Steinberg Cubase 5.5 New Features Manual
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21 The MediaBay Finally, the files can be easily inserted into the project, by using drag & drop, by double-clicking or using the context menu options, see “Inserting the files into the project” on page 25. The Define Locations section When you open the MediaBay for the first time, a scan for media files is performed on your system. You specify which folders or directories you want to be included in the scan by activating/deactivating the checkboxes for the folders in the Define Locations section. Depending on the amount of me- dia files on your computer, the scan may take a while. All files that are found in the specified folders are shown in the Results list. •To include a folder in the scan, activate its checkbox. •To exclude a folder from the scan, deactivate its check- box. •To restrict the search to individual subfolders, activate/ deactivate their checkboxes. The color of the checkmark helps you to identify which folders and subfolders are scanned: • A white checkmark indicates that all subfolders are scanned. • An orange checkmark indicates that at least one subfolder is excluded from the scan. •To revert to scanning a complete folder (including all subfolders), click on an orange checkmark. The checkmark becomes white, to indicate that all folders are scanned. The scanning status for the individual folders themselves is indicated by the color of the folder icons: • A red icon means that the folder is currently being scanned. • A light blue icon means the folder has been scanned. • A dark blue icon is displayed for folders which are excluded from the scan. • An orange icon is displayed when the scanning process for the folder was interrupted. • A yellow icon is displayed for folders that have not yet been scanned. The scan result is saved in a database file. When you de- activate the checkbox for a folder that has already been scanned, a message appears, allowing you to keep the gathered scan data in this database file or to completely remove the data for this folder from the database file. Se- lect Keep if you want to keep the database entries, but want to exclude the folder from being scanned (when you trigger a re-scan for example). Select Remove if you do not want to use the contents of this folder in your projects. •When you activate the “Please, don’t ask again” option, no further warning messages will be shown when you de- activate other checkboxes, for as long as the program is running. When you quit and re-launch Cubase, these warning messages will be displayed again. The VST Sound node The Define Locations section provides a shortcut to user content and factory content files, including the preset folders: the VST Sound node. •The folders below the VST Sound node represent the directories in which content files and track presets, VST presets, etc. are stored by default. To find out the “true” location of a file, right-click on it in the Results list and select “Open in Explorer” (Win)/“Reveal in Finder” (Mac). This will open an Explorer/Finder window in which the corresponding file is high- lighted. Please note that this function is not available for files which are part of a VST Sound archive. Some subfolders of this folder are excluded from the scan. All subfolders of this folder are included in the scan.
22 The MediaBay Updating the display You can update the display in two ways: by rescanning or by refreshing. Rescanning When you click the Rescan button, the selected folder is rescanned. If a folder contains a large number of media files, the scanning process may take some time. Use this function if you have made changes to the content of spe- cific media folders and want to scan these folders again. ÖYou can also rescan the selected folder by right-click- ing on it and selecting Rescan Disk from the context menu. Refreshing In addition to the Rescan Disk option, the context menu for the selected node or folder in the Define Locations section also contains a Refresh Views option. This refreshes the display for this location without rescanning the correspond- ing media files. This is useful in the following situations: •When you have modified attribute values (see “Editing attributes (tagging)” on page 31) and want to update the results list so that these values are displayed for the corre- sponding files. •When you have mapped a new network drive, for exam- ple, and want this to appear as a node in the Define Loca- tions section. Simply select the Refresh Views option for the parent node and the new drive will appear in the Define Locations section (ready to be scanned for media files). Defining Locations When you have set up the Define Locations section ac- cording to your preferences, and the content is scanned, it is time to make it available in a meaningful way. For this, you can define locations, i. e. shortcuts to the folders you want to work with, that will be available from the Locations section for convenient access.To define a location, proceed as follows: 1.In the list to the left, select the desired folder. 2.Click the Add button. A naming dialog for the new location is displayed. 3.Accept the default name or enter a new name. 4.Click OK. The new location is added to the Locations pop-up menu in the Loca- tions section (see below). 5.Repeat these steps to add as many locations as you need. Once you have set up your locations, you can hide the Define Locations section from view (see “Setting up the MediaBay window” on page 20), to save screen space. ÖSome Location presets are available by default. These are: “All Media” (the topmost node in the Define Locations section), “Local Harddisks” (the local harddisks in your computer system) and “VST Sound” (the folder in which Steinberg sound files, loops and presets are stored by default). The Locations section When you open the Locations pop-up menu and select a location, the media files found in that location are shown in the Results list. By switching between the locations you defined, you can quickly browse to the files you are look- ing for. •To change the browse location, simply select another location from the pop-up menu. If the available Locations don’t yield the desired results or if the folder you want to scan for files is not part of any of the locations, define a new Location in the Define Locations section. •To select the previous or next folder in a sequence of selected folders, use the “Previous/Next Browse Location” buttons. These paths will be deleted when you close the MediaBay. Previous/Next Browse LocationBrowse Containing FolderClick here to open the pop-up menu and select the desired Location. Remove Browse Location Definition Deep Results
23 The MediaBay •To select the parent folder of the selected folder, click the “Browse Containing Folder” button. •To remove a location from the pop-up menu, select it and click the “Remove Browse Location Definition” button. •To show the files contained in the selected folder and any subfolders (without showing these subfolders), acti- vate the Deep Results button. When this button is deactivated, only the folders and files contained in the selected folder are shown. The Results list The Results list is at the heart of the MediaBay. Here, you will find all the files found in the selected location. As the number of files displayed can be huge (the info field in the top right corner of the Results section shows the number of files found with the current filter settings), you might want to use any of the filter and search options in the MediaBay to narrow down the list. The available op- tions are described below. ÖThe maximum number of files that are displayed in the Results list can be set by specifying a new value for “Max- imum Items in Results list” in the Preferences (see “Prefer- ences” on page 34). Filtering according to media type The Results list can be set to display only a particular me- dia type or a combination of media types. •Click in the field where the currently displayed media types are shown (by default “All Media Types”) to open the Show Media Types dialog. Here, you can activate the media types you want to be displayed in the Results list. When you have filtered the list to show a particular media type, this is indicated by the corresponding icon to the left of media type field. When you have selected several media types, the Mixed Media Type icon is used. The media types In the “Show Media Types” dialog, you can activate the media types you want to be displayed in the Results list. The following types are available: Option Description Audio Files When this is activated, the list shows all audio files. The supported formats are .wav, .w64, .aiff, .aifc, .rex, .rx2, .mp3, .mp2, .ogg, .sd2, .wma (Win- dows only). MIDI Files When this is activated, the list shows all MIDI files (file name extension .mid). MIDI Loops When this is activated, the list shows all MIDI loops (file name extension .midiloop). Pattern Banks When this is activated, the list shows all pattern banks (file name extension .patternbank). Pattern banks are generated by the MIDI plug-in Beat De- signer. For more information, see “Previewing pat- tern banks” on page 27 and the separate PDF document “Plug-in Reference”. Track Presets When this is activated, the list shows all track pre- sets for audio, MIDI, and instrument tracks (file name extension .trackpreset). Track presets are a combination of track settings, effects and mixer set- tings that can be applied to new tracks of various types. For more information, see the chapter “Work- ing with track presets” in the Operation Manual. Select this option to display all types. Here, the last four media type selections you made are listed. The media types you activate here are shown in the Results list.
24 The MediaBay Setting up the Results list columns For each media type, or for combinations of media types, you can specify the attribute columns that are displayed in the Results list. In most cases, you will probably only want to display a few main attributes in the Results list and use the Attribute Inspector to view the complete list of attribute values for the files. Proceed as follows: 1.Select the media type (or combination of media types) that you want to make settings for. 2.Click the “Set up Result Columns” button and activate or deactivate the options on the submenus. Activate the attributes that you want to be displayed in the Results list. ÖIf you want to see none of the attributes of a certain category, choose the “Select None” option on the corre- sponding submenu. ÖWhen the “Allow Editing in Results List” option is acti- vated in the Preferences dialog, you can also edit attributes in the Results list. Otherwise this is only possible in the At- tribute Inspector. Performing a text search You can limit the number of results in the Results list using the text search function. When you enter text in the Text Search field, only media files whose attributes match the entered text will be displayed. For example, if you are looking for all audio loops relating to drum sounds, simply enter “drum” in the search field. The search results will contain loops with names such as “Drums 01”, “Drumloop”, “Snare Drum”, etc. Also, all me- dia files with the Category attribute Drum&Percussion, or any other attribute that contains “drum” will be found. When you enter text in the field, its background becomes red, to indicate that a text filter is active for the list. To re- set the text filter, delete the text. Boolean text search You can also perform advanced searches, using boolean operators or wildcards. The following elements can be used: Plug-in Presets When this is activated, the list shows all VST pre- sets for instrument and effect plug-ins. These pre- sets contain all parameter settings for a particular plug-in. They can be used to apply sounds to in- strument tracks and effects to audio tracks. For more information, see the chapter “Working with track presets” in the Operation Manual. Video Files When this is activated, the list shows all video files. Projects When this is activated, the list shows all project files (from Cubase, Nuendo, Sequel): .cpr, .npr, .steinberg-project. Option Description Click here to open the pop-up menu. Option Description And [+] [a and b] – When entering strings separated by “and” (or a plus sign), all files are found that contain both a and b. [And] is the default setting when no boolean operator is used, i. e. you can also enter [a b]. Or [,] [a or b] – When entering strings separated by “or” (or a comma), files are found that contain either a or b, or both. Not [-] [not b] – When entering text preceded by “not” (or a mi- nus sign), all files not containing b will be found. Parentheses [( )][(a or b) + c] – Using parentheses, you can group text strings. In this example, files are found that contain c and either a or b. Quotation marks [“ ”][“example text”] – With quotation marks, you can define sequences of several words. Files are found if they con- tain this sequence of words. !When you are searching for files whose name con- tains a hyphen, put the search text in quotation marks, because otherwise the program will treat the hyphen as the boolean operator “not”.
25 The MediaBay ÖThe operators can also be used for Logical filtering with the “matches” condition selected, see “Applying a logical filter” on page 28. The rating slider Using the rating slider above the Results list, you can specify rating settings for your files, ranging from 1 to 5. This makes it possible to exclude certain files from the search according to their quality. When you move the rating slider, the active rating filter is indicated in red. All files of this rating are displayed in the list. The search in progress indicator At the top right in the Results list you will find an indicator which shows whether the MediaBay is currently searching for files. Resetting the list When you have set up filters for the Results list, you can set everything back to default by clicking the Reset Re- sults Filter button to the right of the Rating slider. This will delete any text in the text search field, set the rat- ing slider to display all files and deactivate all the media type filters. Inserting the files into the project You can insert files into the project by right-clicking on them and selecting one of the “Insert into project” options from the context menu, or you can double-click them. What happens next depends on the track type:Audio files, MIDI loops, and MIDI files can be inserted into the project by double-clicking them in the Results list. They will be inserted on the active track, if this matches the file type or onto a new track if no corresponding track is active. The files will be inserted at the current project cursor posi- tion. Similarly, if you double-click on a track preset, it will be ap- plied to the active track, if the track type matches the track preset. Otherwise, a new track will be inserted, containing the settings of the track preset. If you double-click a VST preset, an instrument track is added to the project, containing an instance of the corre- sponding instrument. For some VST presets, this will load the entire instrument settings, programs, etc. For others, only one program will be loaded, see “Applying instrument presets” on page 36. When you double-click on a pattern bank, a new MIDI track is created in the Project window, with an instance of the Beat Designer plug-in as insert effect which is using this pattern. Managing files in the Results list •You can move/copy a file from the Results list to an- other location by clicking on it and dragging it to another folder in the Define Locations section. You will be asked whether you want to copy or move the file to the new location. •You can change the display order in the Results list by clicking on a column heading, and dragging that heading to another position in the display. •To delete a file, right-click it in the list and select Delete from the context menu. A warning message is displayed, asking you to confirm that you really want to move this file to the operating system’s trash folder. The data you delete here will be permanently deleted from your computer, therefore be sure to delete only the files you do not want to use any more. With this setting, only files with a rating of at least 2 are displayed. When this indicator is shown, a media search is in progress. !When a file was deleted in the Explorer/Finder, it will still be displayed in the Results list, although it is no longer available to the program. To remedy this, you have to re-scan the corresponding folder.
26 The MediaBay Previewing files When you have sufficiently narrowed down the list of files, you will want to preview individual files to find out which one to use in your project. This is done in the Previewer section. Note that some MediaBay-specific Preferences affect the playback of media files, see “Preferences” on page 34. The elements visible in this section and their functions depend on the type of media file. Previewing audio files To preview an audio file, click the Play button. What hap- pens next depends on the following settings: •When “Auto Play New Results Selection” is activated, any file you select in the Results list is automatically played back. •When “Align Beats to Project” is activated, the file you selected for preview in the Results list is played back in sync with the project, starting at the project cursor posi- tion. Note that this may apply realtime time stretching to your audio file. When you import an audio file into your project for which “Align Beats to Project” is activated in the Previewer, Musical mode is automatically ac- tivated for the corresponding track. •When “Wait for Project Play” is activated, the Play and Stop functions from the Transport panel are synchronized with the Play and Stop buttons in the Previewer section. This option is very useful for previewing audio loops. To use it to its full extent, set the left locator at the beginning of a bar, then start playing back the project using the Transport panel. The loops that you now se- lect in the Results list will start together with the project in perfect sync. Play and Stop of the Previewer transport can still be used if needed. Previewing MIDI files To preview a MIDI file (.mid), you first have to select an output device from the Output pop-up menu. •“Auto Play New Results Selection” and “Align Beats to Project” work as for audio files, see above. When working with long MIDI files, you can click in the timeline to jump to a specific position in the file. Previewing MIDI loops To preview a MIDI loop file, click the Play button. •“Auto Play New Results Selection” works as for audio files, see above. MIDI loops are always played back in sync to the project. Previewing VST presets and track presets for MIDI and instrument tracks ÖTrack presets for audio tracks can only be previewed in the Presets browser (see the chapter “Working with Track Presets” in the Operation Manual). Track presets for MIDI or instrument tracks and VST pre- sets require MIDI notes for previewing. These notes can be sent to the track preset in the following way: • Via MIDI Input • Using a MIDI file • Using the Memo Recorder • Via the computer keyboard !The Previewer section is not available for video files, project files, and audio track presets. Preview level Transport controlsAuto Play New Results SelectionAlign Beats to Project Wait for Project Play OutputTransport controls Computer keyboard inputSequence Mode pop-up menuTransport controlsPreview Level fader
27 The MediaBay These methods will be described in the following sections. Previewing presets via MIDI Input MIDI input is always active, i. e. when a MIDI keyboard is connected to your computer (and set up properly), you can directly start playing the notes to preview the selected preset. Previewing presets using a MIDI file Proceed as follows: 1.On the Sequence Mode pop-up menu, select “Load MIDI File”. 2.In the file dialog that opens, navigate to the desired MIDI file, and click Open. The name of the MIDI file is displayed on the pop-up menu. 3.Click the Play button to the left of the pop-up menu. The notes received from the MIDI file are now played back with the settings of the track preset applied. ÖThe recently used MIDI files are kept on the menu, for quick access. To remove an entry from this list, select it on the menu and then select “Remove MIDI File”. Previewing presets using the Memo Recorder The Memo Recorder function continually repeats a given sequence of notes as a loop. To use the Memo Recorder, proceed as follows: 1.On the Sequence Mode pop-up menu, select Memo Recorder. 2.Enter the notes via the MIDI or computer keyboard. The Play button is automatically activated and you will instantly hear the notes you play with the preset settings applied. •When you stop playing notes and wait for 2 seconds, the note sequence you played until this moment will be played back in a continuous loop. To use another sequence, simply start entering notes again. ÖYou cannot use the Memo Recorder when previewing presets using a MIDI file. Previewing presets via the computer keyboard Proceed as follows: 1.Activate the “Computer Keyboard Input” button. The keyboard display in the Previewer section works in the same way as the Virtual Keyboard, see the chapter “Play- back and the Transport panel” in the Operation Manual. 2.Enter the notes via the corresponding keys on the computer keyboard. Previewing pattern banks Pattern banks containing drum patterns can be created with the MIDI plug-in Beat Designer. Detailed information on the Beat Designer and its functions can be found in the chapter “MIDI effects” in the separate PDF document “Plug-in Reference”. One pattern bank contains 4 sub- banks which in turn contain 12 patterns each. In the Pre- viewer section for a pattern bank file, a keyboard-style display allows you to select a subbank (click on a number at the top) and a pattern (click on a key). •To preview a pattern, select the pattern bank in the Re- sults list. In the Previewer section, choose a subbank and pattern. Then click the Play button. Note that subbanks can contain empty patterns. Selecting an empty pat- tern in the Previewer section will have no effect. Patterns containing data are indicated by a circle in the upper part of the key in the display. !When you activate the “Computer Keyboard Input” button, the computer keyboard is used exclusively for the Previewer sections, i. e. the usual key commands are blocked. The only exceptions are: [Ctrl]/[Command]-[S] (Save), Num [*] (Start/Stop Record), [Space] (Start/Stop Playback), Num [1] (Jump to left locator), [Delete] or [Backspace] (Delete), Num [/] (Cycle on/off), and [F2] (Show/ Hide Transport panel). Transport controlsPreview levelAuto Play New Results Selection
28 The MediaBay •“Auto Play New Results Selection” works as for audio files, see above. The Filters section With the MediaBay, you can perform very refined file searches. You have two possibilities: Logical or Attribute Filtering. Applying a logical filter Logical filtering is similar to working with the Logical Edi- tor, see the chapter “The Logical Editor, Transformer and Input Transformer” in the Operation Manual. If you click the Logical button in the Filters section, you can set up complex conditions that must be met for files to be found. Here, you can search for a specific file attribute value, for example. Proceed as follows: 1.In the Locations section, select the Location in which you want to search for files. 2.Activate the Logical search mode by clicking on the Logical button in the Filters section. A condition line appears. 3.Click in the leftmost field, to open the Select Filter At- tributes dialog. The dialog shows an alphabetical list of file attributes you can choose from. At the top of the list, the MediaBay maintains an automatically gen- erated list of the last 5 attributes selected during previous searches. 4.Select the attribute(s) you want to use, and click OK. •Note that you can select more than one attribute. This creates an OR condition: the files found will match either one or the other attribute. 5.Click OK to set the attribute(s) to search for. 6.On the Condition pop-up menu next to the Attribute pop-up menu, select the desired option.The following options are available: 7.Enter the text or number you are looking for in the field to the right. The Results list is automatically updated, showing only the files that cor- respond to your search conditions. ÖFor all conditions except “range”, you can enter more than one string in the text field (separate the different search strings with a space). These strings form an AND condition, i. e. the files that are found will match all the strings entered in the field. •To add another filter line, click the “+” button to the right of the text field. This way, you can add up to five filter lines in which you can define further search conditions. Note that two or more filter lines form an AND condi- tion, i. e. the files searched for must match the conditions defined in all fil- ter lines. Click the “-” button for a filter line to remove it. •To reset all search fields to their default settings, click the Reset Filter button in the top right corner of the Filters section. Option Description contains The search result must contain the text or number specified in the text field to the right. omits The search result must not contain the text or number specified in the text field to the right. equals The search result must correspond exactly to the text or number specified in the text field to the right, including any file extension. Text searches are not case-sensitive. >= The search result must be higher than or equal to the number specified in the field to the right.
29 The MediaBay Advanced text search You can also perform very advanced text searches using boolean operators. Proceed as follows: 1.Select the desired location. 2.Activate Logical filtering by clicking on the Logical but- ton at the top of the Filters section. A condition line appears. 3.Select the desired attribute on the Attributes pop-up menu, or leave the setting on “Any Attribute”. 4.Make sure that the condition is set to “matches”. 5.Specify the desired text in the field to the right using boolean operators. The available options are described in the section “Performing a text search” on page 24. Performing a context menu search If you have selected a file in the Results list or the Attribute Inspector, which contains an attribute you are interested in, there is a very fast way to look for other files with the same attribute. Right-click the selected file to open the context menu and select the attribute value from the “Search for…” sub- menu. This way you can easily find all the files that have this value in common, for example if you want to view all files that were created on the same day. ÖThis is the same as specifying a logical search string, see above. When you select any of the “Search for…” op- tions, the Filters section automatically switches to Logical filtering and the corresponding filter condition line is dis- played. To return to the previous settings, click the Go Back button in the Filters section. Applying an attribute filter The MediaBay allows you not only to view and edit some of the standard file attributes found in all computer files, but it also provides preconfigured attributes, or “tags”, that you can use to organize your media files, see “The At- tribute Inspector” on page 30. If you click the Attribute button, the Filters section displays all values found for a specific attribute. Selecting one of these values will result in a list of files all showing this par- ticular attribute value. For example, you could look for sam- ple rates and pick 44.1 kHz to give you a list of all files with that particular sample rate. The advantages of the use of attributes become obvious when having to find a specific file in a large database, without knowing the name of that file. When you activate Attribute filtering, the Filters sections shows attribute columns, each with its own list of attribute values. If the columns are wide enough, the number of files that match this criteria is displayed to the right of the filter name. You define an Attribute filter by clicking on the values in an attribute column: only the files that match the selected at- tribute values are then shown in the Results list. Select more attribute values from other columns to further refine your filter. !In Cubase Studio, the Attribute search is the only search mode available. !Some attributes are directly linked to each other (e. g. for each Category value, there are certain Sub Cate- gory values available). Changing the value in one of these attribute column will give you different values in the other column! !Each attribute column displays only the attribute val- ues found in the currently selected location! This means that selecting another location may lead to the display of different attributes.
30 The MediaBay •Selected attribute values in the same column form an OR condition. This means that files must be tagged according to either one or the other attribute value to be displayed in the Results list. ÖNote that this is not true for the Character attribute, which always forms an AND condition, see below. •Attribute values in different columns form an AND con- dition. This means that files must be tagged according to all these attribute val- ues to be shown in the Results list. Assigning attribute values to your files makes it easy to organize the media files. This is described in detail in the section “The Attribute Inspector” on page 30. ÖYou can also create user attributes (see “Defining user attributes” on page 33) to create your own categories. Further options for Attribute searches •You can change which attribute type is displayed in each column by clicking on the column title and selecting another attribute from the context menu. •You can select an attribute value, by clicking on it. To deselect it, click the value again. Note that you can select more than one value in each attribute column. •You can clear all settings in the attribute columns by clicking the Reset Filter button at the top right of the Fil- ters section. Clicking this button also resets the Results list. The Attribute Inspector Attributes (or “tags”) for media files are sets of metadata providing additional information on the file. When you have selected one or more files in the Results list, the Attribute Inspector shows a two-column list of at- tributes and their values. This is very handy to get a quick overview of a selected file (for example when you are step- ping through the files in the Results list). The different types of media files have different attributes: For example, for .wav audio files you will find attributes like name, length, size, sample rate, etc., while for .mp3 files, additional attributes such as artist or genre are available. In this section, you can also edit the attribute values of files or enter new attribute values, see below. The available attributes are divided into several groups (Media, Audio, Staff, etc.), so as to keep the list manage- able and make it easy to find the desired element quickly. You have access to the standard attributes and the pre- configured attributes provided by Cubase. Additionally you can define your own attributes and add these to your files. Attributes can be shown in the Attribute Inspector in two different ways: •Click the Dynamic button to show all available attribute values. This list is automatically generated by Cubase. Use this view if you want to see the attributes the selected files have already been tagged with. •Click the Defined button to show a configured set of at- tributes for the selected media type. In this mode, you can choose which attributes are displayed (regardless of whether corresponding values are available for the selected files). For more information on how to set up the list of displayed attributes, see “Managing the attribute lists” on page 33.