Changing the tempo of the audio

Selecting Stretch Type

When you are stretching and/or changing the tempo of the audio it’s important that the Stretch Type on the corresponding Audio Track is set according to the type of audio that’s on the track. Otherwise, the sonic result might not be what you’d expect. Stretch Type can be selected as follows:

Select the track in the Track List, then select the desired Stretch Type from the Edit menu or context menu.

or:

Select stretch type by clicking the Stretch Type selector in the Track List when the clip is open for editing inline:

Selecting Stretch Type for the Audio Track in the Track List.

•	For polyphonic material, select “Allround”.

•	For monophonic material select “Melody”.

This is best suited for sources sounding one note at a time e.g. solo vocals.

Tempo scaling Clips

Besides the automatic time stretching function applied when you change the Tempo in the main sequencer, there is a Scale Tempo function which can be applied to scale the tempo of one or several clips. The Scale Tempo function works in the same way for audio clips, note clips and parameter automation clips. However, it might be interesting to see what happens when you tempo scale an audio clip.

1.	Open an audio clip in the Comp Editor.

In this example we use a Comp clip with four Comp Rows and a number of Cuts. The tempo scaling works exactly the same way, regardless if the clip is a Single Take clip or Comp clip.

2.	With the Arrow Tool selected, hold down [Ctrl](Win) or [Option](Mac) and place the mouse cursor over one of the Clip Resize handles (in the Clip Overview).

When you reach any of the Clip Resize handles, the arrow symbol switches to a “scale tempo” arrow.

3.	Hold down [Ctrl](Win)/[Option](Mac) and click and drag the cursor sideways in either direction to scale the tempo of the clip.

In this example, we make the clip one bar longer by dragging the right clip handle one bar to the right.

Now, the audio clip has been tempo scaled and the audio recordings have been stretched to match the new clip length. Note that the distance between the Cuts, as well as the lengths of the recordings on all Comp Rows have been expanded proportionally.

When you use the Scale Tempo function on Single Take clips (in Arrange Mode), the Slice Markers will follow the detected transients proportionally.

The Scale Tempo function can also be applied to clips numerically in the Tool Window, see “Scale Tempo”.

When you tempo scale large clips, it could take a while before the high quality stretch is finished, see “Preview vs. High Quality Stretching”.