Correcting wrong tempos and key signatures: Improvised piece

Hello,

 

Something I like to do as part of the writing process is to improvise on my piano in bouts of 30 min to an hour and usually somewhere in the resulting recording is some kind of piece of music that catches my ear that I think would be worthy of putting more work into and eventually coalescing into a proper piece of music. This however causes some big problems for me. Mainly that the tempo marking and key signature will never be correct (since I don't plan out what I will play). I'd really like to avoid the extra work of creating a new project with the right key and tempo, transcribing what I played and then playing it back note for note. Is there anyway to preserve the recording (software instrument) verbatim while changing the original tempo setting? I'm aware of the beat mapping function but it's very tedious to manually correct every measure. I've tried pasting the section into a new project with the correct tempo but this slows down/ speeds up the recording... I suppose I could just disable the grid all together, but it would be nice to have it. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

 

Thanks,

Kyle

Hello,

 

Something I like to do as part of the writing process is to improvise on my piano in bouts of 30 min to an hour and usually somewhere in the resulting recording is some kind of piece of music that catches my ear that I think would be worthy of putting more work into and eventually coalescing into a proper piece of music. This however causes some big problems for me. Mainly that the tempo marking and key signature will never be correct (since I don't plan out what I will play). I'd really like to avoid the extra work of creating a new project with the right key and tempo, transcribing what I played and then playing it back note for note.

The first logical step I think, would be to weed out the unwanted parts. Or if you prefer select and save into either a new project or an alternative the parts you find worthwhile...

 

 

Is there anyway to preserve the recording (software instrument) verbatim while changing the original tempo setting?

You could SMPTE-lock the events (notes, regions, etc...) your wish to keep unaltered. Or you could bounce (render an audio version from) your MIDI recording. Then making changes to your project tempo should not alter the original (audio) version until you use flex onto it.

 

 

I'm aware of the beat mapping function but it's very tedious to manually correct every measure.

The beatmapping could be a lighter task if used on weeded out material, and on smaller chunk such as split regions instead of the entire piece.

 

 

I've tried pasting the section into a new project with the correct tempo but this slows down/ speeds up the recording...

That is normal MIDI recorded material behaviour. Note that you could time stretch/squeeze a MIDI region if your recording is not to wildly rubato.

 

 

I suppose I could just disable the grid all together, but it would be nice to have it.

Disabling the grid you don't intend to follow anyway... Why not?

 

Note however that the Snap and the quantization settings are features that could interfere here as well.