Hello everbody! I have an issue where the music is the correct speed but the tempo in cubase is not correct. If I adjust the tempo track to the correct “tapped tempo” it of course speeds up the music.
Ok the situation is:
All tracks are midi not audio.
The intro of the song with just piano has the tempo set to 105BPM HOWEVER when I tap out the tempo it actually 113.8BPM and the rest of the song’s tempo is set to 145BPM but the actual tempo when I tap it out is 157.5BPM.
Of course if I simply adjust the tempo track to reflect this the music itself is going to speed up. I need to adjust the tempo to the music. There are no drifts in the tempo within the music itself but I have to do quite a few punch edits in some places I know I could play it better but I can’t do this until the tempo is correct.
What feature in Cubase will allow me to set the tempo correct in the two different tempo areas of the song without speeding up the music?
I noticed in Dom’s video that he is using audio only and he’s using that technique to fix fluctuations in the tempo throughout the song but that’s not my problem. It’s making the tempo track match the tapped tempo for the two different sections in the song that have two different tempos.
What do you guys think is the right way to fix this?
Thank you very very much guys for any help on this…
Chris
Make sure to use the first Warp Grid option, so that your notes won’t move along.
Also observe on the top right of my screenshot - I set the snap to “Events”. This way when moving the grid around it can snap to the beginning of a note.
I’m going to add a few tid bits of information of this problem of mine just in case it changes the way I address the issue.
Every track is MIDI right now. Once I get everything in time and all the mistakes out of the project I’ll convert it to audio and then move forward from there.
The thing I was worried about is that the intro is in a different tempo than the rest of the tune. I was thinking that getting the piano track synced up is what I think should be the primary goal. After I get the piano track done I’ll then replay the drums and other instruments if necessary.
IF I use the warp grid do I use the Musical events to follow option? Also is it possible to fix both the intro piano and the rest of the piano without one messing up the other? Right now the intro piano and and the rest of the song’s piano are on the same track. Using this warp gird method does it make more sense to place the intro piano on a different track then the rest of the song’s piano?
I’m seriously not sure if it’s my ADHD or the fact that Cubase has a near endless options and feature that I’m not retaining a lot of this stuff. I guess the other side of it is that I’m not doing this kind of stuff every day and each project is different in what it needs. Wow I feel like an idiot. I’ve looked at the many times before asking here on the forum but most of the time it’s just not spelled out well enough.
Hmm I don’t see how this is going to work. I did have an existing tempo track but all it was doing was switching from 105bpm for the intro to 145bpm for the rest of the piano track. What am I suppose to do with the time/grid warp tool? I’m very confused. So I did a tempo tap test on both the intro and the rest of the piano. Intro is 114bpm and the rest of it is at 158bpm. Should I get rid of the existing tempo marks in the tempo track.
So I was thinking the first step is to set the tempo in the transport bar to 158bpm since I was going to try and work on the piano for the main part of the song…not the intro part which is slower. But what does the Time/Grid warp have to do with what I’m trying to achieve? I understand that the Time/Grid warp can be used for tempo mapping audio and midi that’s fluctuating in tempo, but in this case the piano track isn’t fluctuating but the tempo that the project is set to is about 12 bpm too slow. I don’t understand what I’m suppose to be doing with the warp tool. This is driving me nut. Sorry to be so ignorant.
Ok I was thinking about what Mlib said. The events only move with a tempo change if the track(s) are in Musical Time Base. So I disabled Musical time then changed the tempo. Ok…it worked. Thank you Mlib.
Then I used the existing tempo track and adjusted the tempo changes to be 113.8 for the intro and 157.5 for the rest of it. The intro is dead on the click. The rest of the piano starts off on the click but kind of drifts as the song progresses. So now I would think I can use the warp tool to bring the piano back in sync? But it’s not like drums where you can see the definitive “note” to align with the grid…the piano is a bit more difficult. Is this the best way to do this or do you think Quantize might be a better option IF it’s not too far off? My main concern with Quantize is that the piano is super dynamic and the playing is aggressive with lots of detail in my playing. I’m not so sure the Quantize feature will not mess up the “feel” of the tune as it’s not a simple piano track as you can see by the image.
Hey Johnny!
Hey thank you very very much for your efforts of making this video. Things are a bit clearer now…but I do have a question regarding the video. I see how the combination of EVENT snapping while using the Warp tool allows you to manipulate the midi notes without it shift. But how do the two different sections run at two different tempos? I see the tempo in the transport bar indicates 125bpm. So if you were to play that example and the tempo track was active it would follow the tempo…but what tempo?
I’m thinking that if you played the example you made the click of course would follow the 1st beat in every measure but what is determining what tempo is used for the first section compared to the tempo being used for the second section?
Thanks again Johnny! I really sincerely appreciate your help on this.
Chris
The bpm in the transport bar is always showing the tempo at the playhead cursor position. I put the cursor out of the way, that’s why it showed 125bpm.
We are not manipulating the midi events, we are manipulating the musical grid of Cubase. If we move the bar positions around we create tempo events on the tempo track at the same time. You could achieve the same result by creating tempo events and then find the right value to line up the next bar at the desired position but that is very cumbersome. The Warp tool allows you to do that much more elegantly.
Just try it yourself. You will see how the tempo changes.
Hey Johnny,
On your example it seems very straight forward because you’re using the “base” notes as your guide and there is somewhat limited options to know which way to go and which note to use as your reference. My situation is a bit more complicated. I’ve attached an image of the main piano part of the song which should have a tempo around 158bpm. How would I determine what not to use as my reference and which direction to move it in…there is so much on this track I’m not sure which note to use as my reference and what direction to go.
Hi Johnny,
Ok well there is so many points/notes in the piano track that I’m not sure what to use as my reference. As the song goes on there is more and more notes in the bass side of the piano track. How do you know what to use as a reference? It seems when the tempo is somewhere around 140-157bpm it’s seems like a natural click tempo but there are some places where the tempo is well over 210bpm. It hasn’t “clicked” yet in my head as to how this is suppose to fix the tempo issues. I’ve attached a little screen video that shows a few different option of which notes to use as my reference but it’s not clear which ones are best to use. If there is a low note that is more or less stand alone it’s easy but I think the downbeat of the the right hand might be the reference but I don’t think this is going to be obvious what to use as my reference. The video I just made is far too large for me to post. Ahhh!
Hey Ozinga,
I have actually. But when I tried it about five days ago it wasn’t working. However on a copy of the project I just tried it and it worked this time!! WTF??
I’m not sure why it didn’t work before but not only did it work but it actually seems like it’s going to help me fix this issue now! Thanks for the reminder.
I really need to do this more often because I don’t do this email to remember what I did last time.
Now that the tempo is plotted in the tempo track now I need to marry that tempo into the track itself right? Also I did the tempo detection on the piano track only which means the rest of the track are way off in regards to the click track. I have to looked into what I need to do to fix this and take notes so I don’t go through this every time I need to do something like this!
Ok guys like I said before, I tried the Tempo Detect before but it didn’t work…now however it did work and it actually looks/sounds good. The tempo is fluctuating but not much and the tempo track now has everything mapped out which is great! However I thought I was going to be able to do a “Set definition from Tempo Track” but this option is in the Audio menu and doesn’t seem to have an equivalent for MIDI…or is there an option for setting the definition to tempo track for MIDI as well?
I have 12 other tracks to sync with the piano now. All of them except for the piano is way off now. Everything I’ve seen and read when it comes to syncing track always involved audio not MIDI.
Now that the click is synced with the piano I need everything else to be synced as well.
When I see this being done with Audio the tempo track is “Set definition from Tempo Track”. How is this done with MIDI?
Yes. Well you mean before running the Tempo Detect feature? Yes they were.
I tried seeing if linear and music mode per track makes a difference now, after the tempo mapping but it doesn’t seem to do anything, I tried searching for terms in the manual for Cubase but couldn’t find any specifically for what I’m trying to do.
I think this ADHD is really making this more of a challenge than should be. Honestly Johnny I getting really deflated over this. I really haven’t move anywhere in regards to progress in the last 3 days. I’m disappointed in myself.
I do have an unaltered copy of this project before I started messing with the tempo if I need to try a different way but if I don’t find a way to sync all of the other tracks I’ll be replaying/recording everything all over again.
Cubase is such an incredible piece of software it’s overwhelming. I actually took a course in the basics and absorbed that but this is beyond the scope of that course.
If you keep all midi tracks on Musical Time Base (not Muscial Mode, that is something very different in Cubase!) they will always stay snyced to each other. That is the nature of MIDI. It is harder to get them de-synced than keeping them together.
Why don’t you start with the unaltered copy of the project again. Make sure no track is set to Linear Time Base.
