Why is Time linear doing nothing here?

[ZeroZero]

Hi, I have been trying to fully conquer Time Linear and Time Musical.

Yesterday, with the help of you guys, I though I had cracked it and understood the difference between linear and bars and beats. Indeed, I think I now understand the Ruler Modes. But the tracks liner vs musical thing seems to be different. ???

Yesterday, I built a test project which clearly showed that, with a tempo ramp active, in Time Linear Ruler Mode, the visible length of notes, and the grid changed even when all the notes in the unedited MIDI part remain quarter notes, the audible sound was unchanged.

I played with this and thought I understood, yet….

Using the same test project, with an active, ramped, tempo map, whether the Ruler Mode was set to Bars and Beats Linear or Time Linear, changing the TRACK time base, (the note or clock symbol) between “Musical” and “Linear” seems to do nothing at all. The length of MIDI notes does not get altered, (regardles of Ruler Mode) though the same action on the Ruler does.

I do notice that the Ruler talks of “Time Linear” and “Bars and Beats Linear”, whereas the Track button tooltips show “Musical or “Linear”. Is there some kind of difference between “Bars and Beats” and “Musical”?

Why do we have two processes here?

It’s not at all clear to me what is happening here, my neurons are complaining!

Can anyone clarify please?

Thank you all

Z

Below is a picture of the project again, with the offending button highlighted

Z

[XLColdJ]

Watch the video in this comment.

Help- songwriting and tempo detection (tempo track) questions

It’s not empty. When the Tempo Track is activated, there’s an editable line which is set to the initial tempo you have configured for the project. They’re for the same thing. The tempo editor is for editing the tempo track. The tempo track is mainly for viewing the tempo(s). That’s what you have configured. You can change it. [Screenshot 2025-12-17 at 12.08.58] In Cubase you can set the default tempo for the tempo track (as mentioned above), and you can see any tempo changes on the t…

[ZeroZero]

Thank you, what is the “it” which is not empty?

Z

[XLColdJ]

You’d have to read the OP’s first comment. He thought his Tempo track was “empty.”

[ZeroZero]

Sorry but do not understand what you are saying but I have found this, which I am looking at now:

How Musical Mode and Linear/Musical Timebase Interact

How Musical Mode and Linear/Musical Timebase Interact Timebase - Applies to an entire Track. A Track’s Timebase determines if Events on the Track have their START Location measured in Bars & Beats or Minutes & Seconds Musical Timebase - Start is measured in Beats Linear Timebase - Start is measured in Seconds Musical Mode - Applies to an entire Audio File and will impact all Events created from that file throughout the entire Project. A File’s Musical Mode determines if an Event’s LENGTH is m…

[Reco29]

Hi @ZeroZero ,

I am with you - it is really difficult to wrap your head around these concepts. But you are almost there…

Here’s my all time favourite summary on musical/linear timebase and musical mode by @raino

How Musical Mode and Linear/Musical Timebase Interact

How Musical Mode and Linear/Musical Timebase Interact Timebase - Applies to an entire Track. A Track’s Timebase determines if Events on the Track have their START Location measured in Bars & Beats or Minutes & Seconds Musical Timebase - Start is measured in Beats Linear Timebase - Start is measured in Seconds Musical Mode - Applies to an entire Audio File and will impact all Events created from that file throughout the entire Project. A File’s Musical Mode determines if an Event’s LENGTH is m…

EDIT: It slipped my attention that you already discovered that thread in the meantime. I was doing something else and didn’t read your last post, sorry.

[XLColdJ]

@ZeroZero

Sorry but do not understand what you are saying but I have found this, which I am looking at now

I said “Watch the video in this comment.” and gave you a link to the comment. Did you

Did you not understand “He thought his Tempo track was ‘empty’”?

[ZeroZero]

I have spent an hour carefully trying to replicate Rainos track, but have been unsuccessful so far.

I used an Audio File from Cubase, and replicated it three times in the Pool, so that there are 4 independent but identical copies. I hope this is an equivelent of what Raino did with his four copies (but am not sure). I then used an instance for each one for each track.

When I tried setting the musical modes and Time bases, as he specifies in his first pic, I got two of my tracks becoming longer, which is not what is happening in Rainos first pic. Very puzzling.

Here is a copy of my copy of Raino’s demo 1. I do hope the pool copies across too.

My copy of Raino’s first cpr

[Buer]

@ZeroZero

Sorry but do not understand what you are saying but I have found this, which I am looking at now:

How Musical Mode and Linear/Musical Timebase Interact Timebase - Applies to an entire Track. A Track’s Timebase determines if Events on the Track have their START Location measured in Bars & Beats or Minutes & Seconds Musical Timebase - Start is measured in Beats Linear Timebase - Start is measured in Seconds Musical Mode - Applies to an entire Audio File and will impact all Events created from that file throughout the entire Project. A File’s Musical Mode determines if an Event’s LENGTH is m…

Excellent explanation by Raino, imo!
Musical Mode refers to Audio, btw.

[ZeroZero]

Yes, its a very important thread. I have just added some notes to it. I am writing a diagram too, if it works out shall post it there. I am near the finish line with all this now. It is very confusing.

[ZeroZero]

After spending quite a few days on this, I must confess I am still not clear on one point about Ruler Modes:

I just dont get the interactions between the five Ruler Formats (top of 5 erntries of pic) and the two ruler Modes (last two entries in pic).

Page 68 Operation Manual (condensed version):

“Ruler Time Format Menu
You can select a time format for the ruler.

To show the ruler time formats, click the arrow button to the right of the ruler.*

[…]*

*The following options are available:

Bars+Beats
Seconds
Timecode
Samples
fps (User)

Ruler Modes

To show the ruler modes, click the arrow button to the right of the ruler.*

---

Time Linear**
Sets the ruler relative to the time. If there are tempo changes on the Tempo track, the distance between the bars varies in Bars+Beats mode.*

Bars+Beats Linear
Sets the ruler relative to the meter position, that is, bars and beats. If there are tempo changes on the Tempo track, the distance between the bars remains the same in Bars+Beats mode. If the ruler is set to a time-based mode, the distance between seconds varies depending on the tempo changes.”*

Q: Why do we have two sets of options here?

The Time Formats affect the grid display positions. If you want your Grid to behave musically you select Bars and Beats, If you want some measure of realtime you select one of the other “Time Formats” to your purposes. This I think I am clear on.

But then, you also have RULER Modes OF the Time formats. (Not to be confused with MUSICAL MODE found elsewhere). There are two such modes (see pic). Time Linear and Bars and Beats Linear.

Why do we need these if the Ruler settings already gives us the choice between Bars and Beats (display) and the four kinds of Time display? What is the difference between a Time Format and a Time Mode?

This is not covered by Rainos excellent post, for he is comparing MUSICAL MODE and the time Bases of tracks.

So we seem to have three concepts. Time/Ruler Formats, Ruler Modes, and Time Bases.

Z

[Buer]

Time is an essensiell aspect of music, right?
3 stages of reference of time exist in Cubase:

1. project setting , in project setup or transport section; this is the global project setup and defaults to bars and beats.
2. ruler setting , at the top of the project window: may be other than project global setting (time, beats, samples etc)
3. ruler tracks , you may add ruler tracks to display additional views of referencing time (time, beats, samples etc)

These 3 ways of displaying time is independent of each other, so they can be set individually to your test and need. Different work (Video, Music etc) has different needs of time viewing.

[ZeroZero]

Yes I see this, but I am asking about the interaction between the first 5 entries in the pic in my post, and the last two.

thank you anyway
Z

[steve]

I’ll take a stab at this:

The purpose of having this function is so the sequencer can accommodate both music production, and, types of sound design where there is no tempo, beat, nor measures – Like Post Audio in film, or a soundscape project, any audio recording where rhythmdoesn’t need to be displayed visually.

When the Display is set to Bars+Beats, and the Domain is set to Bars+Beats Linear the space between beats is constant when the tempo changes.

When the Display is set to Bars+Beats, and the Domain is set to Time Linear the space between measures changes to reflect the amount of time that will pass between the measures

All other items in the list are ways of measuring time, and not rhythm, and just have different measurement values to display, so I’ll use just one example in the interest of brevity.

When the Display is set to Seconds, and the Time Domain is set to Time Linear, the ruler shows the passage of time in seconds, without regard to beats or tempo.

When the Display is set to Seconds, and the Time Domain is set to Bars+Beats Linear, the ruler shows the passage of time in Bars and Beats, even though the ruler and the grid is displaying Seconds.

For fun, here’s a little video of the playback cursor with the ruler display set to Seconds, and its Time Domain is set to Bars+Beast Linear

Does this help understanding?

[Johnny_Moneto]

Little additional info that nobody asked for:
Internally at its core Cubase has only one time format - samples. If you switch the ruler to samples you will see the time line as Cubase sees it.
Note that bars+beats, seconds, and timecode all can have an offset but sample number zero is always the beginning of a project’s time line.
Any other time or musical format is derived from the sample position.
E.g. seconds: divide the current sample position by the project’s sample rate. The result can then be shaped into an hh:mm:ss.xx format, where xx are the milliseconds. For time code Cubase changes the milliseconds into frames as per the project settings (frames per second).
For bars + beats Cubase mingles the seconds with the time signature and the bpm setting.

Time Linear and Bars + Beats Linear only determine how many pixel on the screen are to be used from one measure to the next, or from one second to the next.

[steve]

@Johnny_Moneto

Internally at its core Cubase has only one time format - samples. If you switch the ruler to samples you will see the time line as Cubase sees it.

nice addition

[Johnny_Moneto]

The German word for know-it-all is Klugscheißer.
See what I did there?

[steve]

some excellent Selbstbewusstseinsentwicklungsprozess there!