[Ardour-Users] Aligning Ardour's time line with a recorded track

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 2010-08-06 at 23:33 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-08-06 at 17:05 -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Peter Desjardins
> > <peter.desjardins.us at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi. I'm just starting out with Ardour and I have a beginner's
> > > question. I hope you won't mind reading it here.
> > >
> > > Is there a function for aligning the timeline with a recorded track? A
> > > friend of mine sent me a single track of drumming and I'd like to add
> > > to it in Ardour. I'd like to be able to match the beats in the Ardour
> > > time line to the beats in the track.
> > >
> > > The only way I can imagine doing this is by manually adjusting the
> > > time signature and speed until it looks and sounds correct. However,
> > > this must be such a common task that I'm guessing there's a function
> > > that will do it more quickly and reliably than I can.
> > >
> > > Is there a beat matching function? Or is doing it manually just part of the fun?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your help. Please point me to documentation that covers
> > > this if there is any, I couldn't find it myself.
> > 
> > its not well documented.
> > 
> > the two functions you want are bound to "9" (set-tempo-from-region)
> > and "0" (set-tempo-from-range)
> > 
> > for the first one, select a region that represents 1 bar, and press 9.
> > the rest should hopefully be obvious
> > for the second, define the edit range (see the keyboard cheat sheet
> > for info on this if you don't know about it) and press 0. same process
> > follows.
> > 
> > the former works best if you are working with samples corresponding to
> > 1 bar; the second works best when working with less structured
> > material.
> > 
> > --p
> 
> IIRC there're also Linux applications that enable to tap the beat by a key and record the BPM changes, while listening to the song and perhaps after doing this, those apps become the MIDI time code master. I once asked for this at another list, but don't have access to the replies at the moment.
> 
> - Ralf

PS: I might be mistaken, I just found this email
http://www.mail-archive.com/64studio-users@lists.64studio.com/msg01171.html
OTOH even a beat counter might help you.
Btw. if you know somebody using Windows and Cubase, ask this person to
tap the BPM changes manually and to export a MIDI file for the tempo (if
MIDI files should include changes for the tempo, but I guess they
do) ... (if so) import it to Qtractor, Rosegarden or any other sequencer
that is able to sync to Ardour and make it the master for the timing.