I haven't performed retards since I was a music-performance major in college. I've never really considered it within the digital-recording space. But, a song I am going to start tomorrow, I just got an inspiration to retard at the end, easing into a refrain that I intend to repeat and fade on.
It felt very right. That being said, I am working with two separate digital devices. One is old hardware that I use to record my acoustic tracks (vocals, guitar, percussion, etc.), and then I bring those into Waveform on my PC.
I was thinking maybe it would just be easier to record the two parts of the song as separate projects/songs, and then bring them back to my PC and throw them together, automating a tempo change within Waveform.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Have you considered using MIDI tempo control? If your hardware supports it, you could automate the ritardando directly from Waveform, which would give you the best of both worlds—flexibility and real-time performance.