Does "Set Definition From Tempo" in C6 work OK?

Cubase
#1

I spent a few hours on this yesterday, and wasn’t able to get it working as I thought it should be, based on my interpretation of the manual.

One of the things I noticed was that the following statements from the C6 manual ((all on page 476) were not things I could make happen:

That this process (“Set Definition from Tempo”) would:

  • “save the tempo information from the track into the corresponding audio clips”, that
  • “the tempo information is now copied into the selected audio clips”, and that
  • “writing the definition into the audio files allows you to use them in other projects, complete with tempo information”

After a fresh night’s sleep I’m going to look at it later today. But just wondering - does it work easily as advertised for everyone else? I noticed a lot of threads earlier on about bugs with similar issues (audio moving when switching to musical mode, etc.), but I don’t think there were any with this particular process itself, so I’m guessing it must be me.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts -

#2

Hi -

I need to please ask for some help with this, I’ve hit a brick wall despite spending a lot of time on it tonight again - I am not able to get an audio clip to have it’s “definition” altered using the “Set Definition from Tempo” process.

Here is what I’m doing:

  1. Open a tempo track, and draw a gentle curve from 60-70 BPM.

  2. Record a “freely-played” MIDI track at around 60 BPM. I’m just playing a single rim shot on each bar. Render this to an audio track. Confirm that the MIDI and audio tracks are in sync by playing both simultaneously. Confirm that the audio gets farther and farther behind the click track as it is played (since the Tempo Track is speeding up but the recorded audio is not).

  3. Bounce the new audio clip, lock the original for safe keeping.
    a) Just to check - open the bounced clip’s sample editor - see that it’s definition is the same as the ruler grid, and that the rim shot hits get more and more “late” relative to the definition as the track progresses - confirmed visually and by listening to the click track

  4. This new, bounced audio clip: do the steps just like on page 476 of the manual:
    a) Select it
    b) Audio > Advanced > “Set Definition from Tempo”.
    c) Write Definition to audio file.
    d) I don’t set all the other tracks to musical mode.
    e) Click OK.

Looking at the clip in the Project Window, it looks like everything has gone right - it has the musical note and warp icons at the end of the clip as expected. And Musical Mode is activated in the pool for the processed track. I did noticed that it was the same length and started at the same time as the unwarped audio (which was still in linear time mode), hmm …

But when I hit play (with Tempo Track activated and click track on), it doesn’t act like I thought it would:
a) The “warped” track still plays simultaneously with the unwarped audio, and even with the original MIDI track - it doesn’t sound like it’s been warped at all.
b) Opening the sample editor of the warped clip, the “local” grey definition hasn’t changed - it still lines up with the ruler grid.
c) These “definition lines” in the sample editor are still way off the recorded rim shots, and subjectively look like they haven’t moved a bit.

What am I doing wrong … or am I expecting something to happen that isn’t supposed to? I thought at a minimum the processed track would line up with the click track, but no …

This is two nights in a row … I think the chances of figuring it out on my own are getting pretty small.

Thanks in advance for any help!

#3

Did you tempo map the freely played audio track first?

Hippo

#4

You are expecting “Set Tempo Definition” to do too much. It merely “prints” the project’s tempo onto the audio clip (it is not concerned with the content of the audio clip… it simply identifies “fixing points” that correspond with Cubase’s tempo grid). In fact, in this particular case (because you recorded that audio clip in the current project), it had already printed the tempo definition while recording (hence… you wouldn’t see any change after using the “Set Tempo Definition” function).
Those “fixing points” are used (internally) if you use Musical Mode, and then change the tempo.
To illustrate more clearly what is happening…
Let’s say that your audio clip lasts 1 minute (and also the accelerating Tempo Map was about 1 minute long)…
Try the following…

  1. Duplicate the audio clip (so that the copy starts right after the original one ends, i.e. at 1 min)
  2. Create a descending tempo ramp, starting at 1 min.
  3. Open that 2nd audio clip in the Sampler Editor. Notice those “grey lines”… they no longer correspond with the tempo grid (which is perfectly logical… the tempo is different from the Tempo Definition that is printed onto the clip).
  4. Apply “Set Tempo Definition” to that 2nd clip. Look at it in the Sample Editor… the “grey lines” are now in the same position as the tempo grid.

(I hope I didn’t make that sound too complicated :wink: ). Just try experimenting with the tempo map… first of all, before doing step #4 above. Then Undo the tempo change, perform step #4, then do the tempo change again, and listen to the difference.

#5

Thank you Hippo and vic_france for your help. I will get back to this when I get home this afternoon - can’t wait!

#6

(this is of course purely an “academic” exercise, but I missed a bit out… in that last paragraph, i should have added that you need to come out of musical mode before re-performing step #4)