Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 Getting Started Manual

15
Tutorial 7: Tempo matching
audio loops 

CUBASE SX/SL15 – 192 Tutorial 7: Tempo matching audio loops
About this tutorial
This tutorial aims to introduce one of the basic but perhaps most use-
ful Audio Warp features in Cubase SX/SL. Audio Warp is a generic 
term for a number of tools and functions that (amongst other things) 
allow you to tempo match audio loops to any given tempo using real-
time time stretch. 
In this chapter we will describe how to use the Audio Tempo Definition 
tool to calculate the tempo of the loops used in the project,...

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Setting up
This tutorial is also based on an existing file, included on the Cubase 
SX/SL DVD. 
• Below, we assume that you have followed the previous tutorials and 
copied the “Tutorial Projects” folder to your hard drive.
If not, please see page 132. 
•Open the folder “Tutorial Projects” on your hard disk and double click 
on the file “Tutorial 7.cpr”.
Whether file extensions are shown or not depends on the settings for your operating...

CUBASE SX/SL15 – 194 Tutorial 7: Tempo matching audio loops
1.Open the Tempo Track editor from the Project menu.
The tempo is currently set to 75 bpm which is shown on the vertical axis to the left.
2.Open the Insert curve pop-up on the toolbar and select “Ramp” as 
curve type.
3.Select the Pencil tool to the left on the toolbar.    

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4.Using the ruler and the tempo axis as guides, position the cursor at 
the horizontal position shown in the picture (the end of bar 8) and the 
vertical position of approximately 90 bpm, and click to add a point.
When you point in the Tempo Track display the tempo is shown in the box above the 
tempo axis in the top left corner.
The tempo will be gradually increased from 75 bpm to 90 bpm over the 8 bars.
5.When you are done, close the Tempo...

CUBASE SX/SL15 – 196 Tutorial 7: Tempo matching audio loops
As you can hear, the audio and MIDI tracks drift out of sync almost im-
mediately. MIDI events are always adjusted automatically to the project 
tempo, whereas audio events have a fixed tempo and therefore remain 
unchanged. That means, that raising the tempo will cause adjacent au-
dio loop events to overlap, so that the end of the loop is cut.
In the Project window, this overlap is indicated by the darkened areas 
in the beginning of the audio...

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Activating Musical Mode
In this particular case we happen to know that the loops in this song 
have a tempo of 75 bpm. However, you can use the basic method 
outlined in this section to match loops to any tempo even if you don’t 
know their tempo or if your loops have different tempos. 
The first step is to calculate the original tempo based on the loop 
length. Proceed as follows:
1.Double-click one of the “Slow Disco” events on the Drums track...

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Here, the number of bars was calculated to 3 bars. But as we know 
the loop is in fact two bars long, we should change this:
4.Use the up/down arrows in the bars edit field to set the length to 2 bars.
The tempo is recalculated automatically to 75 bpm.
5.Click the Musical Mode button so that it lights up.
As the loop events on the Drums track refer to the same clip they are all adjusted to fit 
exactly 2 bars (as long as Musical Mode is...

CUBASE SX/SLTutorial 7: Tempo matching audio loops 15 – 199
8.Lastly, repeat this procedure for one of the Hi Strings events, setting 
the length to 2 bars and the “Mix“ warp setting preset.
Now all audio events are in Musical Mode, and do not overlap anymore.
9.Activate playback.
The audio events now follow the tempo exactly, just like MIDI tracks! 
•The same general method can be used for any loops as long as the in-
herent tempo is stable. Simply enter the length of the loop and activate 
Musical...

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