Steinberg Cubase SE 3 Operation Manual

							CUBASE SE
Working with the Tempo track 22 – 481
Options and settings
Snap
You activate or deactivate Snap by clicking the Snap icon on the tool-
bar. The behavior of the function depends on the display format se-
lected for the ruler:
•If “Bars+Beats” is selected, tempo curve points will snap to the set 
resolution on the Snap pop-up.
If this is set to 1/1 curve points will snap to the start of bars.
•If any other display format is selected, tempo curve points will snap to 
the vertical grid lines in the tempo curve display.
The spacing of the grid lines depends on the horizontal magnification.
•Time signature events can only be positioned at the start of bars, re-
gardless of whether Snap is activated or not.
Autoscroll
When this option is activated, the tempo curve display will scroll dur-
ing playback, keeping the project cursor visible. 
						

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22 – 482 Working with the Tempo track
The Beat Calculator
The Beat Calculator is a tool for calculating the tempo of freely re-
corded audio or MIDI material. It also allows you to set the tempo by 
tapping.
Calculating the tempo of a recording
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.Enter the number of beats that the selection encompasses in the 
Beats field.
The corresponding tempo is calculated and displayed in the BPM field.
•If you need to adjust the selection, you can just go back to the Project 
window, leaving the Beat Calculator open.
To re-calculate the tempo after adjusting the selection, click Refresh.
4.If you like, you can insert the calculated tempo into the Tempo track, 
by clicking one of the buttons in the lower left corner of the Beat Cal-
culator window.
Clicking “At Tempo Track Start” will adjust the first tempo curve point, while “At Selec-
tion Start” will add a new tempo curve point at the selection’s start position, using the 
“Jump” curve type (see page 476).
If Fixed tempo mode is selected when you insert the calculated tempo, 
the Fixed tempo will be adjusted, regardless of which button you click. 
						

							CUBASE SE
Working with the Tempo track 22 – 483
Using Tap Tempo
The Tap Tempo function allows you to specify a tempo by tapping:
1.Open the Beat Calculator.
2.If you want to tap the tempo to some recorded material, activate play-
back.
3.Click the Tap Tempo button.
The Tap Tempo window appears.
4.Tap the tempo on the computer keyboard’s space bar or with the 
mouse button.
The tempo display will update the calculated tempo between each tap.
5.When you stop tapping, the program calculates the average timing of 
the taps and displays it.
6.Click OK to close the Tap Tempo window.
The tapped tempo is now shown in the Beat Calculator’s BPM display. If you like, you 
can insert it into the Tempo track as described on the previous page. 
						

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22 – 484 Working with the Tempo track
Merge Tempo From Tapping
This function allows you to create a complete tempo track based on 
your tapping. Typically, you would use this if you have an audio file 
with no tempo mapping, and want to be able to add sequenced mate-
rial afterwards, etc.
1.Create an empty time-based MIDI track and, while playing back your 
audio material, tap the new tempo on your MIDI keyboard and record 
the created notes onto the new MIDI track.
Note that you must create note events – pedal events cannot be used for this function.
2.Play back the audio and check that the timing of the MIDI notes corre-
sponds to that of the audio. 
If necessary edit the MIDI notes in an editor.
3.Select the part (or the individual notes, in an editor) that you want to 
use for the calculation.
4.Select “Merge Tempo From Tapping” from the Functions submenu on 
the MIDI menu.
A dialog opens.
5.In the dialog, specify what type of note (1/2, 1/4 etc.) you tapped dur-
ing the recording.
If you activate the “Begin at Bar Start” option, the first note will automatically start at 
the beginning of a bar when calculating the new tempo curve.
6.Click OK.
The project’s tempo is adjusted to the tapped notes.
7.Open the Project menu and select “Tempo Track” to check that the 
new tempo information is reflected in the tempo curve. 
						

							23
Export Audio Mixdown 
						

							CUBASE SE
23 – 486 Export Audio Mixdown
Introduction
The Export Audio Mixdown function in Cubase SE allows you to mix 
down audio from the program to a file on your hard disk, in a number 
of formats. The following rules apply:
•When you mix down, you get what you hear – mutes, mixer settings 
and insert effects are taken into account.
Note though that you will only include the sound of the bus or channel you select for 
mixdown.
•MIDI tracks are not included in the mixdown!
To make a complete mixdown containing both MIDI and audio, you first need to record 
all your MIDI music to audio tracks (by connecting the outputs of your MIDI instruments 
to your audio inputs and recording, as with any other sound source). 
						

							CUBASE SE
Export Audio Mixdown 23 – 487
Mixing down to an audio file
1.Set up the left and right locator to encompass the area that you want 
to mix down.
2.Set up your tracks, so that they play back the way you want.
This includes muting unwanted tracks or parts, making manual mixer settings and/or 
activating the R (Read) automation buttons for some or all mixer channels.
3.Pull down the File menu and select “Audio Mixdown…” from the 
Export submenu.
The Export Audio Mixdown dialog appears.
The upper half of this dialog is a standard file dialog, while the lower 
half contains file format options and settings for the mixdown function. 
Note that the available settings and options differ depending on the 
selected file format (see page 489).
4.Select the bus you want to mix down with the Outputs pop-up menu.
This lists all output busses in the active project.  
						

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23 – 488 Export Audio Mixdown
5.Select the channel configuration for the mixdown file with the 
Channels pop-up menu.
Typically you would select the same channel configuration as the bus or channel you’re 
mixing down, but it’s also possible to e.g. mix down a stereo bus to a mono file. In this 
case a warning will appear, asking if that’s what you want to do.
6.Select a file format with the File type pop-up menu.
7.Make additional settings for the file to be created.
This includes selecting sample rate, resolution, quality, etc. The available options de-
pend on the selected file format – see page 489.
8.If you want to automatically import the resulting audio file back into 
Cubase SE, activate the “Import to” checkboxes.
If you activate the “Pool” checkbox, a clip referring to the file will appear in the Pool. 
Activating the “Audio Track” checkbox as well will create an audio event that plays the 
clip, and place it on a new audio track, starting at the left locator.
• The Import options are only available if you have selected an uncom-
pressed file format.
9.If you activate Update Display, the meters will be updated during the 
export process.
This allows you to check for clipping, for example.
10.Select a folder and a name for the audio file to be created.
• With some file formats you can create split stereo files (see page 489). 
This will create two files (one for each side) with the same name, but 
with the letter “L” appended for the left channel file and “R” for the right 
channel file.
11.Click Save.
•Depending on the file format, an additional dialog may appear.
For example, when exporting to MP3 format a dialog appears where you can add info 
about the song title, artist, etc. Make the desired settings and click OK to proceed.
A dialog with a progress bar is displayed while the audio file is created. 
If you change your mind during the file creation, you can click the Abort 
button to abort the operation.
•If you have activated any of the “Import to” options, the file will be im-
ported back into the project.
When playing back the re-imported file in Cubase SE, remember to mute the original 
tracks so that you really hear the true result. 
						

							CUBASE SE
Export Audio Mixdown 23 – 489
File format specifics
The following pages describe the different export file formats, and 
their options and settings.
• AIFF files (see page 489).
• Sound Designer II files (Mac OS X only, see page 491).
• Wave files (see page 491).
• MP3 files (upgrade needed, see page 492).
• Ogg Vorbis files (see page 494).
• Real Audio G2 files (Windows only, see page 495).
• Windows Media Audio files (Windows only, see page 496).
AIFF files
AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format, a standard defined by 
Apple Computer Inc. AIFF files have the extension “.aif” and are used 
on most computer platforms. The following settings are available for 
the AIFF export file format:
Channels
Option Description
Mono The audio is mixed down to mono.
Stereo Split Two mono files are created, one for each side of the stereo mix. 
The files will have the name you specify in the dialog, but with “L” 
and “R” added, respectively. Select this format if you plan to use 
the resulting file in another application that doesn’t support stereo 
interleaved files.
If you plan to re-import the file into Cubase SE, we recommend 
that you use the Stereo Interleaved option instead, since Cubase 
SE doesn’t automatically handle stereo split files as one entity.
Stereo Interleaved A stereo audio file is created. This is the recommended stereo 
option if you want to re-import the file into Cubase SE. 
						

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23 – 490 Export Audio Mixdown
Resolution
Allows you to select 8, 16 or 24 bit files.
• If you are making a mixdown for CD burning, you should use the 16 bit option, 
as CD audio is always 16 bit.
• 8 bit resolution should only be used if required, since it will result in limited au-
dio quality.
8 bit audio may be suitable in some multimedia applications, etc.
Sample Rate
This is the sample rate of the exported file. In most cases, you should 
select the sample rate set for the project, since a lower sample rate 
will degrade the audio quality (mainly reducing the high frequency 
content) and a higher sample rate will only increase the file size, with-
out adding to audio quality. Also consider the future usage of the file – 
if you e.g. plan to import the file into another application, you should 
select a sample rate supported by that application.
• If you are making a mixdown for CD burning, you should select 
44.100 kHz, since this is the sample rate used on audio CDs.