Here’s a test with a tempo track. I tried switching the tempo to the same in the pool, but it didn’t work.
You don’t show the Timebase setting for the Tracks, but I’d assume it is Musical & not Linear. What happens when you uncheck Musical Mode.
Also if you are using Windows then the Snipping Tool (Snip & Sketch in Windows 10) is a much easier way to capture screen images than taking a pic of your screen.
It reacts the same way whether or not time base is linear or musical (thanks for snipping tool idea – I might have disabled that)
Have you tested this yourself like I did?
Now check this out (my work around): I created a track from a lane. I then bounced that track – and it behaves as expected (see the pic). If I didn’t bounce it after creating a track from the lane, it would not behave correctly.
I can’t replicate your problem.
I did a looped recording of drum pattern so it hits the gridlines. As you can see it was recorded at 120 bpm but Cubase thought it was 112.54 bpm
So I changed the Tempo value in the Pool to 120 bpm and then set it to Musical Mode and nothing in the waveform shifted.
There must be some other setting at play. Are you sure you’re not setting the Mode before correcting the Tempo (or leaving the Tempo incorrectly set), because that will shift the waveform around.
What pitch shift algorithm are you using?
The problem is when you have changing tempos. Yes, you can fix this glitch in the pool sometimes when you have one tempo. Try with a tempo track and with several big ramp BPM changes – you won’t be able to fix it in the pool. What would you change the tempo to in the pool when it’s constantly changing? I’ve tried everything.
Does it all work week if you Set Definition From Tempo before changing to Musical Mode?
No, it does not help (set definition from tempo). The only way I can get things to work is to create track from lanes, and then bounce. Have you tried to cycle record (say 10 measures with a tempo track with ramped changes) and then switch it to musical mode?
Forgot to mention the algorithm: elastique pro -time
Can you give use a step-by-step description of what you are doing so we can try to replicate it. Be as specific as possible. Also a more simple example which demonstrates your problem is better than a more complex example.
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Yeah! Thanks.
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Open a Cubase project and put a tempo track in. Make lots of tempo changes using ramp (not step). And make sure there are tempo changes during the spot you’ll record on.
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Create an audio track (track 1). This will be the “control” track, the one without lanes. One this track, just record taps on the table or whatever and follow the tempo track ramp changes with the cubase click as best as you can for 10 measures. Do not cycle record this track, just one take on this track.
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Create another audio track (track 2). Set up cycle record for the same 10 bars that you recorded in track one. Like track 1, only record those ten bars, but cycle record to get maybe seven lanes, and tapping the table with the click.
So now you have two tracks, each with ten bars of recorded audio, but track 2 has seven lanes. Now, switch both to musical mode in the info bar. You will see that track 1 is still ok (the taps follow the click), but track 2 with lanes is off, way off time. How can you correct it? You can’t correct this in the pool because there is not one tempo to which track 2 can be set: the tempo is constantly changing.
The only way I can get the lanes to follow the tempo track like they do in track 1 is to create tracks from the lanes, and then bounce each one. You absolutely must bounce after creating the tracks from lanes, or the tracks won’t behave correctly. Then, after all that fuss, switch to musical mode and all will be fine – you’ll be free like a pretty butterfly in a meadow on a summer day.
This strange lane behavior must have something to do with how Cubase sees lanes internally. While we see lanes as different takes, cubase sees them as one long take (at least I think that’s the case). Contrast this with Protools, where ‘loop recording’ creates ‘playlists’, and each take in that list is actually a new audio file. There are advantages to this.
Is that clear? (I’m tired so not sure)
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Yes that is how it works. You can see this if on the 1st Take you grab the lower right corner and drag it right as far as it will go. This will show the Audio from all the other Takes that were recorded without stopping (each time you pause recording a new file will be created for the next set of Takes). Actually you can see the entire file on all the Lanes if you also drag the start of the Take to the left.
Have you tried recording your material at a constant Tempo & then introducing the Tempo Changes afterwards.
In order to properly time-stretch Audio, the Tempo it was recorded at needs to be correct or it won’t align properly. Since the Tempo is a moving target in your example that’s likely the source of your problem. I’m not near Cubase to check, but I’d expect Set Definition From Tempo to resolve this. But you said it didn’t work. When you tried doing that did you Select all the Takes or just one? I think you’d need to Select them all or it would only modify the portion of the Audio File in the Selected Take - leaving the rest of the file with incorrect Tempos.
I usually do record with the tempos set. But later on I may change the tempos depending on who I’m working with; hence musical mode. It all works fine– except with lanes. So if I use Cubase for this type of situation it’s best to do my work around: create tracks from lanes, then bouces those tracks. I’ve chatted with others about who have noticed this too.
I followed your repro and can confirm: Things get messy as soon as the clip is set to musical mode.
I tried to manually clean up the timing by manually setting Definitions in the Sample Editor but things are so messed up that it is not feasible.
Musical Mode and Audio Definitions seem to work when you want a straight tempo recording to follow a different tempo.
It doesn’t seem to work if you have a variable tempo in the project and record to that and then want to change the tempo afterwards.
A possible workaround, that might work for some but certainly not all use cases:
Before recording switch off the tempo track, thus using a steady tempo. Record to this steady tempo.
After finishing the recordings, enable Musical Mode for the recorded event and then switch on the tempo track again.
Cubase kind of admits this shortcoming.
If you select all takes and use “Set Definition from Tempo” the upcoming dialog will report conflicts and it will bounce the takes to new files. Pretty much what @MatthewJohn does manually, except it removes takes… which makes things even messier.
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Many thanks for checking this out; I really appreciate that. I was wondering why more folks hadn’t noticed this or would even take a look. In fact, I took the discussion to another forum — a private one with mostly academic types – and we were talking about how different daws handle this. It turns out others had noticed this in Cubase, too, but some had assumed that this was their own lack of understanding. Many of these folks came to Cubase because of Dorico (amazing program!), and, like me, often record without click (classical, jazz and folk mostly). Well, a growing number want precision in tempo and the ability to change aspects later. Like this summer, I was working on a project where the tempo track was mapped from an actual performance. The people I was working with combine recording and composition processes, so I had tons of lanes and tempo changes. As you can imagine, this became a bit burdensome at some point. In fact, I had many crashes this summer because of this.
In any case, my work around works fine – but it can messy and you gotta be careful when tired and people are looking over your shoulder as you edit!
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Interesting to hear. Leaving the technical aspect aside for a moment, I don’t quite understand why you guys come up with this specific workflow. Ie. record audio with tempo varying on the tempo track and then changing the tempo afterwards.
It sounds like you could use a steady tempo at the beginning since it is free playing and thus ignore the DAW’s tempo and grid altogether. Then, afterwards, start to align Cubase’s tempo and grid to the performances.
Could you maybe try to explain to me why the tempo changes have to be present on the tempo track prior to the audio recording?
I am not asking to attack or criticize. I rather try to understand the use case better and if a change in the Cubase code is necessary or whether it is a matter of the operator changing their workflow a bit.
It’s not really my decision. The musician I’m working with is a world class jazz / classical performer who wants to stitch certain pieces together later. His compositions involve a lot of chance and performer choices: so he records variations (a lot) and picks his path later. Some of these choices involve tempo changes. We mapped the tempos from a performance, and he records to that. But makes changes later.
So, to be clear: there’s a complicated tempo track before we record. If we don’t make tempo changes after recording, all works fine.
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I should also add, that this isn’t really such an odd way of working. It’s just that most of the time projects of this sort are done in Protools – so it may seem a bit peculiar for Cubase users. However, Cubase is making gains in the audio end of things, and I imagine this will come up more. But think about it: having a tempo adjustment after takes (lanes) have been recorded isn’t asking a lot of a DAW; it’s fairly normal work flow – especially when you get out of the typical pop/rock world.
I sure wish there was a way in cubase to cycle record and get separate audio files instead of lanes – would be a time savor.
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An important detail to remember here is that @MatthewJohn stated that the Musical Mode time stretch to a variable tempo track works as expected if he records a single take with a single audio event with no lanes, but it doesn’t work as expected with a cycled / loop recording with audio events spread across multiple lanes. Something is interfering with the Musical Mode time stretch functionality on cycled recordings.
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