DONE! User defined beat: Grid,Compound time,odd meter,Click

I use the loop browser sometimes instead of a metronome but the problem with the loop browser is that there isn’t a loop for every tempo and time signature.

+1

I was working on a Zappa transcription the other day, starting in 3/4, one measure 5/8, then 4/4.

my metronome setting was on quarter notes. In the 5/8 measure the click keeps on quarter notes. Then in the following 4/4 measure it´s on off-beats…very odd!

The clicktrack should sound quarter notes in a x/4 measure and 8th notes in a x/8 measure. Quite clear, I think… :unamused:

It does. Cubase beats the denominator’s value unless you tell it not to. I’m going to assume you have checked “Use Count Base” > “1/4”.

Yes, I definitely need it! Absolutely.

In Logic Pro is possible just leaving ON the click/metronome before the Mixdown (in Logic Pro is called “Bounce”). So I guess it is possible add this feature in Cubase as well.

+1

+1

+1

+1 from me to all of the above, of course :slight_smile:
But just the other day, I was even thinking of the following, when there might be a particularly complex couple of measures (not necessarily involving an actual time signature change, however)…

How about something like the Score Editor’s “Display Quantize” Tool, where, for example, the Key Editor grid for the most part of a project, in 4/4, can be set to 8th-notes, but, for say, half a bar, we could make use of the grid being in 16th-triplets… just dial in the required grid at the desired position :slight_smile:.

BUMP!!

At the risk of hijacking. Feel free to delete with your green superpowers if not useful.

I’ve been wondering how this should work if you have a bar of 2/4 followed by a bar of 5/8 followed by a bar of 3/4. AND it’s pretty common to have a notation where ‘quarter = dotted quarter’ when switching from 2 to 3. So simple in notated music.

I’ve come to think that this beat thing should be an individual OBJECT stored inside the tempo/time sig track at each event. IOW: you should be able to set a division at each time sig change -and- tempo change. WHICH IS ANOTHER REASON THESE SHOULD BE FOLDED INTO A SINGLE TRACK TYPE. Time sigs and tempi are indivisible (no pun intended)

And while I’m ranting, this is the kind of thing that makes me even -more- skeptical about separate notation programs. An integrated program -could- be made to handle this sort of thing automatically and with elegance.

+1

+1 I’m going to jump in here because I’ve been doing what Steve and mozizo are doing – basically inventing time signatures that will result in the downbeat of the metronome click arriving where it should. I think the whole issue could easily be resolved by referring it to the tempo track developers – the audio click has been static, possibly since the Atari days, and needs to be reviewed!

+100000000

Seriously, +11111111111111111111111.

Let’s do this already! I had to learn to use the “Use Count Base” thing only to see a few seconds later that it wouldn’t work with complex time signatures. (I go from 6/8 to 7/8 to 12/8. After the 7/8 it just keeps counting the upbeats forever, and off-beat with the 12/8 time signature that’s written.)

Yes, exactly this.

Working with musicians, “transcribing” from sheet music, scoring to picture, all made considerably more difficult by having to MacGyver some math. Please make this as comprehensive and user-friendly as possible.

Thanks so much for this thread, Steve.

Great idea. +1

After all these years, it still is frustrating that Cubase doesn’t handle 12/8 correctly. Per wikipedia:

In compound meter, subdivisions of the main beat (the upper number) split into three, not two, equal parts, so that a dotted note (half again longer than a regular note) becomes the beat unit. Compound time signatures are named as if they were simple time signatures, in which the one-third part of the beat unit is the beat, so the top number is commonly 6, 9 or 12 (multiples of 3). The lower number is most commonly an 8 (an eighth-note): as in 9/8 or 12/8.

Please, Cubase, finally give those of us that use compound meter a grid that actually respects normal musical convention and for the love of God, FIX THE BPM so that BPM is determined by a DOTTED quarter note in 12/8 and not a quarter note!

+1

And while you’re at it, can you make it so the metronome can be configured for these meters, (ie 6/8 is beep-2-3-beep-2-3 not BEEP-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep) I occasionally want to use, say 5/8 with a pulse on beats 1 and 4, currently impossible, AFAIK.

I disagree. I think each Part should have its unique tempo and meter stored within that Part. When you move a part, the tempo and meter should stay with it. The tempo and meter should not be required to be global if you don’t want it global. I hate the way it works now.

Sorry to be late to the party on this.

For me this just changes it so the metronome always clicks on the value of the denominator regardless of the numerator value. So when I switch from 6/8 to 4/4 to 3/8, if the setting is set to ⅛ or ⅜ it always clicks on the 8th note regardless of time signature in the project. I maybe missing a setting somewhere or something.

Downbeat always happens regardless of the this setting for me.

Also the thing that is very confusing is for compound meter I have to always multiply by 1.5 to get the right tempo value since dotted quarter note = BPM generally in ⅜, 6/8, 9/8 etc. Cubase always sets the tempo based on what the quarter note is regardless of denominator (2, 4, 8,16, 32 & 64).

Coming from using Pro Tools in the past mostly this has been pretty simple to change per meter change and didn’t require the meter and tempo ruler to be one track (though of course not considered tracks in Pro Tools). If you want the click to be on 8th notes for one 6/8 passage and then on dotted quarter notes it will do this.

The math for the tempo also is also very simple to work out because when you make a tempo change you tell Pro Tools what gets the beat for the tempo change this makes metric modulation very simple (at least for me) if you want to have 8th note = 210 BPM for 6/8 and 8th note = 210 BPM for 4/4 you set the tempo to 70 BPM = dotted quarter note for 6/8 and in 4/4 you set the tempo to quarter note = 105 BPM.

In Cubase as it stands the tempo would stay at 105 BPM for both time signatures and the click would switch between 8th notes and quarter notes instead of allowing you to have dotted quarter notes and quarter notes be the click value.

This kind of sounds like what SunTower was after but still on two track types that integrate with each other.

This has been in Pro Tools since 6.7 or since Fall of 2004. Granted they were way late to the game to be able to pencil (instead of having to do one point at a time like earlier versions) in tempo changes but when they did join the rest of the DAW’s they implemented it rather well (same thing when they finally got clip (region at the time) groups in PT7, and kind of like Apple seems to do with many things, late but great execution when implemented, but I rant)
http://akarchive.digidesign.com/support/docs/Whats_New_in_LE_6.7.pdf

I will say as of Pro Tools 12 you still have a universal grid value when moving things around so this suggestion is a great one and a way to implement things even better. I would think there would need to be some sort of global values you could select the grid to be based on each time signature that appears in the project. It could be in the inspector to the right of the signature column for the Signature track with a column for Grid value.

I am not sure I understand quite what the benefit is you are trying to derive from this because you can do this now just by shifting the accent of notes. Something has to be the content, you can of course accent wherever you want within this constant and drag the parts around and they retain their accents.

When you drag the part around to another section that has a different time signature what are you wanting the part to do at that point? If you are looking to have multiple time signature tracks that you can select multiple metronomes and/or tracks follow that could get crazy and confusing fast but of course would be pretty flexible.

Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think it is possible to have multiple time signatures in a General MIDI file at the same location even if it were on multiple channels?

Logic has the same trouble as Cubase with the tempo track always following the quarter note regardless of meter, and though you can do beat grouping the metronome doesn’t follow the accents.

+1 for implementing Pro Tools style tempo and time signature changes, then you could remove “Use Count Base” in “Metronome Setup” from the “Precount Options” which is a bit confusing since it doesn’t just affect precount options. Plus this method would provide much more flexibility then that option provides in the first place.

Update (Thursday, February 4, 2016 9:00 PM): Logic 10.2.1 now changed some things for the better, here’s to hoping Cubase can do the same http://play.macprovideo.com/logicprox-1021-whats-new/2
DAW Tempo and Meter Changes.zip (428 KB)