I have been having trouble with Cubase 6 incorrectly reading the BPM of acidified loops, particularly Sony loops. Cubase seems to know the correct number of bars and beats, but bases Musical Mode calculations using a default of 120 BPM and not the real count.
This results in Musical Mode improperly stretching the loops. I have easily corrected this on a loop by loop basis by opening them in the Sample Editor and increasing or decreasing the Bars or Beats noted on top by one and then returning them to the original correct number. Now the true BPM is revealed and Musical Mode works.
Has anyone else experienced this? Am I doing something wrong in the first place? Are there any better solutions? Please advise.
Personally never had any good results with loops directly in Cubase. It’s stretching engine was just never as clean IMO and I didn’t have time to waste tweaking with it. I’d love to read responses from others. Especially those who have used Acid Loops extensively in Cubase.
Cubase has never worked with loops properly, support was helping me try to figure it out, they asked me to send a loop that was a problem, and that was the last I heard from them, after several emails to them about it, they never answered.
I use Acid if I am working with loops, then transfer everything to Cubase after it is arranged.
Cubase just does not work well with loops.
Save your self many headaches and use something else for loops.
To the others who are having problems with Cubase & loops…I use loops extensively, both in production & in creating Sample libraries…I encountered quite a few irregularities, about 18 months ago, under C5, afer a reformat, and a little tinker under the hood…
Here comes the bombshell.
I have been working intensively with loops, & have to say that Cubase is fantastic in the way it handles loops …Many users/library content creators dont go to the bother of properly tagging their loops, and inserting correct stretch points in Acid…(which leads to problems)…If using acidized loops, mainly the problem lies with incorrect Metadata, overwriting Cubase’s attempts at tempo detection. (the default is 120bpm)… You have to completely overwrite the metadata for Cubase to handle them properly.
I do admit under C5 I had some headaches with some files…but ALL the problems I have had, are now a distant memory… This is mainly to give support that Cubase can, & does handle loops extremely well, when all other factors that can interrupt your workflow are eradicated.
As to what problems you may have John…??? If it was me…I’d do a complet reformat, & a fresh mediabay build. Solved a boatload of my errors months back. …as for the sound quality, yeas I agree with that problem in Cubase 5…but definately NOT in 6. the stretch algo sounds superb!.
Actually, I have been happy with the way Cubase 6 handles loops. It does it quite well. The only problem I have seen and would like to resolve is the issue of it reading the BPM in the metadata.
I describe my method of fixing the problem in the top post above. I go to the Sample Editor, look at the bars and beats on top (which are usually correct) and with the up and down arrows either increase or decrease the bars or beats one notch and then immediately reverse this, and return it to the correct bar and beat count.
You will notice the BPM next to it changes to what I think is the correct count (instead of defaulting to 120). The Sample Editor can now be closed and your audio loop should be correctly stretched or contracted.
This must be done on a loop by loop basis. But is quite easy. I wonder why Cubase does not do this automatically when it cannot interpret the BPM in the metadata?
I am also left wondering if I am doing something wrong in the first place. But most likely I am not considering other discussions I have read recently.
It is odd that the same loops work fine under Acid Pro, and most of my problems are with Sony loops. This has caused me to wildly wonder if Sony does not hide the information or use coding that is difficult to decipher.
Nah peacock, Its Sonys “quality control” issue…they have semi - professional sample developers sometimes working with them…they just contract out like others, (Loopmasters/Sounds2Sample etc).and sometimes they dont enter the correct data.
Here’s another Bombshell.
Mediabay is the DogzBollox!. Yup, its true… especially if you work with loops, Mediabay reads, and more importantly overwrites the metadata…in any Acid file. It does them all automatically and in Bulk…I can check, tag & assign teh correct data in 1000’s of loops, in only 3-4 mouse clicks.
click the top most loop in your folder…scrool down and shift click the bottom file in the folder …it then selects ALL the files in one go (blue) .then simply right click…select the “check tempo” option…Then Cubase will automatically enter the correct tempo, solely based on length. It is 100% accurate, and you can check & overwrite as many files as you want (up to 10,000, as default in the results pane).
I am an avid Mediabay fan…its is by far the best file management tool in ANY daw,…Im just hoping that CUBASE WILL ALLOW US TO SELECT & DRAG individual audio slices from a loop in the preview pane (ala Nuendo) into GA1 or Kontakt etc…then its “Heaven”.no other words. . The code is already written in Cubase…it just needs to be implemented into the Preview pane.
Good info, thanks Discoworx. It seems some improvements have been made in Cubase versions since I last tried to use it for extensive looping. Seems to work quite well now.
Cheers
Please advise.
…as for the sound quality, yeas I agree with that problem in Cubase 5…but definately NOT in 6. the stretch algo sounds superb!.
especially if you work with loops, Mediabay reads, and more importantly overwrites the metadata…in any Acid file. It does them all automatically and in Bulk…I can check, tag & assign teh correct data in 1000’s of loops, in only 3-4 mouse clicks.
. The code is already written in Cubase…it just needs to be implemented into the Preview pane.