had no idea one could even do this or that it was fairly common in other DAWS!
makes sense though.
please implement it in the next update?

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion!

For now, give it a try with tempo markers and see how you like the results.

Greg

[freightgod]

Does anyone know if this feature is being implemented in MIxcraft 7? I am working on a project now with several tempo changes, a couple will be gradual like this...I can figure it out but this would be an awesome feature to have available.

[chibear]

As of yet there is no manual so can't say for sure. I haven't found it playing with the betas and no one else has mentioned it. Agreed it would be a great feature

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

No, this feature is not in Mixcraft 7.0.

Greg

[mick]

This is interesting! So, I just used a lead track in Print Music and placed Rit. and a'tempo points then saved as a midi file, then popped it into Mixcraft and this is how the midi information is read with the insertion of the flags.. so, maybe its just as easy to put a few flags in. . . ?
A'tempo means to revert to the original tempo so the first and last flags should be the same tempo, and they are - 120 bpm. The thing about using flags is that you can specify the degree of Rit and tempo alteration over how many bars whereas the tempo change in the pic was decided by the notation program Print Music, although I could've specified the start and end tempo points and tempo but I would find flags just as easy but do agree its a great idea otherwise.

Rit.PNG (175.3 KiB) Viewed 7487 times

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Yes, you can certainly use flags to change tempo in all recent versions of Mixcraft, and Mixcraft will read tempo markers in MIDI files.

Greg

[Studio 919]

I have done this with multiple markers, each one slowing down the BPM. Although it worked, I had to insert 6 or 8 markers to achieve my goal. It seemed there could possibly be a better way. That got me to thinking. Uh-oh!

Most of us are familiar with the fade in and fade out feature that is found in the Sounds/Envelopes menu. What if the "same concept" were incorporated to adjust the BPM. For example, let's say my song is recorded at 120 BPM. I want the last two measures to gradually reduce to 85 BPM. I envision inserting a marker at the next to the last measure. When the marker window opens I can select the ending BPM (85 in this example), then I could select a "fade" type of indicator to show that I want the BPM to reduce from 120 to 85 over the last two measures. This method could be inserted anywhere in the timeline and could allow for a song to speed up or slow down.

Hope this makes sense.

Comments, suggestions, laughs, giggles?

Barry

[gypsy101]

in the old days we used to call this technique "musicianship".
and the musical term for it would be retardando.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ritardando

[Mark Bliss]

Well I suppose that it would be handy if it were this simple:
Open up an automation lane in the master track and have the option to automate a tempo change-

Tempo automation.jpg (19.48 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

But of course incorporating this may not be that simple. In fact it might be a bit downright tricky.
Then of course someone would want to be able to do it on individual tracks...... I imagine the basic scenario where someone wanted to be able to make a tempo fade sound more like a live band with slight variations....... Follow this up with an endless stream of forum questions about why changing one tracks tempo makes it out of synch with other tracks....... etc. etc.

I imagine multiple markers might not be so bad a method for now.

[mick]

And to confuse the issue further, the tempo doesn't work if there's an audio track present, so there's the question of using midi and audio together where audio uses the alternative time stretching. (unless there's something I'm not aware of)