Steinberg Cubase 8 Manual

Editing tempo and signature
The Beat Calculator
911
The Beat Calculator
The Beat Calculator is a tool for calculating the tempo of freely recorded audio or 
MIDI material. It also allows you to set the tempo by tapping.
Calculating the tempo of a recording
PROCEDURE
1. In the Project window, make a selection that covers an exact number of beats 
of the recording.
2. Select “Beat Calculator…” from the Project menu.
The Beat Calculator window appears.
3. In the Beats field, enter the number of beats that...

Editing tempo and signature
Merge Tempo From Tapping (Cubase Pro only)
912
3. Click the Tap Tempo button.
The Tap Tempo window appears.
4. Tap the tempo on the Spacebar of the computer keyboard or with the mouse 
button.
The tempo display will update the calculated tempo between each tap.
5. Click OK to close the Tap Tempo dialog.
The tapped tempo is now shown in the Beat Calculator’s BPM display. You can insert 
it into the tempo track as described above.
Merge Tempo From Tapping (Cubase Pro only)
This...

Editing tempo and signature
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
913
7. Open the Project menu and select “Tempo Track” to check that the new 
tempo information is reflected in the tempo curve.
NOTE
Another way of creating a tempo map for freely recorded audio would be to use the 
Time Warp tool, see below.
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
The Time Warp tool lets you adjust the tempo track so that “musical time-based” 
material (positions related to the tempo) matches “linear time-based” material...

Editing tempo and signature
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
914
Dragging the start of the bar to the start of the audio event.
While you are dragging, the track(s) you are editing are temporarily switched to linear 
time base. This means that the contents of the tracks remain at the same time 
positions regardless of the tempo (there is an exception to this in the Project window, 
see below).
4. When you release the mouse button, the musical position you clicked on 
matches the time position you...

Editing tempo and signature
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
915
This helps you see what’s going on, but you can also use this for editing the tempo 
track:
• If you press the create/erase modifier key (by default [Shift]) and click on a 
tempo event in the ruler, it is deleted.
[Shift] is the default modifier for this – you can adjust this in the Preferences 
dialog (Editing–Tool Modifiers page).
• You can click on a tempo event in the ruler and drag to move it.
This automatically edits the tempo...

Editing tempo and signature
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
916
Matching a musical score to video
Here’s an example of how to use the Time Warp tool in “musical events follow” 
mode. Let’s say you are creating the music for a film. You have a video track, an 
audio track with a commentary and some audio and/or MIDI tracks with your music. 
Now you want to match the position of a musical cue to a position in a video film. 
The musical cue is located in bar 33. There are no tempo changes in the...

Editing tempo and signature
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
917
7. Click in the event display at the start of bar 33 and drag to the desired position 
in the video.
As mentioned above, this can mean dragging to a position indicated by the 
thumbnails on the video track, to a marker on the marker track or to a time position on 
an additional ruler track (Cubase Pro only).
When you drag, the ruler is scaled – and the music tracks will follow.
8. Release the mouse button.
If you look in the ruler at...

Editing tempo and signature
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
918
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...

Editing tempo and signature
The Time Warp tool (Cubase Pro only)
919
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...

Editing tempo and signature
Tempo Detection (Cubase Pro only)
920
Using the Time Warp tool in a MIDI editor
This is very similar to using the tool in an audio editor:
• When you use the Time Warp tool, a tempo event is automatically inserted at 
the beginning of the edited part – this tempo event will be adjusted when you 
warp the tempo grid with the tool. Material before the edited part will not be 
affected.
• Only the default mode for the Time Warp tool is available. So when you use 
the tool, the...