How to align your DAW bar numbering with the numbering in the sheet music at different tempo

Let's say you have a piece of sheet music or TAB with it's associated audio file. And you want to practice this song on your instrument at a slower tempo. But to help in the practicing you want the bar numbering displayed in your DAW (Studio One for me) and the bar numbering of the sheet music to agree.

I searched for how to do this but came up empty so this morning I worked out the procedure myself and captured it in a PDF How-To document. In the spirit of giving back to this forum (many have helped me here on various subjects), PM me if you would like a copy.

I'm guessing the steps should be similar if you have a different DAW.

?? Bar number's don't change due to tempo changes?? 12 bar blues is 12 bars no matter how fast or slow you play it.

If you have sheet music, bar 17 is bar 17 all the time no matter what the tempo is. I have no idea what you are really asking here. If you have music, read the music off the sheet. Adding a DAW to this equation is making it harder. The BEST way to practice is to play with a metronome and not play with a band track. Remember, when you hear a band track while you practice your mind tricks you into thinking you are Charlie Mingus when you might be playing like Charlie Chaplin.

I sing GREAT when I sing along with Sinatra records!!

Originally Posted By: MusicStudent

?? Bar number's don't change due to tempo changes?? 12 bar blues is 12 bars no matter how fast or slow you play it.

I realize the bar numbers don't change due to tempo changes.
But the bar numbers displayed in your DAW as the audio file is playing can be misaligned with the bar numbers shown in the sheet music.

The notes in bar 12 in your sheet music (the truth) may or may not be the notes being played when the cursor of your DAW passes into bar 12.

One easy way to see this is if the audio file contains a 2 bar count in when the sheet music has no such count in. The DAW as it plays the audio file will tell you that the music starts on bar 3 but the sheet music says the music starts on bar 1.

3-1=2 So you have a discrepancy of 2 bars.

OK, gotcha. Reaper actually has a offset bar numbering feature which lets you adjust the bar 1 to any number you would want. It does come in handy when BIAB transfers a file over with a 2 bar lead in which is not present in the printed sheet music. I suspect other DAWs would have this.

Originally Posted By: eddie1261

If you have sheet music, bar 17 is bar 17 all the time no matter what the tempo is.
Disagree. Bar 17 in the sheet music may or may not be reported as bar 17 by your DAW as the audio file is played.

I have no idea what you are really asking here.
I'm not asking anything. I solved a problem that perplexed me.

Adding a DAW to this equation is making it harder. The BEST way to practice is to play with a metronome and not play with a band track.
Disagree again. I find much value in playing to a backing track. BiaB is particularly useful for this. For me a metronome is too 1 dimensional.

Remember, when you hear a band track while you practice your mind tricks you into thinking you are Charlie Mingus when you might be playing like Charlie Chaplin.
I don't see how.

Originally Posted By: MusicStudent

OK, gotcha. Reaper actually has a offset bar numbering feature which lets you adjust the bar 1 to any number you would want. It does come in handy when BIAB transfers a file over with a 2 bar lead in which is not present in the printed sheet music. I suspect other DAWs would have this.

Well Jimney Cricket and jumpin bull frogs . . . you do agree!!

I re-read my original post and don't see it as confusing, yet confusion emerged.

I can't speak to Reaper. If you reduce the tempo of the audio file by say 20% does Reaper still maintain the correct bar numbering automatically? In Studio One an adjustment needs to be made.

I think you will have to do this adjustment in the DAW. I recall seeing one that had a pre-roll setting so Bar 1 could be wherever you wanted it. Most people have a lot of space at the beginning of a DAW file before anything musical happens.

In BIAB, I think you can designate bar one as a lead-in bar; I'll have to look for that. And exporting a song, I think you can prevent exporting the 2-measure filler. But again, I would need to experiment.

Originally Posted By: Bass Thumper

But the bar numbers displayed in your DAW as the audio file is playing can be misaligned with the bar numbers shown in the sheet music.

Again, I don't understand why that affects you playing along with a song. Are you not just reading a chart? A real chart, like dots on stave paper? You listen to a music file, not watch it. You watch the sheet music.

How about a video clip of what the puzzle is? At least a still pic.

Originally Posted By: Matt Finley

I think you will have to do this adjustment in the DAW.
Exactly, that is how my brain works. Do the adjustments in the DAW. I suppose it is possible to pencil in changes to the bar numbers on the sheet music but why? In my mind the sheet music is the dog and the DAW is the tail. And the dog wags the tail, not the other way around.

I recall seeing one that had a pre-roll setting so Bar 1 could be wherever you wanted it. Most people have a lot of space at the beginning of a DAW file before anything musical happens.
In Studio One, Bar 1 can be placed anywhere. You can drag the waveform to the right or you can add negative bars and drag to the left. But from what I am observing in S1 if you start with the sheet music and the DAW/audio file initially in sync throughout the whole song and then you change the playback tempo without accounting for the change, then your bar numbers will be out of sync. And I don't want them out of sync.

In BIAB, I think you can designate bar one as a lead-in bar; I'll have to look for that. And exporting a song, I think you can prevent exporting the 2-measure filler. But again, I would need to experiment.
For me, at this time, this is not about forcing BiaB to do anything non-standard. It is about working with my DAW so that under any count-in or tempo situation that the DAW will be aligned such that it's understanding of the numbering agrees with the sheet music. Among other things, if I want to practice Bars 22 - 30 I can place my looping brackets in S1 between Bars 21 - 30 and loop it till the cows come home. As I play thru this range what I hear thru my monitors at any point will be what I am reading at that point and will be what I am playing at that point. So there are 3 separate things that are in sync; the notes on the sheet, the music I hear and the notes under my fingers; no real-time math or mental adjustments needed

Originally Posted By: eddie1261

Originally Posted By: Bass Thumper

But the bar numbers displayed in your DAW as the audio file is playing can be misaligned with the bar numbers shown in the sheet music.

Again, I don't understand why that affects you playing along with a song.
Hopefully my reply to Matt will help you understand this.

Quote:

If you reduce the tempo of the audio file by say 20% does Reaper still maintain the correct bar numbering automatically?

.

Yes and no, depending on how you configure Reaper in "Project Setting", which allows the bars to be set by Beat or by Time. I generally use "time".

Now that I better understand what you are doing, here are the details about how this is handled in Reaper. Ya, it can be complicated. But it does work well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4M4BoYcwPc

This issue goes beyound just setting the starting bar to what ever bar number you like. It has to do with how the project adjusts the "item" during tempo changes.

Or have I just sent us down a rabbit hole??

Originally Posted By: MusicStudent

Quote:

If you reduce the tempo of the audio file by say 20% does Reaper still maintain the correct bar numbering automatically?

.

Yes and no, depending on how you configure Reaper in "Project Setting", which allows the bars to be set by Beat or by Time. I generally use "time".

Now that I better understand what you are doing, here are the details about how this is handled in Reaper. Ya, it can be complicated. But it does work well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4M4BoYcwPc

This issue goes beyound just setting the starting bar to what ever bar number you like. It has to do with how the project adjusts the "item" during tempo changes.

Or have I just sent us down a rabbit hole??

Hey Dan, no rabbit hole my friend and I do think you're getting it now. I could only watch about half of that video untill my eyes and brain glazed over. I'm not a Reaper user but I gathered that this sort of thing is no slam dunk for us meer mortals

That guy (in lightening fashion) flew thru 2 different menus and made at least 3 setting changes in about as many seconds.

And I think you are spot on. This is more than just setting where Bar 1 should be. Maybe that's why I couldn't easily find a similar video dealing with Studio One. All of this gets into how the particular DAW "thinks" about the audio file that it's being asked to operate on. Clearly I'm no S1 expert and I just recently upgraded to ver 6. But there are several configuration settings in any DAW that will force it to think/interpret things in certain ways.

Bottom line for me, is that I figured out how do get the bar numbering to synchronize and because I don't want to re-invent this wheel again I captured the steps based on the default/factory S1 configuration settings. It wasn't easy to arrive at a solution useful to me which is why I'm offering it to whoever wants it.

Sorry about that demo video. I was in a hurry and grabbed it quick. I should have referred you to this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eus1hMD_eUo&t=283s

Kenny explains "Track Timebase - Tempo in REAPER". This is actually more simple than it looks. There are only a couple options so you can just try them until you get what you want.

By the way, Kenny Gioia is a Incredible Reaper Resouce. He makes hundreds of these videos to explain every item, detail and feature in Reaper. He updates his videos as new features are added. You can actually contract him for zoom sessions to hold your hand and walk you through sessions if needed.

I can only assume S1 has similar features to permit adjusting timebases as shown in the video. Does S1 have a Kenny?

Bass Thumper,

I use Riffstation all the time for this, no longer officially supported but someone has saved it to Dropbox.

It will work out chords reasonably well, change pitch, loop and slow down.
Here is the link I just browsed to, but do a virus scan as always after the download.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kz64w4f2so85m3x/Riffstation.zip?dl=0

For an android phone I use an app called Music Speed Changer (classic) does much the same thing but won't do bars or detect chords.

I don't know if this is the kind of stuff you are looking for or not?
Whats the best way to fix timing issues in Studio One Pro
How to match free tempo in studio one
0:38 / 1:07 Studio One Minute: How to timestretch and detect tempo
Studio One - Make the click track play in time with YOU!

The math involved is why I wrote Music Calc .. if you ever need to do it manually.
Music math ..

From Google’s BARD

The bar offset setting for files being inputted in Studio One is located in the Project Setup dialog box. To access this dialog box, follow these steps:

Click on the Project menu and select Project Setup.
In the Project Setup dialog box, click on the Audio tab.
In the Audio tab, scroll down to the Bar Offset section.
Enter the desired bar offset in the Bar Offset field.
Click on the OK button to close the Project Setup dialog box.
The bar offset setting will be applied to all audio files that are imported into the project after the setting is changed.

Here are some additional details about the bar offset setting:

The bar offset setting can be used to offset the start of audio files by a specified number of bars.
The bar offset setting can be used to create a gap between the start of an audio file and the start of the project.
The bar offset setting can be used to sync audio files to a video track.
Here are some examples of how the bar offset setting can be used:

You can use the bar offset setting to create a gap between the start of an audio file and the start of the project. This can be useful if you want to add a count-in to the audio file or if you want to create a space for intro music.
You can use the bar offset setting to sync audio files to a video track. This can be useful if you are working on a project that includes both audio and video.

Would it work if you set the tempo of the DAW to the tempo of the new song before you imported it? Seems like a whole lot of work and math to import to a blank template set to 120 (which seems to be DAW default) when your song is 104 and then fiddle-fart around with the math trying to line it up.

Because as we all know