I was playing around with a tempo track in my composition but after making several steps and ramps I decided I was unhappy so I wanted to start over with a new tempo track. So I selected it and did a Remove Selected Tracks. Cubase gave me the usual warning about “Some of the tracks you want to delete…” concluding with “Do you really want to delete the tracks?” So I said yes and the track went away.
Then I did an Add Tempo Track and the “new” tempo track had all my original steps and ramps! It was like the “delete” just did a “hide”. How do I totally delete my tempo track and start fresh?
There’s only one tempo track per project and technically it cannot be ‘deleted’, only hidden, or something like that.
You can ‘clear it out’.
Right click the controls area of the Tempo Track and choose select all events.
Tap the delete key.
You could also select a ‘range’ of events (just the part you messed up) and delete those events only, keeping the rest in tact.
Hover the mouse over the tempo track, right-click/hold and choose the ‘range selector’ tool with a left-click while still holding the right button to select the tool, then let go of both buttons.
Left-click-hold and select the range of events you want removed.
Tap delete.
Other ways to get to the mouse tools include…across the top of the project editor, where you see icons for sizing/range/draw/erase/scissors/glue/mute/zoom/grab/curve/line-maker/etc…
There are also key-bound commands to change the mouse tool. I think those are bound across the regular number keys 1 - 0 at the top of the computer keyboard.
There’s only one tempo track per project and technically it cannot be ‘deleted’, only hidden, or something like that.
Then why do they make a distinction between “remove” and "hide’ in the popup menu? And why does the dialog box I showed in my screenshot use the term “delete” like it does with an instrument track? (Don’t worry, these are rhetorical questions. I’m a retired software engineer with extensive credentials in UX and interaction design, and I’ve seldom seen such a unprofessionally-designed UI in a major product as Cubase).
The tempo track is something kind of unique from all the others. The project can’t exist without it.
If you were to do something like import a general MIDI file, Cubase would get a tempo track from that or add on to the existing one should you have preferences set up for MIDI files to be ‘imported starting with the cursor location’ and that’s later in the project.
You won’t get a visual for all that until such time as you ‘add a tempo track’, but the DATA is still there, telling the daw what to do with the transport clock.
When you Add a tempo track, it’s simply an editable VISUAL. You can ‘delete the visual reference track’, but it doesn’t remove the underlaying data.
I suppose it might make more sense to clear it all out and reset the tempo to the default 120bpm when deleting a Tempo Track? But oh well, it is what it is.
Because, you can work without a tempo track. Of course, this statement is false, as the Ctrl-T key command will bring up the Tempo Track window, which is always listening behind the scenes. BUT, you can create a Tempo Track Track if you wish to manipulate tempo events in the project window instead of the Tempo Track window. If you are dissatisfied with the results, you can remove the Tempo Track Track. But if you want to delete the tempo events, you’ll have to go to the Tempo Track. Because you see, the tempo track track is the manifestation of the Tempo Track.
And it’s time for VST2 plugins to be made obsolete (and of course at a time when the licenser system is changing, so as dongles fade away, multitudes of Cubase users won’t have a roll-back path to work with old projects anymore)!
