User manual

Table Of Contents
405
Working with the Tempo track
You need to create a “lock point” – a tempo event at the
first cue position:
9. Press [Shift] and click with the Time Warp tool in the
event display at the cue position.
In our case this is bar 33.
As you can see, a tempo event (with the same value as the
first one) is added at that position.
10. Now match the second musical cue to the correct
video position by dragging the musical position to the
desired time position as before.
The new tempo event is edited – the first tempo event is unaffected and
the original cue is still matched.
If you know you are going to match several cues this
way, you should make it a habit to press [Shift] each time
you use the Time Warp tool to match positions.
This adds a new tempo event – that way, you don’t have to add tempo
events afterwards as in step 9 above.
About snapping
If Snap is activated in the Project window and “Events” is
selected on the Snap pop-up menu, the Time Warp tool
will be magnetic to events when you drag the tempo grid.
This makes it easier to snap a tempo position to a marker,
the start or end of an audio event, etc.
Using the Time Warp tool in an audio editor
Using the Time Warp tool in the Sample Editor or Audio
Part Editor is different from using it in the Project window,
in the following ways:
When you use the Time Warp tool, a tempo event is automa-
tically inserted at the beginning of the edited event or part –
this tempo event will be adjusted when you warp the tempo
grid with the tool. This means that material before the edited
events won’t be affected.
Only the default mode for the Time Warp tool is available. So
when you use the tool, the edited track is temporarily switched
to linear time base.
Making a tempo map for a “free” recording
The following example shows how to use the Time Warp
tool in the Sample Editor to create a tempo map matching
freely recorded music. Let’s say you have recorded a drum-
mer, playing without a metronome – this typically means the
tempo varies ever so slightly. To be able to add sequenced
material and easily rearrange the recorded audio, you want
the tempo in Cubase to match the recorded drum track:
1. If necessary, move the recorded event to its desired
start position.
Move it so that the first downbeat (“one”) happens on the start of the de-
sired bar – zoom in if needed.
2. Open the drum recording in the Sample Editor and
make sure Hitpoint mode isn’t selected.
The Time Warp tool cannot be used in Hitpoint mode. However, if you
have calculated hitpoints already, these will be visible when the Time
Warp tool is selected (see below).
3. Set the zoom so that you can see the individual drum
hits clearly.
To achieve this type of “visual” beat matching, it’s important to have a
fairly clean recording, such as the drum track in this example.
4. Select the Time Warp tool.
You have already matched the first downbeat with the
start of a bar. However, if the recording starts before the
first downbeat (with a fill, some silence, etc.), you want to
“lock” the first downbeat so that it stays in position:
5. Press [Shift] and click in the event at the position of
the first downbeat (the start of the bar).
When you press [Shift], the pointer turns into a pencil. Clicking adds a
tempo event at the first downbeat – when you later adjust the tempo with
the Time Warp tool, the first downbeat will stay in place. Note: if the
event started exactly on the first downbeat (no audio before the “one”),
you wouldn’t need to do this. This is because a tempo event is automati-
cally added at the start of the edited event.
6. Now, locate the start of the next bar in the ruler.