How to match the tempo or bpm of two different tracks?

Audacity Help Forum
1

I have one audio file that includes guitar, bass and drums to be imported as the first audacity track. The other audio file contains keyboard to be imported for the second audacity track.

When I play the two tracks lined up side by side in audacity I noticed the tempos or BPM are way off. How can I match the tracks correctly tempo or BPM wise?

I had to cut, copy and restructure the keyboard audio file (second audacity track) in Acid Pro 4.0 and noticed it showed the BPM at 120 and in the key of A.

I saved and removed the keyboard audio file from Acid Pro 4.0 and added the first audio file containing guitar, bass and drums to a new project and noticed Acid Pro 4.0 showed the BPM for the audio at 140 and in the key of A.

I don’t know if the BPM’s indicated in Acid Pro 4.0 of both audio files are the true BPM’s. It seems most audio files I add to an Acid project always show BPM 120/kEY A. All except the first audio file containing the guitar/bass/drums. I hope you can help me out!

2

Effect → Pitch and Tempo → Change Tempo.

The other way is to tap your foot and count for 30 seconds or a minute. :wink: I usually count “One-to-three-one, one-two-three-two, one-two-three-three…”

Either way, you may have to do some manual “fine tuning”. And if either of the tracks wasn’t computer/MIDI generated, the tempo may not be perfectly constant through the song.

3

The only way to get perfect sync in a multi-track performance is to do the additional tracks as an overdub using the online manual as a guide on that subject.

I’m speaking from experience here as a recording professional of nearly 50 years.
Even if the two performances are robots, the same problem exists in MIDI. Without both robots being driven by a MIDI clock they will wander. Two human performances are 10X worse even when using a drum or click track.

In addition there is the Latency factor (see how to calibrate latency in the manual) AND precise setting of the start of the pasted tracks.
-Pv-

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