Cubase tempo track after tempo detection - how to make it smooth?

When tempo detection is processed on long live material (plus necessary user edits), the result is tempo track but with too frequent tempo changes on every beat typically what sometimes produces a lot of unnatural rapid tempo changes and has to be manually corrected. There is a simple method how to make it smooth - to delete tempo points in timewarp mode for beats 2-3-4- inside every bar in bar range manually, so tempo changes are not on beats, but on bars (and bar tempo is recalculated from removed beats) what usually helps with smooth more natural tempo track. But manual erasing thousands of tempo points manually is time wasting with longer material. Is there any way to do it automatically, as I want to keep tempo change points for bars only and remove points inside bars?

I imagine there might be a way to do it with the Process Logical Editor, but while waiting for someone to maybe come by and address that, here is another way to smooth the tempo points in case you haven’t thought of it.

You can let tempo detection do it’s thing, and then “compress” or smooth all the points so the variations are less severe (by selecting all the tempo points, then grabbing the top middle handle in the gray selection box with the mouse and pulling down; there is also at least one other selection handle that does a similar job).

So there are still as many tempo points as before, but the variation is less, i.e., instead of a range of 60-80 BPM, the range might be 65-75 BPM, more mimicking a band playing live without metronomic click track.

TBH I always end up doing a tempo map manually because of this. I find that I can use time warp to correct up every 2 bars (1 bar if it’s a slow piece) in real time as the audio plays through. I use the F (Follow) key to stop scrolling, then use time warp to move the bar line, then F again to start scrolling again, and so-on. Usually 2 bars is enough once the song has got going. Takes time, but it’s time well spent. I’ve always found the auto tempo detection isn’t actually much quicker and is definitely less accurate.

Mike.

Yes, you are right. Tempo detection is not accurate - but can work - it’s almost always necessary to assist while tempo detection is calculating, it’s a good thing this function allows edits during processing, I simply go from beginning and manually correct out-of-rhythm detections, then following points are recalculated - so finally the tempo track is ok, it works for 95% of material - but result is always tempo changes on every beat, sometimes with unwanted unmusical tempo steps inside bars on snare etc. what often kills groove etc. Some way to reduce changes from bears to bars or two-bars will definitely help to produce smooth musical tempo and keep groove, but I am afraid there is no way - except thousands of mouse clicks…

alexis: smooth tempo (feature in Tempo detection) is not helping much, it often does nothing. Reducing tempo to 1/2 can partially help, but I am getting 120bpm song to 60 or 30BMP and this is not practical - for delays, samples etc. I’ve tried logical editor to remove tempo points inside bar range, but the only way I found was to move all processed points to some unused fixed location, but it kills tempo because points are simply just moved (to some location) and points-before are not recalculated so the tempo goes immediately out of sync. - function to remove tempo point (while recalculating point before) is what is probably missing in Project logical editor. Manual group edits in tempo track (selecting multiple points and make them smooth) is also unusable - cubase probably handles it as an plain automation but not as a tempo - it again ignores recalculations and tempo goes immediately out of sync.

Feature request perhaps? To place tempo markers every 1beat/2beats/3beats/4beats/5beats etc. I think it would be quite worthwhile.

Mike.

+1! Would be perfect.

+1 !

I think we may be describing different things … I find it very easy to “smooth” the tempo point variation by selecting the tempo points (usually by rubber-band selecting them with the mouse), then using one of the two resulting “smart hot spots” to compress/partially flatten out the points.

In other words, I don’t depend on a Tempo Detection function to “smooth” them out.

What about the option to Set Definition from Tempo and place the tempo map into the file, then turning the Tempo Track off and placing the clips into Musical Mode? I guess you’d still have to manually smooth out the tempos or compress them before doing that processing? Beat Detection is a newer topic for me but I’m getting some excellent results and some shaky results. There are some good videos on this, but more would be welcome.

Some better tutorial or tips&tricks to enchance/speed up your workflow with tempo tracks would be welcome. Cleaning up them manually can be time consuming.

I found that cleaning them up manually works 20 percent of the time. the other 80 percent of the time i get the side effect of all audio after the edit being shifted off the grid. on earlier versions of cubase the tempo detection would work for about half of the song then fall off. now the algorithm is much better at mapping out entire songs. but in those measures where it did not quite get the tempo correct you have to click and drag measures or beats… and most times that small edit will mess up what was working a few seconds ago. if anyone has figured out a workaround please share.

It looks like a bug even with manual tempo smoothing. When erasing group of tempo points while shift key is down, you have to move VERY VERY SLOWLY with mouse - otherwise Cubase has not enough time to recalculate tempo changes and project goes out of sync and you are f*cked. Cubase 10.