Excuse my ignorance

This topic is to do simple questions from beginners who need brief answers. Them can be something that maybe explained in the help texts but somebody does not found it, or other things that are obvious for some users but not for others.
If Cantabile users can give the answers, we can save the Brad’s time.

I begin with the first question:
I do not see the position indicator on the Media player. why?

Hi Gustavo,

Try going to View>Timeline or type hotkey Ctrl+E… It will show the currently selected media player file with position indicator and markers and loops.

Thanks Dave! Despite I wanted the bar that looks as an horizontal lider that appear in the Help that explains on Media Player, your suggestion is fine for me.
Best regards,
Gustavo

Hi Gustavo,

I looked at what you saw and you’re right it’s there in the user guide but it got replaced by the current timeline method. I will ping @brad and let him know to change the picture in the guide.

Regards

Thanks again Dave!
Best regards,
Gustavo

Hi again Dave and all,
I´ve istalled v 3155. There’s the new menu command “save all” but no more “save as…”. this disapeared menu was useful for me. Several times that I wanted to make a new song, I opened an older song and then clicked in “save as…”, next I put a new name, and that was ready…
Can Brad add a “save all as…” menu?

Hi Gustavo,

I have “Save Song As” on mine (3155) but it goes away when saving new set list (if setlist is last selected in foreground) or when in a rack (it changes to rack save stuff). I found that if I make sure I’m at song level and I click in the main work window the Save song options appear in the file menu. In all cases though the “Save All” is there. Try it and let us know…

Regards

Yes Dave, everything works as you said. Thank you!
Regards,
Gustavo

Hello everyone. I am still attempting to kill my ignorance…
I have a problem with the tempo at Master Transport of Cantabile. When using 120 bpm, all my audio loops sound synchronized with the arpeggios of my VSTis (those VSTis uses the host tempo).
But when I want to use audio loops of 100 bpm, I have to set the Cantabile tempo to 99 bpm to match the tempo to the audio loops, what can be the cause?

Regards,
Gustavo

Hi Gustavo,

Are your audio loops “synced” to the metronome like here? :

if not using sync (None), how does your approach work?

Thanks

Dave

Hi Dave, thank you by your reply.
I’m using certain VSTis with step sequencer (those are made by me) using the tempo of the host. I play them from my keyboards, and sometimes use an audio loop for the battery. I have worked with many songs with 120 bpm without problems, but now, with 100 bpm, no synchronicity of any kind.
I tried the options that you indicated me but the problem remain.

Hi Gustavo,

This raises the issue of time stretching audio loops for Cantabile. When you use an audio loop in a regular DAW the program automatically stretches the loops to match the host tempo and allows any small difference between your audio drum loops to be compensated by stretching the loop to the measure length.
At least that is how I understand it to work. Cantabile does not currently support this but it would help in this instance because you could also sync the audio track to the host tempo of Cantabile (and as a result your arpeggios as well). Your Drum loops are from what i understand asynchronous to the host clock and you are striking the keyboards in real time using the audio loop as the guide track. Then you expect the synced arpeggios from your vsti’s to match up. They work at 120 bpm but not with 100 bpm loops.

So my best guess is that the DAW that created the loops was slightly different than Cantabile’s and by chance worked well at 120 but not as well at 100 bpm.

Some questions arise …

Where are the loops from ( homemade on a DAW, pre packed from sample company, etc …)?

Have you tried stretching the 100 bpm loops in a DAW to where they will work with your technique?

I believe that the ultimate solution is to implement audio stretching in the Cantabile Media Player. Maybe @brad would like to examine this issue and offer some thoughts on this.

Hi Dave, thanks by your quick response.
I discovered the problem.
The 110 bpm audio loop that I am using is made by my own. Of course, when I created that loop I used “snap” to make the lenght accurate, but there´s something rare that makes a little error in the lenght.
I analyzed it in an audio editor. I I saw the lenght of the loop. It is wrong! (by few samples).
Once corrected, no matter the selected sync, all work ok, including no sync.
Henceforth I will analyze all my future loops, no matter how many bpm has …
Best regards,
Gustavo

Hi Gustavo,

Excellent work on finding the error! Continued success …

Dave

Thanks Dave. I calculated the exact duration that must have a loop of 100 bpm (a 4 beat dance drum loop) using the “rule of three”, as following:

If 100 beats have 60 seconds, then 4 beats have 4 * 60 / 100 = 2.4 seconds

Next, I opened my original loop in a wave editor ( Ocenaudio, a great free program). There I discovered that the total time of my original loop was 2.429 seconds. Then I erased a portion of 0.029 seconds and solved the problem!
Now, a question is why this problem does not happen when using 120 bpm. but for now I will to dedicate to answer other questions, ha ha…
Thanks again,
Gustavo

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Hi all,
I made my own VSTis that includes step sequencer. Those ones have a function to match their tempo with the host tempo. But I have no perfect hands… when the song is running, I play some notes to trig those arpeggios and sometimes I do a wrong touch in the key, out of time.
On electronic organs, the left hand auto accompaniment solves my problem via a live quantize function. Has Cantabile that feature or similar?
Regards,
Gustavo

Cantabile doesn’t include and quantize functions but I’m sure there’d be a plugin that can do this (though no suggestions off hand)

Thanks anyway Brad. If you agree, I could start a new topic with this theme, so it would be wiewed by more people. If I need it, perhaps more people too…
Regards,
Gustavo