How do I signify and enter a dotted quarter note based tempo in Cubase?
I find this a problem in Cubase, especially when creating from sheet music.
I’m working on something in 12/8 at the moment.
Check this out:
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not sure that’s the answer to the question, I think he meant how to enter for instance 120bpm with a dotted quarter as the Beat value note rather than a simple quarter note (i.e. 120 dotted quarter notes per minute instead of 120 quarter notes/minute).
To that I think it’s still unfortunately not doable and so far whenever this happens to me I calculate the equivalence, but if there is an option I haven’t found to set that I’ll be happy to know it.
Cubase can designate any value for the metronome’s beat.
In the Score Editor you can insert a tempo marking, and use the drop down to see the BPM value for any note rhythm.
If you don’t use the score editor otherwise, just open it on any midi track and ignore everything but the tempo marking.
could you attach some screenshots ?
I can’t find how to insert the tempo markings in the score editor.
Plus : if we have a project that consists of only audio tracks and no MIDI, how would we do it then ?
Create a midi track, and,
The Form Symbols tab
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thanks !
Hope at some point it’ll be easier and more intuitive to do that directly from the tempo track, as dotted beats are quite common and this workaround is not intuitive (and especially in a track there’s some switching between dotted/regular, going through the score editor every time is going to be tedious)
But isn’t it so that there are only two possible calculations?
q to q. is bpm/1.5
q. to q is bpm*1.5
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nope, it can be quarters, eights, halves, etc…
I can switch in some compositions from dotted eighth notes to regular quarter for instance and then later on in dotted halves (especially in film music but as well in my bands).
It would be much simpler and useful to have an option to switch directly from the tempo track or transport panel, like for instance in the screenshot below having a dropdown menu to select the beat value :
I’m not debating – there’s no question it would be convenient. But I presume there’s a programmatic reason why they have not implemented this, thus the workaround.
Thanks, AmazedBrane!
Currently writing in 12/8.
And yes, definitely useful if can do it from tempo or transport menu!
Works in score.
Sad thing is MIDI grid lines are still not in 12/8 in Lower Window (you see 6 columns of 8th notes instead of 4 columns). Haha.
Hi Danix78,
I did the first step but did not know about step 2 (“Use Metronome Click Pattern…”).
Now I know.
Thank you so much!
Problem solved!
Just don’t expect the tempo number in the transport to be the same on the sheet. 
I know this post is old, but you can also do the geeky math computation:
I needed the standard q=xx tempo form instead of q. = xx (dotted quarter, cut me some slack there’s no graphics capability here in this text window). So if dotted quarter = 64 and there are three 8th notes in one quarter note then there are 192 eight notes per minute, so we divide by two to get quarter=96… And if you end up with some weird fraction, just round and it will have to approximate.
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It’s multiplying with 1,5 and dividing with 1,5. The fraction thing is interesting. Another thing that is interesting (at least to me in a very geeky way) is that M.M. numbers “of old” gravitated to certain numbers more than others. For example, I have seen quite some spiritosos at 96, and Vivaces at 144. Why not 100 and 145? Well, I believe (tinfoil hat ON) it’s because of the same reason we use 360 degrees for a circle. More divisors! 96 can be divided both with 1,5 and 2, and give 64 and 48. 96 multiplied by 1,5 is 144, and by 2 it’s 192. Those numbers show up (at least for me) all the time in scores! (tinfoil hat OFF, straightjacket ON) So that’s why Cubase should ban all those decimal places and instead offer a choice (from a list) of those beautiful numbers!