I’m currently syncing Cantabile (slave) with Cubase (master) and want to add a display bar offset in Cantabile so that it starts from bar 0 instead of 1, just like I have set up in Cubase. Is this possible? Here’s a quick example:
Ideally, I’d like to add more negative bars, but for the cue I’m working on, a single bar would suffice. Thanks!
Hi @brad
I’ve looked everywhere, and I don’t think what I’m trying to do is currently possible. I’m using Cantabile for film scoring, and my setup is as follows:
Dorico/Video [MTC] → Cubase [MIDI clock] → Cantabile [MIDI] → Vienna Ensemble Pro
The workflow is driven by the notation software, with everything else following suit. Surprisingly, it’s been rock solid despite all the moving parts. I can send MIDI messages from Dorico to Cantabile, allowing intricate bindings and input filters, while having audio returns to Cubase for quick printing. In Cantabile, I use Songs for cues and States for different orchestrations on-the-fly, without changing the notation.
I also use the transport binding to trigger actions, which is why it would be useful to visually sync the Status Panel with Cubase/Dorico. This leads to my original question about the “display bar offset”. Some cues have an offset of 2, others 1 or 3, etc (for edit reasons). For example, if I’m in bar 48 in Dorico, I’d want to create a transport binding in Cantabile, knowing it will trigger in the correct place without constantly checking Cantabile’s position relative to Dorico. Not a huge deal, but convenient when projects get complex.
Another issue I’m facing is syncing Cantabile to MIDI clock while displaying accurate time signature changes. I successfully imported a MIDI file with the cue structure, which is fantastic. However, it seems we don’t have variables for the media player Timeline Position and Time Signature. I have the media player synced to Slave (Musical), so the MIDI file is perfectly synced to Cubase, except for the display offset discrepancy. The Timeline Position variable would also allow me to accurately add transport bindings.
In summary, I would like to kindly request the following:
- Variables for $(TimelinePositionMusical) and $(TimelineTimeSignature) that read from the MIDI file.
- An option to change the display bar offset, so bar 1 can be represented as bar 0, bar -1, etc, per song.
Thanks in advance!
This is something that i think has come up before. I for one would be very interested in allowing the start of Bar 1 to be placed at an arbitrary position in the timeline. My songs typically have a half-second or so of silence followed by a one-bar count-in, and it’d be great to have bar 1 start at the same place the song starts, so that Cantabile’s measure numbers would align with the actual song position (rather than having to add some oddball factor to song position on every binding).
– Jimbo
Thanks for suggesting this:
Just to be clarify, these are already available for the master transport. Are you saying you want the same for media players and how would you want to handle having multiple media players?
This sounds reasonable. Again to clarify, this would affect all musical position displays? (eg: metronome, media players, binding triggers etc…?)
Brad
Yes, i would think it would be for all musical time format.
I don’t know if I understand…or if I’m wrong…
But with thé New loop range function, I have extended for 1 bar the beginning of a song with a master gain shut down.
So the song is beginning After 1 bar of muted sound.
Everything stays in Sync métronome, bidings…etc
See you
David
Yes, as mentioned in my previous post, we’re currently missing variables for the media player’s timeline position and time signature. I’d use these as custom text in the Status Bar and for transport bindings.
I hadn’t considered multiple media players, but perhaps we could differentiate them with numbers? For example, with three active media players, we could use $(Timeline1PositionMusical), $(Timeline2PositionMusical), and $(Timeline3PositionMusical). I chose “Timeline” to match the manual’s nomenclature, but feel free to change it to something else, like $(PlayerXPositionMusical), just spitballing. 
Yes, once the user changes the first bar number from 1 to 0, it should affect everything else.
To clarify, I’m only referring to the bar number itself. I don’t need to shift the MIDI starting position or add empty bars to the beginning of the project.
I’ve attached a quick screengrab to show you how it’s currently working. There are some minor variations in the counters when I hit stop, but everything stays synced during playback.
Here’s how it ideally would look:
Thanks again, @brad . I truly appreciate your time and patience in looking into this.
(apologies for the double message, I can only put one embedded media item in a post)
Thanks for suggesting this… I’m travelling interstate this week but will take a closer look when I get back on Monday.
Brad
Initially I thought this might be a simple display issue, but on further thought I think this is a bit more complex.
ie: timing information reported to plugins and via MIDI sync should also be offset by any configured value.
This complicates things much more and I’m not sure it’s something I want to do right now.
Hi @brad no worries at all, my friend! If you ever feel like revisiting this in the future, I’d love to have these extra variables. However, I definitely don’t want it to come at the cost of a Cantabile mini-meltdown 
I can see how this could complex to implement.
