How to modify the tempo without losing the timing with video

I’m doing my first video project in Cubase, rescoring Caminandes 3…
I’d like to speed up the tempo of my music in the middle of the song.
My tracks are currently in linear mode.

If I switch them to musical mode I can sure speed up the tempo but then, whatever is coming next will not be synced anymore with the video…

Sounds like a basic problem but I can’t figure this out :sweat_smile:

What is the best practise for this problem?

Thanks a lot!

Hi,

Be aware of the difference between the Musical Mode and Musical Time Base.

If you set the track to the Musical Time Base, the start position of the Audio/MIDI Events/Parts changes when you change the tempo.

If you enable Musical Mode on the Audio Event, the tempo inside of the Audio Event follows the tempo.

So if you want to keep the start position but change the “speed”/tempo in the Audio Event, set the Audio Track to the Linear Time Base and enable the Musical Mode on the Audio Event.

Hi ,

Thanks for you answer.

Sorry I should have mentioned, I’m not working with audio event but with midi clips.

Thanks,

Hi,

The Musical/Linear Time Base works the same for any track type.

MIDI Parts always follow the tempo changes.

But enabling the Musical Mode as you suggested to me is only possible for Audio Events, right?

Thanks

If you want to achieve a constant new tempo you could try to use the time stretch tool on the midi parts.

Hi @Kartoushh

That’s correct! :slight_smile:

As I understand it (and before running with the following as Gospel, I’d wait to make sure there’s no correction forthcoming from the pros).

… as far as MIDI events go, their lengths (“playback speeds”) are always going to change when the tempo is changed … they react to tempo changes just like audio with Musical Mode switched “on” does.

And, unlike audio, they have no button/icon to click to change that behavior … there’s no option to make MIDI events behave like audio with Musical Mode switched “off” does.

The following two posts by @raino may help (they did me!):

(From the Book of Raino, where those Cubase novices wandering in the Tempo Change Desert for forty years were brought to the mountain top to be shown the promised land):

So, If I understand your first post correctly:

  1. Does setting the track to Linear Time Base before adjusting the tempo get you the results you want?

  2. If not, does rendering the MIDI to audio first, then setting the track to Linear Time Base before adjusting the tempo get you the results you want?

Thanks for your reply but it doesn’t really help :confused:

What I guess I’m asking is the ability to toggle the timebase of midi events within the same track independantly.

Like in the same track you could have one midi event in linear mode and an other one in Linear Mode.

Would be cool no?

Yeah, sorry, Linear Time Base and Musical Time Base are designated on a track level, whether it’s a MIDI or audio track.

I’m not quite envisioning your use case, but maybe you could mult the track, set one track to Linear Base and the other to Musical Time Base, put the appropriate MIDI clip in each track, and then adjust the tempo?

Or maybe render the MIDI you don’t want to “stretch” when you adjust the tempo (just make sure the rendered audio is not set to “Musical Mode” in the Pool), before adjusting the Tempo?

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What would be a practical application for this? How would the user keep track of what events within a part are set to linear time base and which are in musical?

I seem to have gotten an old notification about this post (actually a bunch of old ones). When this was originally active I thought @alexis approach was really the only way to do this. But rereading I think there’s a straightforward way to do this in MIDI. It is a bit of busy work, but that’s audio engineering for you.

  1. Add a Marker Track and set it to mm:ss
  2. Create Cycle Markers for each MIDI Part you want to preserve
  3. Change the Tempo (and yes that will mess up the MIDI)
  4. Set the Select (Arrow) Tool to Sizing Applies Time Stretch
  5. Align each MIDI Part’s Start & End with its matching Cycle Marker

image

Still very curious about the use case for this?

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