I ran two additional tests.
Test 1:
Export Audio Mixdown with a tempo ramp.
The timing drift is still present in the exported audio.
Test 2:
Replaced the tempo ramp with multiple small step tempo changes.
Tonalic follows these changes perfectly, even when several tempo changes occur within the same bar and during a single Tonalic clip.
This suggests that Tonalic correctly handles discrete tempo change events, but does not correctly follow Cubase continuous tempo ramps.
Thanks for sharing these results. That is good to know.
It makes me wonder how tempo changes of the accelerando/ritardando sort work in other DAWs if they offer a ramp-type feature, as compared to what Cubase is doing under the hood in this scenario. (It’s been so long since I’ve used anything other that I don’t even remember how I did gradual slowdowns/speedups in SONAR over the decade and a half or so I was using that.) For example, do other DAWs either provide discrete small step tempo changes to Tonalic (and any other plugins that may need that sort of information) while Cubase does something differently (like the conceptual equivalent of telling the plugin, “I’m going to change smoothly from X BPM to Y BPM between Timestamp A and Timestamp B”) in the ramp case?
Dear people at Celemony / Tonalic,
please accept my heartfelt apology after my extremely frustrated posting above, written eight days ago.
I’d reinstalledTonalic, had the Steinberg freebie license redeemed within my account on your website, then I’d set exceptions in Windows Defender, etc.
Nothing worked. About 202 MB of assets resided in
C:\ProgramData\Celemony\...
but somehow none of them became visible in Tonalic’s user interface. Due to an incomplete cloud data download. Only the Groove Master MIDI file import did actually work, those few Kilobytes existed and these files could be used.
After some attempts to go through every thinkable and unthinkable sources of error, I finally found the solution to my problem with Tonalic initially loading (standalone, VST3), but always keeping a dark and empty interface. While discussing a few points with Gemini AI, I decided to log off my old and still running Tonalic session, then closed Tonalic, restarted it, and logged on again: and there it was:
What I’d done before:
in February, the first (free) Tonalic essentials license plus the early program version did actually work, I did like the concept, but had no time to explore and then changed to a newer laptop. In between, I’d deinstalled Tonalic. And forgot about it.
When Steinberg offered the essential version as a freebie most recently (thanks!, by the way), I re-installed Tonalic.
After the new install and with the still open (or “never previously closed”) old user session, it seems as if Tonalic’s cloud server was unable to decide on which one of both equal user licenses it should run Tonalic’s next local instance. So the handshake download of all the necessary assets that should’ve been visible in Tonalic’s user interface must’ve been halted - but without any further notice (Question: could some ‘license mismatch’ or ‘session-too-old’ notifier perhaps be implemented?).
On Windows 11, auto-downloadable assets should be here:
C:\ProgramData\Celemony\Grooves
C:\ProgramData\Celemony\Tonalic Data\Version_1\(user_email)
(together ca. 220 MB after download completed)
Short version:
Many thanks for the opportunity to let us try out and use Tonalic essential for free
@ Celemony and Steinberg!
Best,
Markus
I’m glad you got this sorted out. Not sure, but I suspect adding the second license may have contributed to the confusion.
FWIW, I also had Tonalic Essential previously, and I’d used the instrument version on one recording in Cubase prior to the 15.0.30 update. When Steinberg offered the voucher for Tonalic Essential, I did not use it since I already had Tonalic Essential from Celemony’s earlier offer. I did find, however, that I needed to update Tonalic to the current version go get the ARA functionality to work. Prior to doing that, the sidebar was complaining that Tonalic did not support my DAW (which was, of course, Cubase Pro 15.0.30 at that point – my previous use had been in 15.0.20). Once I updated Tonalic, it logged me in automatically (assumedly because the instrument version had previously saved my credentials).
Hey @rickpaul,
thanks for reading, and very interesting points.
Funny thing is: in between I did actually have a slight suspicion that my former deinstallation of Tonalic in February perhaps should’ve been preceded by me first logging out of the old session. Yet I hadn’t done it.
By first logging off and only then deinstalling, the session would’ve been terminated “naturally”. Sometimes, there’s not much more than a specific order of events that decides if a program can run without any error or not. It just may not always be obvious.
If I’d logged off first in February, my most recent reinstall and Tonalic’s first run might’ve prompted me right away to make the license choice, and then that assets download might’ve run through without error - like it did yesterday. Also ten days ago, Tonalic’s install package was the updated one anyway.
But I’m still not sure what exactly it was that blocked the assets download and integration.
Best,
Markus
Beyond your thoughts above, one specific thing I got wondering about after my earlier response was if maybe Tonalic caches some basic things on disk but somehow ties them to a specific user account, where, if you ended up using a different account, it might not be able to load whatever is cached in some user-specific manner. Ultimately, though, you ended up getting it to work, and, if someone else has the same issue and reads this thread, perhaps your findings will help them resolve the issue, too.
Tonalic isn’t working well in Cubase. Sometimes it does sometimes not. The notes e.g. the patterns in the editor are lighting up but with no sound. My TAL-J8 works well with the chord track.
Honestly the implementation of Tonalic in Cubase has been horrendous, and sadly, kinda on point for Steinberg. The 64bit Engine bug with Control Room alone really makes me wonder if Steinberg even beta test this stuff. Like … at all. The hoops to jump through just to hear something.
I mean, no-one, at any stage of testing, decided to fire up Tonalics while using Control Room with 64bit float processing precision, only to find whoa, I cant hear anything. I mean that’s quite stupefying. Like also with that C15 video engine bug that would crash your session when trying to simply freeze a track. These are not esoteric, edge case uses.
As a regular Loopcloud user, it’s a far better user experience and implementation running as a separate app with a bridging plugin. Not the same thing of course, but the intuitiveness of new features is really important. If people are left scratching their heads as to how to get going with the basics, its an example of poor design and implementation.
Tonalics has great potential in Cubase, but damn did they completely muff it. It’s also just another cutdown feature that is really just begging for your subscription dollars to actually get some real use out of.
Should Steinberg beta test Tonalic, do they test all vst3, is’nt it the responsability of Celemony ?
Just a quick update regarding the tempo ramp issue.
I contacted Celemony support directly and I would like to mention that they responded very quickly and professionally.
After reviewing my description of the problem, they asked me to upload a test project so they could investigate further. I have now sent them a simplified Cubase project that reproduces the issue, along with markers and notes explaining the different test cases.
At the moment, they are actively looking into the tempo ramp behaviour, so hopefully we’ll learn whether this is a bug, a limitation, or perhaps something specific to the current Cubase/Tonalic implementation.
I’ll post any updates here if I receive more information from Celemony.
Many thanks to everyone who contributed ideas and suggestions.
Hi @rickpaul,
yes, and that method might not differ too much from the way Celemony use to enable users to activate a Melodyne license with a specific PC:
Perhaps Tonalic works a bit differently, but the method itself is becoming more widespread than physical dongles, so probably also Steinberg changed to their roughly similar method (regarding the applied main principle, of course not any specific coding, etc.).
They just added another layer: Steinberg Activation Manager in combination with Steinberg Download Assistant as an updating client (important, once a considerably higher number of product licenses needs to be managed on one and the same machine).
Cheers,
Markus
Celemony support responded quickly.
I uploaded a simplified test project reproducing the issue about the “continuous tempo ramps”
They have added the issue to their database and forwarded it to their developers for investigation.
Not necessarily at a deep level. However, since the new right zone Tonalic preview integration was one of the key features noted in Cubase 15.0.30, you’d think that aspect would have been beta tested, and you’d also think that some of the beta test users would have been using the 64-bit floating point audio engine.
That’s quite different from suggesting that Cubase beta test users should, for example, have tested Waves Sync Vx as part of their beta testing of some specific Cubase update beta test. Yes, it is an ARA extension and Cubase supports ARA, but there was no specific integration claimed with Sync Vx in any Cubase release. (And there was a big problem with Sync Vx in Cubase 15 at one point, which Waves eventually resolved.)
Thank you so so much! I will get back on it. Your explanation has unblock my brain fog! Thank you
This ‘new right zone Tonalic preview integration’ appears to me as a new Cubase general way of integration which will open to other products.
Something born in the mind of the marketing guy.
Time will tell.
In a way, the model has been there all along, specifically with the Media Bay for auditioning sample content. The difference here is, of course, that it is integrating a third party facility. But it could definitely make sense to use a similar model if integrating with other loop-based facilities – e.g. I’ve noticed people requesting integration with Splice.
I installed this thing… totally baffled. Don’t get it. Don’t understand it. Don’t know how to use it. Don’t know what it does. 
For how to use it within Cubase, see the video embedded in this post earlier in the thread:
Beyond that, the Cubase 15.0.30 release notes have a link to a Tonalic page that gives an overview, and the Tonalic website has loads of videos that go through everything from basic uses to detailed tutorials.
The bottom line is it is yet another way to augment whatever you do on the musical front with virtual players who can fill in in other areas, mainly for rhythm-oriented tracks (as opposed to melodic/featured tracks). The free version that Celemony made available to Cubase users only has guitar parts by one specific musician, but the paid subscriptions also have drums, bass, guitars from more musicians, and I think also a few other instruments (e.g. mandolin, banjo). The biggest difference between the lower end paid subscription and the higher end one is in the area of finessing the results, for example giving you Melodyne-like polyphonic note editing directly within Tonalic, though I think there are a few other areas of additional control (e.g. maybe on the sound front?), as well.
They should beta test how the extension works in the DAW they’re selling.
I mean, of course they should. Tonalic preview integration is a key feature of the update. Why would they not test a key features of an update?
The comparison you’re making there sits in a totally ddifferent ontext.
Today I was working on my third song using Tonalic Essential (second since the Cubase 15.0.30 update that added the ARA integration), and it is a song that switches time signatures multiple times – 4/4 in the verses and bridge, 3/4 in the chorus, intro, and outro. I was very curious how Tonalic would work with this special consideration.
For perspective, I was also using Superior Drummer 3 here, and it really doesn’t have a good way to adapt a 4/4 pattern into 3/4 or vice versa, so I had to find different grooves for different parts of the song, then try to manually address other feel differences (e.g. substituting ride cymbals for hi-hats, normal snare hits for sidesticks and vice versea, etc.). I wasn’t sure how Tonalic would handle this.
When I was initially auditioning patterns, I noticed that Tonalic patterns would play in 3/4, but, then when the time signature switched to 4/4, it would keep playing the patterns in 3/4, thus making the measure boundaries of the pattern get earlier by one additional beat with each measure. On the other hand, if I was starting in a 4/4 section of the song, it would do the opposite – i.e. play it in 4/4, but keep playing 4-beat increments when it switched back to 3/4. It was similar to this when I dragged Tonalic patterns to tracks.
What I eventually figured out was that Tonalic does not read time signature changes. It only reads the time signature in effect when you start auditioning a pattern or when you drag a pattern to a track. Thus, if you’re wanting a 4/4 pattern, you need to make sure the time signature is already at 4/4 before you preview or drag a pattern. Ditto in the case of 3/4 patterns – you need to make sure you’re at a point in the project where the time signature is 3/4.
I’m not sure if this is a bug or limitation, but it ended up being pretty simple to work with it once I understood how it is working. And the same patterns could work equally well in 3/4 or 4/4 (if other elements of the feel were right in that section). This is far preferable to how other loop-based products I’ve used work, where the playing doesn’t really adapt to different time signatures, so you have to mix and match patterns, which may mean getting totally different feels, sounds, etc.
I should note that I did program my drum track first (and do lots of editing to make it work between grooves from different folders in SD3), and I rendered the SD3 track to an audio file so I could import that track to use as the groove master (for feel purposes) in Tonalic. I’m only using Tonalic Essential. It would be interesting to know how one of the subscription tiers would have held up here had I been using Tonalic for the drums.