User manual

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Editing tempo and signature
11. 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, 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 do not have to add tempo
events afterwards as described above.
About snapping
If Snap is activated in the Project window and “Events” is
selected on the Snap Type 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
automatically 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 will not be affected.
• Only the default mode for the Time Warp tool is avail-
able.
This means that 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
drummer, playing without a metronome – this typically
means the tempo varies ever so slightly. To be able to add
more 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.
Move it so that the first downbeat (“one”) happens at the start of the bar
– zoom in if needed.
2. Open the drum recording in the Sample Editor and
make sure Hitpoint mode is not 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 is 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 that if the
event starts exactly on the first downbeat (no audio before the “one”),
you do not 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.
7. Click at that position in the event display and drag to
the downbeat of the second bar in the recording.
When you click, the pointer will snap to the ruler grid.
By dragging the grid, you changed the tempo value in the
tempo event at the first downbeat. If the drummer held a
fairly consistent tempo, the following bars should now
match pretty well, too.
8. Check the following bars and locate the first position
where the audio drifts from the tempo.
Now, if you simply adjusted that beat in the tempo grid to
match the beat in the recording, the tempo event at the
first downbeat would be changed – this would ruin the
match in the previous bars! We need to lock these by in
-
serting a new tempo event.