Cubase Tempo Changes from external Sync - coming from PreSonus Issues

Cubase
1

Hi,

I am not yet a Cubase user but have a question regarding tempo and synchronization.

Currently I use multiple devices synced via Ableton Link and intended to use Presonus S1/Fender SP for recording and playback (live playback).

I need a DAW that supports immersive recording and playback, but which also needs to synchronize “to the beat” during playback (i.e. performing artist on stage).

I bought Presonus/Fender but had to realize that microchanges of tempo during playback lead to dropouts in StudioPro because tempochanges -regardless of the settings- always

  1. impact the playhead on the timeline

  2. retrigger calculation of timestretching on audio tracks

So StudioPro is unusable for that usecase.

I was not even aware that DAWs could react to tempochanges in that way.

Usually I am on Live and Bitwig - they do all that temposync in realtime during playback and do not require any rendering upfront - but cannot record and process Multichannel Audio in a meaningful way.

My questions:

How does Cubase react on external tempochanges via MIDI Clock (Beat Clock…) / tempochanges via controllers etc.:

  1. Is the playhead moving or will it stay and continue from the actual position? I.e. is it locked to the Beat?

  2. Will audio require recalculation or is it timestretched to the tempo “on-the-fly”?

  3. Can Cubase record tempo changes while recording audio?

So: Does Cubase fit into a usecase where it plays alongside, non timebased (no MTC), but with beatsync (i.e. MBC) to another DAW which is a tempo master?

Many thanks!!

2

Cubase cannot be synced to Midi Clock, only to MTC. For Midi Clock Cubase has to be the master.
Overall I doubt that Cubase will help you in your scenario. Record in immersive as in Dolby Atmos?

3

Ok, thank you.

Yes I have 20 7.1.4 Channels to record plus 12 microphones and want to mix that into atmos but also use it to play along live with it.

In S1 the recording works fine, but playback in sync doesn’t work. (technically it does work, practically not)

Changing tempo during playback is not possible in S1, within 3 seconds it fills the cache with 1GB, afterwards it crashes.

For whatever reason S1 does not do timestretching in realtime, but needs to do that before the actual playback. So every tempochange triggers timestretching for the whole audio.

Tempochanges can happen live and also Ableton Link does microchanges in tempo (ie 70.000 to 70.001 bpm, triggering timestretching in S1 and causing playhead jumps / clicks)

So while S1 technically supports Ableton Link, practically it is impossible to use.

The playhead jumps when tempo is changed, even when the timeline and timebase is set to “BeatGrid”

4

Hi @Johnny_Moneto ,

I am still struggling and wonder how you would see such a usecase in general, practically (i.e. which DAW should do what…).

I understand that Cubase is not a DAW for sound creation in a live performance. So I use Bitwig for it (or Ableton Live). Others use an AKAI MPC, Maschine, Reason, Serato, Traktor,…

Now I want to do recording and mixing. I understand that mixing IS a domain of Cubase. (And probably recording as well?). It’s definitely not a domain of Bitwig and Ableton Live and the other devices I mentioned before…

Part of mixing however is to rearrange audio - based on a practical beatgrid. Or how else can you copy or modify bars/phrases, refrains, breaks etc. easily - if the tempo is not aligned to a beatgrid on the timeline?

So in order to have tempo and beat information, the Mixing-DAW needs to record audio together with beat information from the liveset. Am I wrong here?

The liveset obviously has the beatinfo - and as obviously it is the beatmaster.

I understand from what you are saying, that Cubase cannot do recording based on external tempo and beat information.

But any live recording - unless the DAW is the soundcreating / live master (which Cubase doesn’t want to be) needs to capture tempo, otherwise that very important information is lost in the recording process.

So what is the advice? How should a practical recording workflow for mixing look like?

Appearently ALL “classic” DAWs (that are intended for recording and mixing) seem to lack these capabilities - except the “live” DAWs and devices (which on the other side are not specialized for session recording.)

I am a bit confused. There’s no DAW at all that can record correct beat/tempo information? Is that requirement that strange? How are other mixing engineers dealing with that usecase - as we see more and more electronic artists performing live - and they obviously also want to mix their tracks.

Shouldn’t it be one of the CORE capabilities of a recording/mixing DAW to be able to record tempo and beat information? What is your thought on this? Any other thoughts in this community?

Many thanks + cheers

Kay