Steinberg Cubase 4 Operation Manual

							556
Additional note and rest formatting
3.Drag the handle up or down.
The slant of the beam changes.
Dragging a handle and the effect it has.
ÖYou can adjust the distance between notes and their 
beam without changing the beam slant. Select both handles 
of a beam (by pressing the [Shift] key while selecting the 
second handle) and drag one of the handles up or down.
Mixed staff direction
By dragging the beam handles you can put the beam be-
tween the note heads:
Putting the beam between the notes.
About tied notes
Sometimes, notes will be displayed as two or more notes 
tied together. Generally, there are three different occa-
sions when this will happen:
 When a note is of an “uneven” length that cannot be displayed 
without tying together two or more notes of different note val-
ues.
 When a note crosses a bar line.
 When a note crosses a “group line” within a bar.
The last case requires some explanation: Cubase uses a 
“cutting mechanism” that automatically creates tied notes 
depending on the length and position of the notes. For ex-
ample, a quarter note is cut in two and tied if it crosses a 
half note beat, and an eighth note is cut in two and tied if it 
crosses a quarter note beat:
However, this isn’t always what you want. There are three 
ways to affect the cutting mechanism:
Syncopation
When the Syncopation option is activated on the Main tab 
of the Score Settings–Staff page, Cubase will be less 
prone to cut and tie notes. For example, the second quar-
ter note in the figure above would not have been cut if syn-
copation had been activated.
The Syncopation setting on the Score Settings–Staff 
page affects the whole track, but you can also make syn-
copation settings for separate sections in the score, by in-
serting display quantize events (see “Inserting display 
quantize changes” on page 514).
Time signature changes
By inserting time signature changes, you can change the 
way notes are cut. This is done in the same way as when 
you specify how beamed notes should be grouped – see 
“Grouping” on page 552.
The Cut Notes tool
By using the Cut Notes tool, you can disable the auto-
matic cutting mechanism in a bar, and insert manual cuts 
at any given position in the score:
1.Select the Cut Notes tool.
This quarter note is cut.This eighth note is cut.
With a regular 4/4 time signature.
With a composite time signature (3+2+3 eighth notes). 
						

							557
Additional note and rest formatting
2.Set the Quantize pop-up menu to an appropriate value.
As usual, this determines where you will be able to click.
3.Click in the bar containing the note(s) you want to cut 
manually, at the position you want them cut. If you work 
with polyphonic voicing, select the desired voice first.
This inserts a cutflag event in the bar at the position you clicked. If you 
hold down [Alt]/[Option], a cutflag event is inserted for all voices in a 
polyphonic staff.
The following rules apply to cutflag events:
 If a bar contains a cutflag event, the automatic cutting mecha-
nism is disabled within that bar.
 All notes or rests that start before and end after a cutflag event 
will be cut at the position of the event.
 To display cutflag events, make sure that “Cutflag” is activated 
on the filter bar.
 To remove a cutflag event, either click again with the Cut Notes 
tool at the same position, or select it and press [Backspace] or 
[Delete].
Other options for tied notes
Tie direction
As described in the section “Tie pop-up menu” on page 
551, you can set the direction of the tie manually in the 
Set Note Info dialog.
Flat ties
If you prefer ties to be displayed as flat lines, rather than 
regular “curved” ties, activate the option “Flat Ties” in the 
“H.W. Henze Style” category on the Score Settings–
Project page (Notation Style subpage).
Graphic moving of notes
There might be instances where the “graphical” order of 
the notes isn’t the one you want. In this case you can 
move the note without affecting the score or playback in 
any way. There are two ways to do this:
By using the Layout tool
1.Select the Layout tool.
2.Click on the note and drag it right or left.
Movement is restricted to horizontally only.
Before and after changing the “graphical order” of notes.
By using the computer keyboard
You can assign key commands for moving objects graph-
ically. In the Key Commands dialog on the File menu, the 
commands are found under the Nudge category and 
called Graphical Left, Right, Bottom and Top (only the 
Graphical Left and Right commands apply to notes). 
After assigning key commands, you select the note(s) you 
want to move and press the assigned keys to adjust their 
graphical position.
A half note, placed at 2.1.3. This is by default cut at 2.3.1 (the 
middle of the bar). When you click at the position 2.2.1, a cutflag 
event is inserted.
As a result, the regular cutting mechanism is disabled and the note is 
cut at the position you clicked instead. 
						

							558
Additional note and rest formatting
Cue notes
You can create cue notes by using voices or by converting 
individual notes into cue notes.
Setting a voice to display cue notes
1.Open the Score Settings–Staff page and select the 
Polyphonic tab.
This is described in the section “Setting up the voices” on page 538.
2.Click in the “Cue” column for the voice, so that a tick 
mark appears.
3.Decide how to handle rests for the voice.
You might for example leave “Rests–Show” activated and activate “Re-
duce”. If you do, you will get rests in this voice, but not as many as other-
wise. Empty bars, for example, will not have any rests at all.
4.Close the dialog.
5.Move the notes into the cue voice.
Polyphonic voicing is described in detail on “Polyphonic voicing” on 
page 536.
An example of a cue note voice.
A quick example
Let’s say you have a flute part and want some cue notes 
for it.
1.Switch on polyphonic voices and activate voice 1 and 
voice 2.
2.Set voice 2 to “Auto” stem direction and centered 
rests.
3.Set up voice 1 to be a cue voice, with hidden rests 
and stems pointing up.
4.Insert the cue notes into voice 1.
Turning individual notes into cue notes
1.Select one or several notes.
2.Double-click one of the notes.
The Set Note Info dialog appears. You can also click the “i” button on the 
extended toolbar, or right-click on a note head and select “Properties” 
from the context menu to open this dialog.
3.Select Cue from the Type pop-up.
Note type set to Cue.
4.Click Apply.
The settings are applied to the selected note(s).
5.If you like, select other notes and make settings for 
them.
When you are done, close the dialog by clicking its close button.
Grace notes
You can turn any note into a grace note. Grace notes are 
considered to be notes without lengths. This means that 
once a note is turned into a grace note it doesn’t affect the 
rest of the score display in any way.
Before and after converting to grace notes. Note that after the conver-
sion, the grace notes no longer “interfere” with the interpretation of the 
other notes.
Creating grace notes manually
1.Locate the note for which you want a grace note.
2.Insert one or more new notes just before it.
The note value and exact position of the note isn’t important. However, 
the pitch of course is.
“Cue” activated for voice 3.
!Grace notes are always automatically positioned just 
before the next note on the staff. If there is no note 
after a grace note on the staff, the grace note will be 
hidden! 
						

							559
Additional note and rest formatting
From here on there are two ways to go:
Select the note(s) and click the “i” icon on the extended 
toolbar.
The Set Note Info dialog appears and you can select the Grace note type 
and make other settings if needed.
Right-click on one of the notes and select “Convert to 
Grace Note” from the context menu.
This turns the note into a grace note without opening any dialog.
Grace notes and beaming
 If two grace notes are at exactly the same position (the same 
tick), they will be put onto the same stem, as a chord.
 If multiple grace notes in front of the same note are put on dif-
ferent positions (even if they are only one tick apart), they will 
be grouped under a beam.
 Please note that it is possible to have beamed grace notes 
overlapping a beam of regular notes, as in the example below:
Grace notes in the middle of a group of regular notes.
Editing a grace note
1.Select one or several grace notes and open the Set 
Note Info dialog.
The grace note settings in the Set Note Info dialog.
2.Select a note value for the stem.
3.Activate Crossed, if you wish.
When this is activated, the stem will be crossed by a slanted line, to fur-
ther indicate that the note is a grace note.
4.Click Apply.
The settings are applied to the selected note(s).
5.If you like, select other notes and make settings for 
them.
When you are done, close the dialog by clicking its close button.
Converting grace notes to normal notes
1.Select the notes you want to convert.
If you want to make sure that all notes in the score are normal notes, you 
can select all notes (using the Select All command on the Edit menu).
2.Double-click on one of the selected grace notes.
The Set Note Info dialog appears.
3.Select “Normal” from the “Type” pop-up.
4.Click Apply.
Tuplets
The regular display quantize values do not apply to any 
other divisions than triplets. To create quintuplets, septu-
plets etc., follow the instructions below. 
There are two methods for creating tuplets:
 With permanent alteration to the MIDI data. This is the “draw-
ing” mode to use when you want to build the tuplet from 
scratch. It doesn’t put any demand on the notes’ positions be-
fore the tuplet is created.
 As display quantize. This is the method you use when the tu-
plet is recorded and plays back as you want it, but is not dis-
played correctly.
Actually, in the first case, you make permanent alterations 
and set display quantize settings, all in one go. In the se-
cond case you only make display quantize settings.
With permanent change to MIDI data
1.Insert as many notes as the tuplet consists of.
This would typically be 5, 7 or 9. If the tuplet contains rests, simply leave 
space for those, but make sure the current display quantize value allows 
them to be shown.
Five sixteenth notes, about to be converted to a quintuplet.
2.Select all the notes that make up the tuplet. 
						

							560
Additional note and rest formatting
3.Select “Build N-Tuplet” from the Scores menu.
The Tuplets dialog appears.
4.Set the type of tuplet in the Type field.
“5” means a quintuplet, “7” means a septuplet etc.
5.Set the length of the entire tuplet using the “Over” 
field.
6.Activate Change Length, if you need it.
If you do, the program will alter the length of all notes so that they are ex-
actly the note value the tuplet indicates. If you don’t, the lengths of the 
existing notes won’t be affected in any way.
7.If you want any other text than the standard above the 
tuplet, enter it into the “Text” field.
The standard text is simply the number in the type field. If the tuplet is put 
under a beam (see “Tuplet display options” on page 560) the text is put 
just above it. If there is no beam, the text is found in the middle of a 
bracket.
8.Click Build.
The tuplet appears. The notes have now been moved to the tuplet posi-
tions and their length might have changed. 
9.If needed, edit the lengths and pitches of the notes in 
the tuplet.
You can also make various settings for the appearance of the tuplet – 
see below.
Without permanent change to MIDI data
1.Select the notes in the tuplet group.
In this case, the notes play back correctly but aren’t displayed as a tuplet 
(yet).
2.Select “Build N-Tuplet” from the Scores menu to bring 
up the Tuplets dialog.
3.Make settings in the dialog, as described above.4.Click Quantize.
Now the tuplet is displayed correctly. You can make additional settings 
for how the tuplet should appear, as described below.
5.If necessary, adjust the notes.
Editing tuplet settings
1.Double-click on the text above the Tuplet group to 
bring up the Tuplets dialog.
2.Adjust the Text setting.
3.Click Apply.
The changes are applied to the tuplet, without affecting the tuplet type or 
length.
Grouping
If the Tuplet is a quarter note long or shorter, the notes will 
be automatically grouped under a beam. If it is longer you 
have to perform the grouping manually. See “Grouping” 
on page 552 for details.
Tuplet display options
On the Score Settings–Project page, Notation Style sub-
page (“Tuplets” category), you find the following settings 
for tuplets:
!Lengths and positions in a tuplet group are probably 
best edited using the info line.
Option Description
Tuplet Brackets There are three possible settings for this option:
– None: Tuplets never have brackets.
– Always: Tuplets always have brackets.
– …by the head: Brackets are shown only when the tu-
plets are displayed on the “head side”.
Display Tuplet 
values by the 
BeamsWhen this is activated, tuplets will be displayed on the 
“beam side” of the notes instead of on the note head 
side.
Suppress 
Recurring 
TupletsWhen this is activated, and you have several tuplets of 
the same type in the same bar, only the first of these is 
displayed as a tuplet.
Show Tuplet 
Brackets as 
“Slurs”When this is activated, the tuplet brackets will be “slur-
like” (rounded).
Double-click here. 
						

							8
Working with symbols 
						

							562
Working with symbols
About this chapter
In this chapter you will learn:
 What the different types of symbols are.
 How to insert and edit symbols.
 Details about special symbols.
Background: The different layers
A score page is always made up of three layers – the note 
layer, the layout layer and the project layer. When you add 
symbols, these will be inserted into one of these layers, de-
pending on the type of symbol. The symbols that have a re-
lation to notes – accents, dynamic markings, slurs, lyrics 
etc. – will be put in the note layer. Other symbols – such as 
repeats, rehearsal marks, some types of text, etc. – can be 
put either in the layout layer (which is individual for each 
layout) or in the project layer (common for all layouts).
Note layer symbols
Let’s look at the note layer symbols first. These come in 
three flavors:
 Note symbols. These are each tied to a single note. Examples 
of note symbols are accents and lyrics. When you move the 
note, the symbol moves with it. The same is true if you cut the 
note and then paste; the symbol is cut and pasted together 
with the note.
 Note-dependent symbols. Only a few symbols belong to this 
category, for example the arpeggio lines. In one way, these be-
have just like grace notes (see “Grace notes” on page 558). 
They always precede a note or chord. If there is no note “after 
them” on a staff, they will disappear. All other note layer symbols (tempo, dynamics, chords etc.). 
Their position is related to the bar. (Whichever way you edit 
the notes, these symbols remain unaffected.) However, their 
positions are fixed within a measure. If you for example change 
the spacing of the bars across the page (see “Setting the 
number of bars across the page” on page 613), this will affect 
the symbols positions.
Layout layer symbols
Now let’s examine the layout layer symbols. The layout 
layer is not stored individually for each track, as the other 
symbols are. Instead it is common to a “set of tracks”. Let’s 
illustrate this with an example:
You have four tracks that make up a string quartet. You 
edit them all at the same time and add symbols to the 
score, both note layer symbols and layout layer symbols.
Now let’s say you close the Score Editor and open only 
one of the tracks for editing. All your note layer symbols 
are there just as you left them, but the layout layer symbols 
have disappeared!
Don’t worry, close the editor again, and open all four 
tracks for editing and the symbols are back.
You have probably got a clue as to what is going on by 
now. The layout layer symbols are part of a “bigger entity” 
called “layout”. And a layout is something that is stored 
not per track, but for a group of tracks. Each time you 
open the same combination of tracks for editing, you get 
the same layout.
There are also other things that are part of the layout – 
apart from the symbols in the layout layer, see the chapter 
“Working with layouts” on page 599.
Project layer symbols
Project layer symbols are layout symbols that are present 
in all layouts. The project layer holds the symbols found in 
the Project tab, plus bar line types and bar number offsets.
Using project layer symbols in conjunction with the Ar-
ranger mode, you can have playback in the program follow 
the score – repeats, da Capos and endings will be played 
back properly allowing you to hear your compositions as 
they would be played back by live players.
Layout layer symbols
Note layer symbols 
						

							563
Working with symbols
Why three layers?
There are several reasons for this division into layers:
 Many of the symbols that are in the layout layer can be stretched 
to span over several staves, or for other reasons make more 
sense to think of as belonging to a certain group of tracks.
 The layout layer is only one part of the bigger concept of lay-
outs. Layouts allow you to easily extract parts from a full score 
and perform automatic formatting. This is described in the 
chapter “Working with layouts” on page 599.
 Typically, you want to display some symbols – repeat bar 
lines, endings, score titles etc. – for all layouts in a score. To 
achieve this, insert them on the project layer.
Which symbols are part of which layer is described in the 
section “The available symbols” on page 564 and onwards.
The symbol Inspector
To display the symbol Inspector, click the Show Symbols 
button on the toolbar.
Customizing the symbol Inspector
You can customize the appearance of the symbol Inspec-
tor by showing/hiding tabs and by specifying their order in 
the Inspector.
Showing/Hiding symbol Inspector tabs
If you right-click on any tab in the Inspector, a context menu 
will appear. On this menu, you can directly check (show) or 
uncheck (hide) elements of the Inspector as desired.
You can also select different preset configurations from 
the lower half of the menu. To display all Symbol Inspector 
tabs, select “Show All”.
The symbol Inspector Setup dialog
If you right-click on any closed tab in the symbol Inspector 
and select “Setup…” from the context menu, a dialog ap-
pears. In this dialog you can configure where the separate 
tabs should be placed in the Inspector and save/recall dif-
ferent configurations of the Inspector.
The Setup dialog for the symbol Inspector. 
The dialog is divided into two columns. The left column 
displays the currently visible tabs in the Inspector, and the 
right column displays the currently hidden tabs.
You can change the current show/hide status by select-
ing items in one column and using the arrow buttons in the 
middle of the dialog to move them to the other column.
The changes are reflected directly in the editor.
You can change the order of the (visible) tabs in the 
symbol Inspector with the “Move Up” and “Move Down” 
buttons.
The changes are reflected directly in the Score editor. To revert back to 
the default Inspector settings, right-click on one of the tabs and select 
“Default” from the context menu.
A “customized” Inspector 
						

							564
Working with symbols
If you click the Save button (disk icon) in the Presets 
section, you can name the current configuration and save 
it as a preset.
To remove a preset, select it and click the trash icon.
Saved configurations are available for selection from the 
Presets pop-up in the dialog, or directly from the Inspector 
context menu.
Working with symbol palettes
You can open any of the symbol Inspector sections as 
separate symbol palettes.
Opening tabs as palettes 
1.Right-click on one of the symbols of the desired tab in 
the Inspector.
Note that you have to right-click on a symbol. Right-clicking on a tab 
header will open another context menu instead, see above.
2.Select “Open as Palette” from the context menu that 
appears.
The selected tab will be shown as palette.
Moving and handling palettes
Palettes are handled as any window, which means that 
you can:
Move a palette to another position by dragging its title 
bar. 
Close a palette by clicking its close box.
In addition, you can select whether the palette should be 
shown horizontally or vertically, by right-clicking and se-
lecting “Toggle” from the context menu that appears.
The available symbols
The illustrations below show all the available symbols. 
These are shown as palettes and the captions contain 
additional information about the symbols.
The “Favourites” palette.
The “Keys” palette.
The “Clefs” palette.
The “Time Sign” palette. 
						

							565
Working with symbols The “Chord Symbols” palette.
The “Guitar Symbols” palette.
The “Clef etc.” palette.The “Note Symbols” palette. These symbols are always tied to a note.
The “Dynamics” palette.
Clef change
Time signature change
Key change (and/or display transpose change)
Bow up Pizzicato
Tremolo Thumb pos.
Closed Hihat Open Hihat
Staccato Accent
Fermata Fermata
Glissando Glissando
Articulation Doit
Articulation Articulation
StaccatoStaccato Tenuto Staccato
Bow down
Tremolo
Accent
Staccato
Spoken tone
Fall Accent
Damped
Tremolo
Accent
Fermata
Diamond note
StaccatoAccent
Staccato Fall
Bezier Slur
Diminuendo Crescendo
“Dynamic” crescendo “Double” cresc./dim.
Slur up
Tie up Tie down Dynamics
Slur down