PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum Tempo and 1st Bar

You've received some great suggestions so far, particularly the advice to get the correct first bar setting. I use the ACW a lot and I'll share the steps I use that I think simplify accurately setting bars and tempo. I've attached a screen shot for clarity of the buttons I use.

. I find it very useful to set bar one before opening the ACW in the Audio Editor Window so I do it first. This is helpful when counting the following bars of the song.
To set Bar One before opening the ACW, set the cursor at the exact position you think is correct for Bar One. Rt. Click with your mouse and select the last selection, Mark this as Bar 1 of the song (e.g. for imported audio with a long lead in)
This action can only be done prior to opening the ACW or with the ACW closed because this selection in not available once the ACW has been opened.
Setting Bar One first syncs the first measure with the first bar and makes aligning all of the following bars in the song a lot easier.

. If you know the song's tempo or have a good guess, set it as the Master Tempo from the Audio Menu Tool Bar. In your song, you know it's 4/4 at 111 bpm. Use these settings for your song.
. To accurately set the first bar in the ACW, Open the ACW and check the Snap option Button. Mouse click Bar 1 (the snap option selects bar 1 accurately and Bar 1 was previously selected in the step above before opening the ACW), hit the L key
. Deselect the Snap Option
. Start the song and manually set bar 2 by hitting the L key
. Restart the the song and manually adjust the Bar 2 selection for accuracy if necessary. Observing the wave form is helpful determining bar 2's location.
. Select the Auto Marking Button. The ACW will populate the remainder of the song's bars based on the tempo of the first two bars. This is useful and faster than manually setting each bar because you can play the song, stopping to fine adjust bars that may be off a bit. Continue to the end of the song.
. play through the song and ensure the bar settings are accurate.
. With the Bars set accurately, activate the Analyze Button to determine the Chords of the song and populate the Chord Chart.
. Once I'm satisfied with the ACW tempo, bar settings and chord selections, I equalize the Tempo using the Equalize Tempos Button.
. I vary from the ACW tutorial video at this point and turn off the ACW and close the Audio Edit Window. You can choose to leave the ACW and Audio Edit Window open and resize the window with the Chord Chart to continue editing the tempo and Chords. It a personal preference to do it either way.

You are correct guessing the red lines on the bars are set by the ACW. If you have completed the steps I've outlined including Equalizing the tempos, these markers are unnecessary. It's most likely you've made no other Bar Changes at this point of the song and if that's the case, you can use F5 to open the Bar Settings window and select Reset all Bars to erase all of the red markers from each bar in one step. If some bars have been edited, to retain the red markers for those bars and to only erase the red markers set by the ACW analysis, I use the Audio Chord Wizard... Utilities selection from the Audio Tool Menu and select the Erase Tempo Map Button followed by ensuring the Master Tempo is set correctly using the Set Master Tempo Button from the Audio Tools Menu at the top of the screen.

Hope the steps I do analyzing with the ACW are useful to you and others.