Workaround for changing tempos in a song

Question

Mr. Drosser wrote, about changing tempo in a song:
"You don't need to go to a different program. I did this once for a song with a slow ending, "New York New York" type: Save a copy of the fast portion of your song, lower the tempo in the copy and do everything you want to do, then mix down every track separately (you can do that "by hand" or using the track locking function), import the audio files into your original song. Of course the bar separators don't have meaning any more, but here you go with your slow part. You can still mix the tracks individually, add effects etc. And of course you only have to do that with the tracks that are tempo dependent, i.e. midi tracks and audio loops. You can do things like vocals on the whole song in one run."
"I'm aware this is only a workaround - especially continuous tempo changes are impossible that way. That's why we added variable tempo on the master track to the "wishlist"."
At the time Mr. Drosser made this reply, I did not have time to study what he said. I now think that he says to do the fast part, which is the chorus in my song, and then make a copy of that and change the tempo so that it meets my needs for slowness, then enter the notes and loops for the slow part, and then have GB render this slow part to audio. I would use the track locking function to do this, I think. I then put the audio tracks, Real tracks, into the song, along with the fast stuff. I then sing the words for the whole song, fast and slow, in one wallop and there you are! There I am!
Have I got it right, Mr. Drosser? Please correct me as needed.
Since my fast part, the chorus, is almost the same every time, I would rather like to first do the slow part and then make a copy of that, change the tempo to faster, and proceed. That would work, would it not? Does it really make any difference in efficiency as to which you do first, the slow or the fast?
And, as I said to HangTime, since this is the month of the Great Pumpkin, Gourd bless you!

Answer 1

Yes, I actually do mean export to iTunes, that is the only way to get audio out of GB (well, using GB anyway).
I can think of several ways to attack this, none are particularly pretty, but if I were using loops and such I imagine the steps I'd take would be something along the lines of (and I'm going to make up numbers for more of a concrete example, though these are just out of thin air):
1) Create a song at 140 BPM. Create all my parts that were at 140
2) Create a song at 96 (or duplicate my old one, etc) and create all my slow parts.
3a) I'd use the Cycle function, wrap it around each part in my slow song one at a time and Export to iTunes (I believe you said all the slow parts were the same, so you wouldn't need the Cycle part for this, justr export the single slow part. But if there were variations that's how I'd do it)
3b) I'd find those AIFFs I exported and rename them to something meaningful (Chorus1, Chorus2, Bridge...)
4a) I would do the same thing with all the fast parts (Cycle around each section and export)
4b) Same as 3b for these parts
5) Now what I have on my hard drive (and in iTunes, but this is unimportant) are a series of AIFF files which we can pretend are loops that we want to peice together. If your song was:
Verse1, Chorus1, Verse2, Chorus1, verse3, Bridge, chorus2, verse4, chours1
You'd then drag those parts, into yet a third GB project file, in that order, dropping them into a New Basic track.
6) create another New Basic Track and add your vocals.
Like I said, not pretty, but I can think of an uglier way to do it, so it's not the worst possible method.
hope that made sense.
I will not only keep my hands above the table
Good idea, I jsut opened a project file in which 8 tracks are missing (and they are gone). I'm notamused, and I'm stymied. I was sure I knew all the causes of this. Thankfully this was just a scratch take, AND I had locked all 8 drum tracks, so they still play, but the original recordings no longer exist.
I will smile when I say that.
What the heck... Barkeep, back that man up, and leave the bottle
--HangTime [Will Compute for a wee bit of Jameson] B-)>