Cubase tempo help

[treebeard]

I'd be very grateful if somebody could try to do something in Cubase and let me know if it works.

With just an audio file playing back, and the transport set to beats/bars mode, try to change the tempo in the transport. Does the playback stop momentarily while making the tempo change or does the audio continue playingback smoothly without any audible gaps?

For me here the audio cuts out when changing the transport tempo such that if I keep nudging it up and down I can achieve silence until I stop making adjustments.

If the transport is set to 'samples' or 'seconds' instead of 'beats/bars' then it plays throughout the tempo adjustments!

Is this the same for everyone?

[bustedfist]

Which version of Cubase? I've noticed it too, but it seems like it has to do with calculating the new tempo. With minutes/seconds, the catch up steps are a lot closer than beat to beat. What happens if you link quantize to the grid ans set the divisions to 64ths or even higher? Do the stops lessen in duration?

[treebeard]

I'm using Cubase 8.5 here.

I will test to see if increasing the quantize resolution makes any difference - good idea!

[treebeard]

Ok, tested with all different quantize values and it made no difference at all. Even disabling the quantize had no effect.

Tried using musical vs linear timebase - again no change.

So the only way to get a smooth tempo change in Cubase is by pre-planning it and using the tempo map it seems!?

Is this true for all DAW's?

[jancivil]

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[jancivil]

Tempo Track is on (I don't see the point in it being off if you're going to change tempo, that's what it's there for.):
Transport as Bars 'n Beats, yeah, it breaks up. I expect that to. With Transport *Primary Timecode or Seconds w. *Secondary Bars and Beats it's totally smooth, tho. That * may be strictly a Cubase 9 feature.

[lfm]

Ok, tested with all different quantize values and it made no difference at all. Even disabling the quantize had no effect.

Tried using musical vs linear timebase - again no change.

So the only way to get a smooth tempo change in Cubase is by pre-planning it and using the tempo map it seems!?

Is this true for all DAW's?

There is Tempo Detect dialog and Beat Calculator to help out in Pro at least.
There are also Process Tempo and Process Bars to assist i various tempo and signature changes in a range.

A other tools like time warp and set definition from tempo you stretch audio to fit whatever tempo you set. Works within limits if you want good quality.

In general, be careful not having audio clips set to musical timbase, since stretching may occur when changing tempo. Since this also takes some processing, this is maybe what you experience. I assume you want to adjust tempo settings to what you audio is.

And don't forget, you can have many ruler tracks - each with different timebase to get a guide in a grid where you are. So since it worked better with linear time on main, use that and have a second ruler set to musical.

With one tempo all the way through it should be straight forward enough, but first time you do new stuff always takes extra time. things I did from free improvisation in midi could later to re-stretched to fit proper tempo map etc - but that took a good while how to do that with Logical Editor.

Anyway, hope you get some ideas and what to read up on in manual....

[jancivil]

Ruler Tracks is a good tip.

The audio here is not set to musical timebase, but Bars and Beats in the Transport meant a breakup doing this.

The way I approach tempo is to make the music first and then using Time Warp in the timeline (and/or Key Editor) conform the project (warp the timeline) to the music.

[treebeard]

Tempo Track is on (I don't see the point in it being off if you're going to change tempo, that's what it's there for.):
Transport as Bars 'n Beats, yeah, it breaks up. I expect that to. With Transport *Primary Timecode or Seconds w. *Secondary Bars and Beats it's totally smooth, tho. That * may be strictly a Cubase 9 feature.

Yeah, maybe a 9 feature - I only see Timecode and Seconds but not anything with "Primary" or "Secondary" in the transport options.

I'm just trying to change tempo a little bit when jamming with external HW - so more of a live jam situation. I'd like to be able to make some adjustments to the tempo without having to stop, change tempo and start again. Nothing too drastic just +-10/20bpm. I'm using the ERM Multiclock to sync the HW to Cubase and this is fine if the transport is set to anything but "beats/bars" however if I have some midi tracks in the project then changing tempo without beats/bars on is a problem. The Multiclock recieves and audio signal for the sync and so the sync gets messsed up if beats and bars is on.

[treebeard]

In general, be careful not having audio clips set to musical timbase, since stretching may occur when changing tempo.

hmm, I thought that the stretching happens when you have a track set to musical timebase and not when set to linear timebase!?

Since this also takes some processing, this is maybe what you experience. I assume you want to adjust tempo settings to what you audio is.

Not really, I want say a midi track with drums for example to reflect the tempo and the audio tracks to fit to that tempo - so the audio is stretcing to the tempo.

[jancivil]

Tempo Track is on (I don't see the point in it being off if you're going to change tempo, that's what it's there for.):
Transport as Bars 'n Beats, yeah, it breaks up. I expect that to. With Transport *Primary Timecode or Seconds w. *Secondary Bars and Beats it's totally smooth, tho. That * may be strictly a Cubase 9 feature.

Yeah, maybe a 9 feature - I only see Timecode and Seconds but not anything with "Primary" or "Secondary" in the transport options.

I'm just trying to change tempo a little bit when jamming with external HW - so more of a live jam situation. I'd like to be able to make some adjustments to the tempo without having to stop, change tempo and start again.
[...] if I have some midi tracks in the project then changing tempo without beats/bars on is a problem.
[...] sync gets messsed up if beats and bars is on.

Ok. So you're going to have to set it up in advance to use Cubase. With the MIDI track set to Linear, the MIDI won't follow tempo, as you've discovered. (That's the way I work, rarely do I want the MIDI to follow tempo but the tempo to follow the MIDI I play in.)

I don't know about other hosts. It seems like I've seen that some hosts will allow you to add a plugin on the fly without interrupting audio, maybe it's possible to change bars timing on the fly. I expected it not to work.

[lfm]

In general, be careful not having audio clips set to musical timbase, since stretching may occur when changing tempo.

hmm, I thought that the stretching happens when you have a track set to musical timebase and not when set to linear timebase!?

Since this also takes some processing, this is maybe what you experience. I assume you want to adjust tempo settings to what you audio is.

Not really, I want say a midi track with drums for example to reflect the tempo and the audio tracks to fit to that tempo - so the audio is stretcing to the tempo.

This is how it works:
Tracks set to timebase time linear - will be untouched by tempo changes.
Tempo create a grid bars:beats to set tempo at a certain part of a project - this is musical timbase. Midi is by default musical timebase and will follow tempo changes.

So normally audio tracks are time linear.

But let's say you have a project with both audio and midi that line up as it should, but you want to increase tempo on a chorus - you can do that by setting audio tracks to musical and Cubase will stretch audio and midi will follow tempo changes you make. So you won't have to re-record audio for the chorus.

This is not you current situation.

As I read your OP - you want to align bars:beats grid to audio - and let audio sound as it does. So this is not stretching audio - it is aligning midi grid to audio by tempo changes.

Anything with timebase set to musical will follow the tempo changes. So thereby my remark on not having audio also set to musical - or it will change as well while changing tempo for all midi. Your midi and audio will change the same amount - not what you described as your purpose. This type is for the chorus tempochange example I explained above - when everything line up, you just want a different tempo on a section for both audio and midi.