Cubase musical mode and definition for multiple tracks / clips

[xstof]

New to this, so pls bear with me. I loaded multiple audio stems for a song. They don’t follow 100% exactly a fixed tempo, like live players that didn’t play to a click. I want all of the audio to follow a perfect metronome.

I understand I can use musical mode for that. So I change the definition grid to align the audio of a track; when I then enable musical mode for that track it does the job nicely. However, no matter what I try, I can’t seem to do this for all audio tracks / clips at once! I tried multiselecting all audio files, then choose “editing mode → all clips” but that does not seem to change the definition grid and musical mode for all audio at once.

It seems such an obvious thing Cubase should be able to do this, no? I’m sure I’m missing something. I’m new to this, so appreciate any pointers. The docs are nicely written but didn’t help me…

[Reco29]

Hi,
you can open the pool (CtrlCmd + P) and select multiple tracks by holding Ctrl/Cmd. Activate Musical Mode on one of these tracks and it will apply to all selected tracks.

[xstof]

Trying to understand exactly what you mean. This way would set musical mode on all selected tracks? Or would it apply the same definition grid to all tracks? As that is what I need: all audio is different stems and any transformation on one audio file in terms of tempo/grid needs to be applied to all other files.

[raino]

You’re being confused by some bad terminology in Cubase. The thing you adjusted was Musical Timebase and not Musical Mode.

Here’s an explainer I wrote awhile back.

How Musical Mode and Linear/Musical Timebase Interact

How Musical Mode and Linear/Musical Timebase Interact Timebase - Applies to an entire Track. A Track’s Timebase determines if Events on the Track have their START Location measured in Bars & Beats or Minutes & Seconds Musical Timebase - Start is measured in Beats Linear Timebase - Start is measured in Seconds Musical Mode - Applies to an entire Audio File and will impact all Events created from that file throughout the entire Project. A File’s Musical Mode determines if an Event’s LENGTH is m…

And here’s a video about aligning live performances to the grid

THIS is how PROS fix the tempo of ANY recording! Not what you think!

[xstof]

This video is amazing. Exactly what I need. Thank you. . You’re a good teacher. Impressed by Cubase’s ability to deal with this, in this way. Which is was more intuitive, but once you know, easy enough it seems. Will try give this a go.