EzBass Multi-Tempo Change Audio Tracking

[Victor Kennedy]

I bought EzBass a couple of weeks ago and have been using it to edit Bass parts that I’ve played into Studio One previously using my Fender Jazz Bass guitar. Even though I love the Fender it is often hard to get the sound I want, depending on the Mix and other instruments in a song, so I use Audio Tracker in EzB to transfer the Fender track into EzB for editing etc.

This has basically been pretty good, but today I’m working on a song which has several subtle Tempo changes throughout the song, slowing down and picking up etc.

The only way to get EzB to “see” these Tempo changes is to manually go in and edit the Tempo track in EzB BEFORE transferring the audio into Audio Tracker…even then it’s not spot on.

What is the best way to get EzBass to follow these tempo changes? I know about “Follow Host” but that doesn’t seem to work in regards to subtle and gradual Tempo Changes.

All suggestions welcomed…Cheers

EZbass version: 1.1.3
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

MacBook Air M3 OSX 14.7.2 | Logic Pro | Toontrack EZDrummer 3 | Tootrack EzBass | M-Audio AIR 192-14 | Schecter, Maton, Fender, DBZ & Epiphone Electric and Acoustic Guitars |

Topic

[John]

Hi, I’m not entirely sure I understand where the problem arises but you can always try exporting a MIDI file from Studio One (it doesn’t matter what’s in it, it’s the tempo info you want) and then go to Track > Import Tempo from MIDI file, to get the Tempo changes to match exactly on your EZbass Track.

That said, ‘Follow Host’ enabled in the plug-in should indeed follow the tempo changes when running the EZbass Song Track in your DAW.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Victor Kennedy]

Thanks John, I’m not sure what was happening with that song, and yes, maybe I was a bit muddled in my post.

I had already done a few songs with very small tempo changes, and there was no issue, so I’d never even looked at the Tempo Track in EzB, and didn’t even know there was one. As soon as the Audio Tracker is done, I hide the Song Track. This is because I’m only using it for the sound generator and editing capabilities, which are far superior to midi edit in S1.

That song I referred to in my post was weird, in that from the get-go it just wasn’t transferring into EzB Audio Tracker properly, and definitely not recognising tempo changes, so I tried a few times, always with a result that was way way off the grid. I ended up manually going through and basically re-writing’ the bass part, as I did know how it Was and how I wanted it To Be.

I’m working on songs currently, but will set aside some time to record some drums and bass guitar with radical tempo changes as an exercise to see how EzBass handles the tempo etc, and will report back. I do know that EzBass is always about 4 Bars offset from the song in S1, but that’s not a real problem at all.

MacBook Air M3 OSX 14.7.2 | Logic Pro | Toontrack EZDrummer 3 | Tootrack EzBass | M-Audio AIR 192-14 | Schecter, Maton, Fender, DBZ & Epiphone Electric and Acoustic Guitars |

[Victor Kennedy]

Hello John,

The problem is persisting. I just did a trial using a Drum Loop and then recorded my Bass Gtr into Studio One.

I then recorded that into EzBass Audio Tracker. It shows up in the Editor Window as expected. “Follow Host” is engaged. It plays in sync for the first 4 Bars but begins to drift when S1 starts slowing the Tempo (as written in S1 Tempo Track). Through the following 8 Bars it goes further out of alignment, ending up way off by the time S1 begins to speed up again.

I could actually see this happening during Audio Tracking as the recorded wave display showed it being off the BarMarks even as being recorded. I had not done anything in EzB Tempo Track. When I mentioned that in my original post it was a one-off thing I looked at, but that’s the one and only time I’ve touched it, so I don’t see how that could be causing any problem.

You can see this from the attached screenshots, and that the Tempo settings at the bottom of both S1 and EzB are changing throughout as expected. This has me stumped, and at a bad time as I need to use it constantly.

I’m going to contact TT Support because this is somewhat major.

MacBook Air M3 OSX 14.7.2 | Logic Pro | Toontrack EZDrummer 3 | Tootrack EzBass | M-Audio AIR 192-14 | Schecter, Maton, Fender, DBZ & Epiphone Electric and Acoustic Guitars |

[John]

OK, maybe you will have to provide your Studio One Project with no other audio files.

I suspect it will be too big for attaching here, so opening a Ticket is probably best.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Victor Kennedy]

Hello again John. I thought you might like to comment on this from Toontrack Support regarding the problems with EzBass Tempo changes.

I’ve included my reply to them BELOW their instructions…Maybe you are actually from TT Support so apologies if you’ve already seen this. It’s just that what should be a simple thing is turning into hours spent each day going back and forth with support tickets.

 

This from TT Support…”While using Audio Tracker, you will have to import the tempo track when you are setting the tempo of the tracker.

It is using a completely separate tempo track to EZbass in general and ignores any tempo change that is set in Studio One. It will be a statically estimated tempo out of the source audio if no tempo track is imported (or it will use the EZbass project tempo).

So, when you are in this state (see image) after you have recorded or dragged audio into the tracker, you will have to import MIDI that contains the tempo track/map.

 

Now here is my reply…

“Hello Toontrack,
I followed your instructions and it resolved nothing. I will describe the steps I took for 2 attempts at this.

Attempt #1
I dragged the recorded Bass Wav file from Studio One arranger into EzBass Audio Tracker.
When the Tracker Session Setup window opened I clicked on ‘Import Tempo Map from Midi File’
I then chose a .midi file which I had exported from S1, in this case it was the .midi file I’d exported from the EzDrummer track in the session.
The tempo was still way off the mark; nothing had improved.

I watched a Tutorial showing another way of exporting a .midi file with Tempo information from S1 and did that.

Attempt #2
I again dragged the Bass wav into Audio Tracker.
When the Tracker Session Setup window opened I clicked on ‘Custom’
After adding the Audio from the Tracker to the EzB Song Track (in order to see it in Grid Editor) I opened the Tempo Track and saw that it had registered what appeared to be the relevant Tempo changes…AHA I thought. It worked.
BUT on playing the piece it was exactly the same as all the previous times; Not following the Tempo Changes.

This is becoming a real headache. I have followed all the guidelines, and even uninstalled/reinstalled EzBass.
There must be a solution to this. I am waiting again for resolution.”

MacBook Air M3 OSX 14.7.2 | Logic Pro | Toontrack EZDrummer 3 | Tootrack EzBass | M-Audio AIR 192-14 | Schecter, Maton, Fender, DBZ & Epiphone Electric and Acoustic Guitars |

[John]

Hi Victor,

no I’m not working at Toontrack Support, just a Forum Technical advisor. I’m perplexed though, it sounds to me like what you tried should have worked.
I haven’t recently tracked any audio with shifting Tempo though.
Do you have like a Dropbox link to the files so I may try myself?

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Victor Kennedy]

That would be great John.

I’ll just send the files as seen in the screenshots of yesterday – An EzDrum Midi track, and a Bass Gtr Wav which I played into Studio One. I think that’s all you’d need. Although come to think of it, I suppose you’ll need the whole Studio One Song File because you’ll need the Tempo Changes I used in the experiment.

Please let me know what you’d need, and the best method to get it to you. I do have Dropbox so it should work.

Thanks again…I’ll get it to you tomorrow, as it’s dinner time here in Australia, and I’ve been on support forums a lot today. It’s tiring…

MacBook Air M3 OSX 14.7.2 | Logic Pro | Toontrack EZDrummer 3 | Tootrack EzBass | M-Audio AIR 192-14 | Schecter, Maton, Fender, DBZ & Epiphone Electric and Acoustic Guitars |

[John]

OK, yes the Studio One Project would be good, as well as the audio file used for tracking.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Victor Kennedy]

That would be a big help John, as after 5 days with TT Support we’ve not resolved a single thing.

I can send via Dropbox, but where do I send the Link so that you can get the files?

MacBook Air M3 OSX 14.7.2 | Logic Pro | Toontrack EZDrummer 3 | Tootrack EzBass | M-Audio AIR 192-14 | Schecter, Maton, Fender, DBZ & Epiphone Electric and Acoustic Guitars |

[John]

Hi,

I have sent you an email.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[John]

Hi Victor,

sorry for the delay. I have now tested with the Studio One song you sent me.

I started with Save As.. a MIDI file (.mid), to get a Tempo Guide.

Then I made sure that the Bass Audio track’s Audio Sender and the EZbass Tracker page were connected, selected the correct Input in Tracker and hit play in Studio One.

When I hit stop in Studio One, I selected the option to Import a Tempo map from a MIDI file and loaded the Tempo Guide.mid I had created.

Not bothering with correcting any misinterpreted notes, I clicked the “Song Track” button to show the Song Track, placed the cursor at the beginning and clicked “Add MIDI to Song Track”.

When I hit play in Studio One, the recorded audio and the EZbass Song Track played back in tandem. Of course, there were one or two misinterpreted notes but they followed each other as expected.

I attach the re-saved Studio One Song here, so you may have a look and try for yourself.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Victor Kennedy]

Thanks again John,

The only differences I can see between what I did and what you did are;

1) When exporting a file to get a Tempo Guide from Studio One you Saved As (.mid) but I Saved As (.midi) ~ apparently there’s a difference, although minor. The tutorial I got this method from stated that S1 uses (.midi) not (.mid)

2) You wrote “When I hit stop in Studio One, I selected the option to Import a Tempo map from a MIDI file and loaded the Tempo Guide.mid I had created.” ~ And then ~ “Not bothering with correcting any misinterpreted notes, I clicked the “Song Track” button to show the Song Track, placed the cursor at the beginning and clicked “Add MIDI to Song Track”. ~ I did the same thing except I just clicked “Add MIDI to Song Track” without opening the Song Track, and I didn’t place the cursor at the beginning.

When I did it all again using the (.mid) format when exporting a Tempo Guide from S1 and replicating your other moves the result was EzBass recognising the Tempo changes. It’s very strange, because I had been doing everything exactly the same except for those 2 small actions. I’ve not yet tried it on a completely new song but will do so soon.

Maybe you could suggest to ToonTrack that they address this issue in more depth in the User Manuals etc. There is very little information about it which is why it’s taken this long to get it working properly. I may not be a computer software technician, but I can usually follow steps in a User Manual and/or tutorial to work things out.

Let’s hope things go smoothly from here on in. Thank you for your dedicated help…

MacBook Air M3 OSX 14.7.2 | Logic Pro | Toontrack EZDrummer 3 | Tootrack EzBass | M-Audio AIR 192-14 | Schecter, Maton, Fender, DBZ & Epiphone Electric and Acoustic Guitars |

1

Thanked by: John

[John]

Good to hear and get back to us if you run into any obstacles with your other songs.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Author]

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