So to figure a tempo of a song in C8.5, I used the beat calculator, I would highlight maybe 4 measures and then put the number of beats (eg 16 for 4/4) Now I don’t see this in C13. So I recorded a band live. It’s not a fixed metronome tempo, because it’s humans without a metronome and so a little variable, So I chose tempo track mode, then it shows extremes such as first beat is at 132bpm, next is 160, 160, 160, 137, 158, 148 jumping all over, when to the human ear it sounds pretty consistent. This is not useful. Can I get averages for 4 measures at at time as I did with beat calculator? I am asking because to go from doing something familiar in seconds to reading whole chapters involving much more than I need isn’t an efficient use of time, when I have a limited time to spend on something.
I have to give up on this project, spent 2 hours,. Started all over. Searched the doc for times signature that previously could be entered without looking up anything. Put 5/4. Then tempo detection changed back to 1/4, smoothing didn’t change the irregularities. Result is awful. Still don’t know the average tempo. Can count for 1 minute, just to know average.
Maybe this will help
That was interesting. He used beat calculator and warp, as I have in hundreds of songs in Cubase 8.5. So I thought, did I miss something? No, beat calculator is no longer in the Project menu in Cubase 13, and I had searched the online manual for ‘beat calculator’ and it came up zero. So Steinberg replaced a great useful tool with something that makes a big mess. All I wanted was to get the average tempo before marking the measures as he (and I) had done before with the warp. I wasn’t going to actually change the tempo because it is with a video. The straightening would be useful in some other cases. It seems I will just have to count the beats in a minute since they removed the useful beat calculator and replaced it with something that wipes out the time signature.
I tempo map this way all the time but I very rarely use the beat calculator. You don’t need it.
Sometimes I’ll analyze a part with the automatic detection and then cancel it once I see the approximate tempo. Or, more often than not, I just start with the Flex tool. As soon as you’ve laid down beat markers for one or two bars you’ll have a tempo right in the timeline. I usually turn tempo map off, go to start of project and enter the average tempo and then reactivate the tempo map and start mapping.
You only need to set a close enough tempo to make it easier to map. If you have tempo of say 120 and you’re mapping around 60, the beats after the area you’ve already mapped will be very off, making it tricky. If on the other hand they match decently the beats will already line up good enough with the grid and you just need to account for drift.
Try to place a cut to the audio event so that the event starts on a measure. This will help the tempo detection algorithm a lot to produce better results.
EDIT: I have to clarify what I meant with the word measure. Not the measure in Cubase but the measure in the actual audio. But it would be great to align this measure of the audio file to a measure of the Cubase grid.
I can’t believe what I am going through to do this simple thing. Dom told me to use the tap button. So I look at that, and discover how to unhide the time signature that wasn’t showing before, like the Inspector window also hidden in new cubase 13. Then the procedure says to press the start button. I don’t see that. Does it mean the play button?
So I just started tapping and got an average tempo of about 165bpm. With beat calculator, I could select a bunch of measure, usually 4. In this case tell it that it’s 20 beats and it would pretty accurately mark them, and create a loop marker… Then I could drag that loop length to the next 4 bars and repeat.
The 165 tempo didn’t affect the measures in this case at all, so I have to drag each warp mark to almost every beat, which is probably about 150 or more. And there was a flub with a beat dropped so I need to put in one bar of 4/4. Before I could just go to the browser, also gone, and put 4/4/ there and 5/4 on the next beat. Here I go to ‘signature track’ and it is about copying pattern or rendering clicks. Do I actually have to go back and read a multitude of pages, mostly irrelevant to these simple procedures? This is horrible backstepping, not progress.
Flex tool is another thing that doesn’t come up ina search cubase 13 manual.
No wonder as that is if IRC a Logic feature. I assume @Sibben meant the Warp Tool.
However, I would like to say again that I think in your case the automatic tempo detection is the way to go. You just need to prepare the audio event in the way I described above.
But in case you want to have the “manual” beat calculator, here is the formula:
I am trying adifferent song, much of which is a drum solo in 5/4 where it is easy to recognize the measures mostly, though some go over the bar lines. I used the automatic detector and after it analyzed and converted to 1/4, I put the time signature back in and it did a great job for about 50 measures, then it was off about a beat, and it is easy to see where the measure marker belongs. So using the warp I tried to move it back, but I couldn’t go far enough. I had to judge all of the previous beats in the measure and move them to make space enough to move.
Then the next measure has the same problem and so on. Would I have to move single measures for the whole rest of the song, or is there a way to have it recognize that it made a mistake and starting with a measure, just remap the remainder? Maybe snip there to just reanalyze next section(s).
Actually this did work. I deleted all the points after the snip and analyzed just the following and back on track again. Wow I am impressed, the whole rest of the song, which previously showed huge zigzag tempo changes., had the measures tracked. I had done myself before but there were some over the measure phrases where I wasn’t sure if it had not dropped or added beats but this analysis always came back to the clear downbeat after a measure or two and it was perfect to the end!
I was just lucky on that one maybe. I tried to measure an Indian tabla -pakawaj duet solos, which is 12 beat cycle, so 12/4… It is played to a Lahara, a repeating melody 12 beats long that is always the same, so easy to follow with the ear. But the auto detection failed miserably after a few cycles, as the tempo increases. I tried what worked before, snipping and just analyzing the following section, but I had to warp all the succeeding measures and then I got to a point where it won’t let me move the bar line to the right spot. there is a point and I don’t know how to remove as it is blocking and past that there are about twice as many beats as it is showing in the measures and won’t let me move to the next one. So I can’t go any farther. I removed what points I could but it seems the remaining ones are hidden so I haven’t been able to. So in the picture M81 should be at the cut, but won’t go. then the next measure would be between markers 2 and 3, where cubase has 2 1/2 and won’t let me move that far.
I am just stuck. I’ve spent hours trying to figure out how to do something that I did and was easy on hundreds of songs in cubase 8.5. Now instead of getting anything done I search for solutions, try methods that don’t works. I don’t understand the tap method. If I start tapping at the place where the beats no longer match, am I supposed to see anything? There is no way to just tell it that from one point to another there are n number of beats? I like to loop sections to study and learn, and it’s not hard when you have measured it out, but when you have to find evy start and finish somewhere in the middle of the measures then it is a nightmare.
So I had a realization that I had to remove all those tempo marks to be able to just apply marks at the beginning of measures and end and then those in between would be even and may need slight tweaking or not.
But I came to a point where the tempo went all the way up to touch the track and couldn’t be deleted without selecting and deleting the track, which of course I don’t want. so in the picure, it’s at the cursor and then the following measure is problematic continuing as before. How to get rid of this last marking, as I have all the preceding to the bar.
Set the display values (minimum and maximum) for the Tempo Track.
Alternatively Open the Tempo Track in a separate window (Ctrl +t)
And many of us who often start tracks with either a Midi or Audio part that is not necessarily musical/rhythmic in nature yet want to try and experiment patterns/phrases with it at various speeds are SOL with 13.
Tap tempo and detection tools are completely ANNOYING to use in these cases rather than simply manually typing in beat divisions into the old school beat calculator.