Proper Compound Meter Support (6/8, 9/8 etc.)

Cubase
,
1

I love Cubase! My only major issue is that working in compound meters is a very frustrating deal. It essentially doesn’t do proper 6/8, 9/8 or 12/8 (compound meters). You have to do funny time consuming workarounds. Changes would need to happen in the tempo track as well as in the midi editor.

Tempo Track- Should have the ability to choose what the beat is i.e. quarter, dotted quarter, dotted eighth, eigth
Midi editor- should reflect the proper beat and subdivision when using a compound meter

For tempo track this means you can have
Dotted Quarter=120
as opposed to a fixed quarter=120 or eight note=120
This would give the ability to easily do things like go from 12/8 to 4/4 where it will go from dotted quarter=100 to quarter=100 thus the pulse of the beat never changes but the subdivisions do.

The Midi editor grid also should reflect the proper beat of compound meter being a dotted value. So, when in 6/8 There should be two thick beat lines with three subdivision lines, as opposed to the current 3 thick beat lines with 2 subdivions which is not the universally accepted 6/8. This should happen automatic with compound meters but with the ability to change things manually in place.

I’ve seen this brought up in the forum usually in regards to just tempo. But it’s more than just that. Essentially, Cubase doesn’t not support the proper display and input of compound meters which is very common in composition.

Thanks for the read and please forgive if I’ve missed something!
M

2

Indeed, +1

Se also DONE! User defined beat: Grid,Compound time,odd meter,Click - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

3

+1.5 :slight_smile:

4

+1

5

+1. Our band’s compositions often uses odd metres such as 8+7/8 or 5+6/8. I usually work around the unability to express this in Cubase by either using 15/8 and 11/8, respectively, or sometimes manually changing the metre every other bar, which obviously is not very elegant. You may argue why the f* use such weird metres, but hey, tell Zappa…

6

+1

7

+1, especially if the user may change the default as circumstances require.

For complex arrangements in which the time signature is often changing between unusual (i.e., other than 4/4, 3/4, etc.) signatures, it would be reasonable for the user to be required to supply some kind of map. The enhancement to Cubase would be the ability to decode and utilize the data in the map.

The map need not be rocket science. Two columns, the first being measure count and the second being time signature. The time signature should allow for a sub-specification, something like “7/8 (3,2,2)” for example, to show how the internal beats are to be arranged.