Tempo changes and SMPTE

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Level 1

8 points

Tempo changes and SMPTE

Hello everyone,

I am scoring the soundtrack for a short film and I have been having some problems with tempo changes. First of all, I wrote all the music in Sibelius and imported the MIDI into Logic (there were several different tempi in the score, so I imported the tempo information as well). After doing that, I SMPTE locked all the regions in Logic so I could do some editing without things moving around.

I want to add a gradual tempo change in one of the regions. I first SMPTE unlocked it and added the tempo change in the tempo track. I think after doing that it was still using the SMPTE information and the tempo track was not being applied, so I found the option to "Apply Project Tempo to Region and Downbeat". Even after doing that, the region isn't following what's written in the tempo track at all.

Any clues?

Best,

Tomás

Posted on Mar 25, 2021 1:26 PM

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Answer 1

tomaslogic Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 27, 2021 10:23 AM in response to EddieGrey

It is all MIDI, so I don't think Flex applies.

After doing some more testing, I have figured out that if you make tempo changes in a region that is SMPTE locked, after unlocking it many notes are going to fall out of adjustment. When "Applying the project tempo to the region" after that, the problem will be fixed sometimes, but not always. It depends on the kind of tempo changes done before unlocking the region.

So as a conclusion, I'd say it's better not to make tempo changes over something that is SMPTE locked.

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