15.0

Bar position markers (Advanced Tempo Mapping)
The tempo of a piece of music is usually defined when it's composed. If you want to increase the tempo
at a certain bar position, simply define a tempo marker, with tempo interpolation referring to the previous
marker.
However, recorded audio material often does not correspond with the project tempo, e.g. a drummer's
reference track to indicate the tempo of further recordings or additionally composed material with many
timing nuances. Instead of placing tempo makers or even having to adapt the reference material using
time-stretching, you can create the musical grid at certain time positions in the linear course of playback
of the project using support points; so-called bar position markers. This way you can synchronize the bar
grid, musical grid, and the corresponding MIDI
data with available audio material.
Example:
The drummer has recorded a track using a metronome, but has deliberately not hit important beginnings
of a bar precisely. The musical grid is adapted to keep the groove within this performance. By placing a
bar position marker, the project beat of "20", including the beginning of the chorus, is moved exactly to
the first beat of the 20th bar played by the drummer.
This practical example shows that the bar position markers are used to combine the audio-based
sample/time position (or SMPTE) with the musical bar position by means of defined support points. This
allows for easy editing of projects with changing musical tempo when the musical grid is edited in the
actual time course (e.g. bar 20 should begin a this point in time!).
A tempo marker is different in that it defines a clear command: Faster (or slower) from here. A bar
position marker, however, defines the tempo indirectly by adjusting the tempo before the marker in such
a manner that the desired musical position ("beat 20") is met precisely at the marker position.
The grid, the grid display, the metronome and the events in the MIDI editor are automatically adjusted
according to the changed musical tempo.
Note
: Bar position markers immediately following a tempo marker always create a tempo run. Instead of a
tempo jump, a bar position marker is used to set a tempo run if there is a bar position marker
immediately before the tempo marker. As the tempo before the bar position marker has already been
defined, the adjustment of the musical position has to be carried out by decreasing or increasing the
tempo to such an extent that the required bar position meets the required time position at the bar position
marker.
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