I am working on a project with a friend, he sends me waves , tempo and time signature, we have the same sample rate. I make a new project set tempo and time signature, sample rate and the I import the waves. When I play back the new project it is off sync with the click. In the pool the files have different time signature and tempo from the project in which they were made. What is going on? I he sends me the whole project wit the same!! files, everything is ok. To me, this is a serious bug.
After you import the Audio file(s) but before you use them try setting their tempo to the known correct value in the Pool. I’m assuming the files are set to Musical Mode.
Cubase sometimes gets the recorded tempo wrong, especially with loop recordings. Do you know if the file’s tempo is set correctly in the source Project?
Yes, we are very meticulous about tempo and time signature. I have changed the tempo and time signature settings of the files in the pool. Still no sync with project tempo at playback.
Is the music in the new project playing exactly at the correct pitch?
When you say it doesn’t sync with click what does this mean exactly…..is it drifting out and gets worse over time?
And when he sends you the project did you try running the export yourself to import with the same result?
Yes it gets worse
No i didn`t export, I will import the files i got into the complete project he sent me later, to see what happens. the files are a 100% match, so I am curious ..
I still think this is not supposed to hapen, must be some old bug in Cubase
sound a bit like that, but if the tempo for the files and the project is known and correct, that would be counterproductive, wouldn’t it? Especially when, as you already wrote, Cubase doesn’t always detect the tempo correctly.
What could be the case is that files were recorded with prerol active. Then there is a small audio snippet before the start. Cubase places them correct in the project where they are recorded, but they might be misalligned when simply inserted. You both could try what happens if you export stems in the original project. Those should allign propperly.
I’ve had this happen. In all cases it’s been one of these steps I’ve overlooked:
- Confirm your friend has the tempo of the song set in their session. This could happen if the default project tempo is left at 120, the ruler is set to time, and they record to a click-track other than 120 and set outside of Cubase.
- Assuming ‘1’ above is confirmed, also confirm that the files were exported from time 0 in the session.
- When bringing the files into the pool, be sure they are not set to musical mode.
- When importing from the pool to tracks, be sure your default track type is time.
- Confirm the same sample rate [listing for completeness; you’ve already mentioned this].
- Does your friend use REAPER? It has a slider for playback rate that’s super-easy to nudge and overlook. I’ve encountered this situation multiple times - they track at one tempo, bump the slider, and export it at 99.5% of the tempo.
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You didn’t answer my other questions, which would nail it down, but if it get’s worse then the speed is wrong so pitch is likely also wrong and it’s going to be the usual sample rate mismatch. Probably recorded that way so it plays fine in Cubase but changes speed on export. You would have to edit the headers without sample rate change to fix it.
Thank you for the ideas. the tempo is right, We always export with cursor at left locator. I´m not sure I understand default track type is time? but I will look it up in the manual.
We both use Cubase 15, on PC, the only difference is he uses Windows 11 and me Windows 10. last year I had a similar problem , I have done some bass guitar tracks for a project done on Logic, so I assumed it was a Pc to Mac thing. But now I see the problem runs much deeper.
Hope this may be useful for you:
I’m used to bounce the tracks (left locator important) before sharing them. I mean consolidate the project overall, check the musical mode, project time displays: bars + beats, sample rate and bit depth. You could also share the entire project to check it out then your friend can open it or just import tracks from it.
thanks, We are doing that all the time. As I wrote earlier, this really shouldn´t be happening. We are now transferring whole project folders to each other, needles to say it´s a lot more data to send. I am also surprised that no one from the Steinberg team answered. Why have the imported waves in the pool such crazy tempo and time signatures? Where does this come from?, The tempo and time signature are set and savedin the project? This is some crazy behaviour.
Good luck. I’m happy to try importing into a session as an independent test. Message me if desired.
If you set the Project to a bit depth and tempo before importing or recording files they will respect the project settings. When importing files cubase asks to convert to the project if necessary. I have never given an eye to this but they should change to project settings, even in the pool, when you bounce them.