Steinberg Cubase 5.5 New Features Manual

							31
The MediaBay
Editing attributes (tagging)
The search functions, especially the Attribute filter, become 
a truly powerful media management tool when making ex-
tensive use of tagging, i. e. when adding and editing at-
tributes.
Media files are usually organized in complex folder struc-
tures to provide a logical way of guiding the user to the 
desired files, with the folder and/or file names indicating 
the instrument, style, tempo, etc.
To find a particular sound or loop in such a folder structure 
can be very time consuming – tagging is the answer! 
Editing attributes in the Attribute Inspector
In the Attribute Inspector, you can edit attribute values of 
the various media files. Attribute values can be chosen 
from pop-up lists, entered as text or numbers, or set to 
Yes or No.
ÖNote that changing an attribute value in the Attribute 
Inspector will permanently change the corresponding file 
(unless the file is write-protected or part of a VST Sound 
archive).
You can edit attributes in the following way:
1.Select the file that you want to make settings for in the 
Results list.
The corresponding attribute values are displayed in the Attribute Inspector.
2.Click in the Value column for the attribute.
Depending on the selected attribute, the following hap-
pens:
•For most of the attributes, a pop-up menu opens from 
which you can choose a value. This can be a name, a 
number and an on/off state. For example, this is the case 
for the attributes Name, Family Name, or Author.
Some of the pop-up menus also have a “more…” entry to open a window 
with more attribute values. These attribute selection windows also fea-
ture a Text Search button that you can use to find specific values more 
quickly.
•For the Rating attribute, you can click in the Value col-
umn and drag left or right to modify the setting.
•For the Character attribute (Musical group), the Edit 
Character dialog opens.
Click a radio button on the left or the right side and then click OK to de-
fine values for the Character attribute.
3.Set the attribute to the desired value.
•Many attribute values can also be edited by double-
clicking in the Value column of the Attribute Inspector.
Simply enter/change the text or number setting in the field displayed for a 
value.
•To remove the attribute value from the selected files, 
right-click in the corresponding Value column and select 
“Remove Attribute” from the context menu.
•“Display only” attributes cannot be edited.
If this is the case, the file format probably does not permit changing this 
value, or changing a particular value makes no sense (e. g. you cannot 
change the file size in the MediaBay).
ÖYou can also select several files and make settings for 
them simultaneously (except for the name, which must be 
unique for every file).
About the color scheme used in the Attribute Inspector
The colors used for the displayed values in the Attributes 
Inspector have the following meaning:
Information on the meaning of the colors used in the At-
tribute Inspector are also displayed in a tooltip when you 
move the mouse pointer over one of the color icons below 
the Attribute Inspector.
Color Description
White This represents a “normal” attribute: One or more files are se-
lected in the Results list, and they have the same values.
Yellow Yellow color stands for an “ambiguous” attribute: Multiple files 
are selected in the Results list, and their values differ.
Orange This stands for an “ambiguous static attribute”: Multiple files 
are selected in the Results list, with differing values, and which 
cannot be edited.
Red Red values are displayed for a “static attribute”: One or more 
files are selected in the Results list, whose values cannot be 
edited. 
						

							32
The MediaBay
Editing attributes in the Results list
You can also edit attributes directly in the Results list. This 
allows you, for example, to assign tags to a library of loop 
files.
Proceed as follows:
1.In the Results list, select the file(s) for which you want 
to change an attribute value.
2.Click in the column for the value you want to change 
and make the desired settings.
As in the Attribute Inspector, you can choose a value from a pop-up 
menu, enter the new value directly, etc.
Editing the attributes of multiple files simultaneously
There is no limit as to how many files can be tagged at the 
same time, but you need to be aware that the tagging of a 
large amount of files in one go may take quite a while. This 
operation is executed in the background, so that you can 
continue with your work as usual. By looking at the At-
tribute Counter above the Results list, you can see how 
many files still have to be updated.
•If you close Cubase before the Attribute Counter has 
gone down to zero, a dialog with a progress bar is dis-
played, indicating how long the updating process will take. 
You can choose to abort this process.
In this case only the files that were updated before you clicked “Abort” 
will have the new attribute values.
Editing the attributes of write-protected files
Media files may be write-protected due to a number of rea-
sons: They may belong to content that was provided by 
someone else who write-protected the files, you may have 
write-protected them yourself in order not to overwrite them 
accidentally, or the file format could restrict write operations 
by the MediaBay.In the MediaBay, the write protection status of files is 
shown as an attribute in the Attribute Inspector and in the 
Write Protection column in the Results list.
However, there may be cases when you want to define at-
tributes for write-protected files. For example, you might 
want to apply attributes to the content files that came with 
Cubase or you are working on the same files with several 
people and cannot modify these files. In these scenarios, 
you still want to be able to find files quickly and improve 
your workflow.
Therefore, it is possible to change the attribute values of 
write-protected files in the MediaBay. These changes are 
not written to disk though and occur in the MediaBay only.
•When you specify attribute values for a file that is write-
protected, this is reflected in the Pending Tags column 
next to the Write Protection column in the Results list.
Note that if you rescan the MediaBay content and a media file on your 
hard disk has changed since the last scan, all pending tags for this file 
will be lost.
•If a file has pending tags, and you want to write the cor-
responding attributes to the file, you need to remove the 
write protection first, and then select the “Write Tags to 
File” command from the context menu.
ÖIf the Write Protection and/or the Pending Tags col-
umn are not visible, you may have to enable the corre-
sponding attributes for the file type in question in the 
Attribute Inspector.
•You can change the write-protection status of your me-
dia files, provided that the file type allows write operations 
and you have the necessary operation system permis-
sions: To set or remove the write protection attribute for a 
file, simply select the file in the Results list and select 
“Set/Remove Write Protection” from the context menu.
ÖIf you use other programs than Cubase to change the 
write-protection status of a file, this will not be reflected in 
the MediaBay until you rescan the files!
!This is only possible if “Allow Editing in Results List” 
is activated, see “Preferences” on page 34. 
						

							33
The MediaBay
Managing the attribute lists
In the Attribute Inspector, you can define which attributes 
are shown in the Results list and in the Attribute Inspector 
itself. For different media types, individual “attribute sets” 
can be configured.
Proceed as follows:
1.In the Attribute Inspector, click the Defined button.
2.Click the “Configure Defined Attributes” button to the 
right of the Defined button.
A number of controls are displayed.
3.Click the leftmost button below the Defined/Dynamic 
buttons to open the “Select Media Types” dialog, activate 
one or more of the media types, and click OK.
The Attribute Inspector now shows a list of all attributes available for 
these media types.
•If you have activated more than one media type, your 
settings affect all selected types. 
An orange checkmark indicates that the current display settings for an 
attribute differ for the selected media types.
•The display settings made for the Mixed Media Type op-
tion are applied whenever you select files of different me-
dia types (for example audio and MIDI files) in the Results 
list or the Attribute Inspector.
4.To select a certain attribute, activate the correspond-
ing checkbox.
•You can also select several attributes and activate/de-
activate their checkboxes in one go.
•You can reset the display settings you made by clicking 
the “Reset to Default” button in the top right corner.
This will reset the display settings for all media types to their default set-
tings.
ÖTo make settings for another media type, make sure to 
only select this type in the list in the dialog.5.When you have set up the attributes for all the media 
types you are working with, exit the Configuration mode by 
clicking the “Configure Defined Attributes” button again.
Defining user attributes
If you find that the available attributes are not suitable for 
your work, you can define your own attributes and save 
these in the MediaBay database and the corresponding 
media files.
Proceed as follows:
1.In the Attribute Inspector, activate the Defined button 
and click the “Configure Defined Attributes” button to en-
ter configuration mode.
A number of controls are displayed.
2.Click the “Add User Attribute” button (the “+” sign).
A dialog opens.
3.Specify the type of the attribute.
Attributes can be of the types “Text”, “Number” or “Yes/No” switch. For 
“Number” attributes, you can specify how many decimals are displayed, 
by entering the corresponding value in the Precision field.
4.In the text field below, enter the name for the new at-
tribute.
Note that this is the name as it will be displayed in the program. Below 
the text field, you will see the name as it will be used internally (e. g. in the 
MediaBay database). This way, you will see immediately if a certain name 
is invalid and cannot be used.
5.Click OK.
The new attribute is added to the list of available attributes and will be 
displayed in the Attribute Inspector and the Results list.
•To remove a user attribute, select it in the attribute list 
and click the “Remove User Attribute” button (the “-” sign).
The attribute is removed from any attribute list.
•Cubase recognizes all user attributes that are included 
in media files. For example, if you load content from an-
other user, who has assigned his own user tags to the 
files, these tags are also shown in the MediaBay.
The Type column shows 
whether the value for an 
attribute is a number, 
text, or a Yes/No switch.
The Precision column 
shows the number of 
decimals displayed for 
number attributes. 
						

							34
The MediaBay
The Loop Browser and Sound 
Browser windows
The Loop Browser and Sound Browser items on the Me-
dia menu open two different “views” of the MediaBay. The 
Loop Browser is preconfigured for quickly browsing your 
“loops”, i. e. audio files, MIDI loops, and pattern banks. The 
default browse location is the VST Sound node. Similarly, 
the Sound Browser is set up for you to be able to quickly 
search the desired sound, without having to configure the 
window. By default, it is set to display track presets and 
plug-in presets. The default browse location is the VST 
Sound node.
The Loop Browser and Sound Browser offer the same 
functions as the MediaBay, i. e. you can specify different 
browse locations, define searches, set up the available 
panes as desired, etc., as described previously in this 
chapter.
Preferences
In the Preferences dialog in Cubase, you can find options 
and settings that control the global behavior of the program. 
The Preferences dialog contains a special MediaBay page. 
These settings are also available from within the MediaBay.
To open the Preferences pane for the MediaBay, proceed 
as follows:
1.Click the MediaBay Preferences button in the lower 
left corner of the window.
•A transparent pane appears, covering the window. In 
the center of it is a gray area where the available prefer-
ences for the Locations section and the Results list are 
displayed.2.Configure the MediaBay to your liking by activating/
deactivating the options.
The following options are available in the Locations sec-
tion:
The following options are available in the Results section:
Option Description
Show Managed 
Locations OnlyActivate this to hide all folders that are not scanned 
for files. This will keep the tree view in the Define Lo-
cations section less cluttered.
Use Current 
Selection as Base 
LocationActivate this to show only the selected folder and its 
subfolders. To switch back to the display of all folders, 
deactivate this option.
Scan Folders Only 
when MediaBay is 
OpenWhen this is activated, Cubase only scans for media 
files when the MediaBay window is open. 
When this is deactivated, the folders are scanned in 
the background even when the MediaBay window is 
closed. However, Cubase will never scan folders 
while playing back or recording.
Option Description
Maximum 
Items in 
Results ListUse this parameter to specify the maximum number of 
files that are displayed in the Results list. This avoids un-
manageably long lists of files. 
Note that the MediaBay does not warn you if the maxi-
mum number of files has been reached and there might 
be situations where a certain file you were looking for 
could not be found, because the maximum number of files 
was reached.
Allow Editing 
in Results ListWhen this is activated, you can also edit attributes in the 
Results list. When this option is deactivated, editing can 
only be done in the Attribute Inspector.
Show File 
Extensions in 
Results ListWhen this is activated, file name extensions (e. g. .wav or 
.cpr) are displayed in the Results list. 
						

							35
The MediaBay
Key commands
You can display the available MediaBay key commands 
from within the MediaBay window. This is useful if you 
want to get a quick overview over the assigned and the 
available MediaBay key commands.
To open the Key Commands pane, proceed as follows:
1.Click the Key Commands button in the lower left cor-
ner of the window.
A transparent pane appears, covering the window. In the center of it is a 
gray area where the available key commands are displayed.
•If you only want to get an overview over the key com-
mands, you can exit the pane by clicking on its back-
ground (not in the gray area).
•If you want to assign or modify key commands, click in 
the gray area.
The Key Commands dialog opens, in which you can set up and edit key 
commands, see the chapter “Key commands” in the Operation Manual.
Working with MediaBay-related 
windows
The MediaBay concept can be found throughout the pro-
gram, for example when adding new tracks or when choos-
ing presets for VST instruments or effects. The workflow in 
all MediaBay-related windows is the same as in the Media-
Bay. Below follow a few examples.
Adding tracks
When you select one of the Add Track options on the 
Project menu, the following dialog opens:
The Add Track dialog for audio tracks
Click the Browse button to expand the dialog to show the 
Results list (as you can find it in the MediaBay). However, 
only file types that can be used in this context are shown.
You can also apply track presets to existing tracks. The di-
alog that opens in this case is the same as above. 
						

							36
The MediaBay
Applying effect presets
When you have added an insert effect, you can choose 
from a variety of presets via the Presets pop-up menu for 
the effect slot. 
The Preset browser opens:
Applying instrument presets
When working with VST instruments, you can choose 
from a variety of presets via the Presets pop-up menu. 
The Preset browser opens:
VST presets for instruments can be divided into two 
groups: “presets” containing the settings of the whole plug-
in (for multi-timbral instruments, this means the settings for 
all sound slots as well as the global settings) and “pro-
grams” containing only the settings for one program (for multi-timbral instruments, this means only the settings for 
one sound slot). In the MediaBay, they can be recognized 
by their icons. This way, you can see directly whether a VST 
preset contains a single sound or more.
Icon Description
This preset contains settings for all loaded programs.
This program only contains settings for the first or the se-
lected instrument slot. 
						

							4
The Sample Editor 
						

							38
The Sample Editor
Window overview
The Sample Editor allows you to view and manipulate audio 
by cutting and pasting, removing, or drawing audio data, 
and by processing or applying effects. This editing is “non-
destructive”: The actual file (if created or imported from out-
side the project) will remain untouched so that you can 
undo modifications or revert to the original settings at any 
time using the Offline Process History dialog. For more in-
formation see the chapter “Audio processing and func-
tions” in the Operation Manual.
The Sample Editor also contains most of the AudioWarp 
related functions, i. e. the realtime time stretching as well as 
the pitch-shifting functions in Cubase. These can be used 
to match the tempo of audio loops to the project tempo 
(see “AudioWarp: Tempo matching audio” on page 47).
Another special feature of the Sample Editor is hitpoint 
detection. Hitpoints allow you to create “slices”, which 
can be useful in many situations, for example, if you want 
to change the tempo without affecting the pitch (see 
“Working with hitpoints and slices” on page 53).
The VariAudio features allow you to edit monophonic vocal 
recordings in pitch and time, as easily as editing MIDI in the 
Key Editor. In these realtime pitch modifications the transi-
tions are kept so that the sound remains natural. The pitch 
detection and correction is “non-destructive”, i. e. you can 
always undo modifications or revert to the original versions, 
see “VariAudio” on page 57 for details.ÖThe term “loop” is used throughout this chapter and in 
this context usually means an audio file with a musical time 
base. That means that the length of the loop represents a 
certain number of bars and beats at a certain tempo. Play-
ing the loop back at the right tempo in a cycle set to the 
correct length will produce a continuous loop without gaps.
Opening the Sample Editor
To open the Sample Editor, double-click an audio event in 
the Project window or the Audio Part Editor, or double-
click an audio clip in the Pool. You can have more than 
one Sample Editor window open at the same time.
ÖDouble-clicking an audio part in the Project window 
opens the Audio Part Editor, even if the part contains a sin-
gle audio event only. For more information, see the chapter 
“The Audio Part Editor” in the Operation Manual. 
						

							39
The Sample Editor
The toolbar
To the right of the tools, the estimated length of your audio 
file is displayed in bars and beats (PPQ) together with the 
estimated tempo and the time signature. If you want to use 
Musical Mode, always verify that the length in bars corre-
sponds to the audio file you imported. If necessary, listen 
to your audio and enter the correct bar length. The Algo-
rithm pop-up menu allows you to select an algorithm for 
the realtime time stretching (see “Selecting an algorithm 
for the flattening” on page 67).
You can customize the toolbar by right-clicking it and us-
ing the context menu to hide or show items. For further in-
formation about configuring the toolbar, see the chapter 
“Customizing” in the Operation Manual.
The info line
The info line is displayed below the toolbar. It shows infor-
mation about the audio clip:Initially, length and position values are displayed in the for-
mat specified in the Project Setup dialog. For information 
about configuring the info line, see the chapter “Customiz-
ing” in the Operation Manual. 
•To show or hide the info line, click the “Set up Window 
Layout” button on the toolbar and activate or deactivate 
the Info Line option.
The Sample Editor Inspector
On the left in the Sample Editor, you will find the Sample 
Editor Inspector. It contains tools and functions for work-
ing in the Sample Editor. 
For more information on the handling of the various In-
spector tabs, see the chapter “The Project Window” in 
the Operation Manual.
The Definition tab
The Definition tab helps you to adjust the audio grid and 
define the musical context of your audio. This is useful if 
you have an audio loop or audio file that you want to match 
to the project tempo, see “AudioWarp: Tempo matching 
audio” on page 47. If the Definition tab is open, a second 
ruler is displayed, showing the musical structure of your 
audio.
Audition, Loop, and 
Volume controls
Set up Window
Layout
Solo EditorAcoustic Pitch
FeedbackSuspend Auto-Scroll 
when editing Auto-Scroll
Show Audio 
Event
Show 
Regions
Snap on/off Snap to Zero
CrossingMusical 
ModeTool buttons
Global Transpose status Audio format and length
Selected display format Number of edits made to the clip
Zoom factor
Realtime status
Original pitch and deviation
Pitch and deviation Current selection range 
						

							40
The Sample Editor
The AudioWarp tab
The AudioWarp tab lets you perform timing settings for 
your audio. This includes applying swing and manually 
changing the rhythm of the audio by dragging beats to 
time positions in the grid (see “Free Warp” on page 51).
•If you click the “Disable Warp Changes” button, any 
warp modifications you have made are disabled, allowing 
you to compare the modified sound with the original 
sound of your audio. 
However, the display does not change. The time stretch applied by the 
Musical Mode is not disabled by this. “Disable Warp Changes” is deac-
tivated when you reset your warp operations or when you close the Sam-
ple Editor. It will not be recalled when reopening the Sample Editor.
The VariAudio tab
On this tab you can edit single notes of your audio file and 
change their pitch and/or timing, in a way that is similar to 
the editing of MIDI notes (see “Understanding the wave-
form display in VariAudio” on page 57). Furthermore, you 
can extract MIDI from your audio (see “Functions – Extract 
MIDI…” on page 66).
•If you click the “Disable Pitch Changes” button, any 
pitch modifications you have made are disabled, allowing 
you to compare the modified sound with the original 
sound of your audio. 
However, the display does not change. “Disable Pitch Changes” is deacti-
vated when you reset your pitch or warp operations or when you close the 
Sample Editor. It will not be recalled when reopening the Sample Editor.
The Hitpoints tab
On this tab, the transients or hitpoints of the audio can be 
marked and edited (see “Working with hitpoints and 
slices” on page 53). Hitpoints allow you to slice your au-
dio, and to create groove quantize maps from your audio. 
You can also create markers, regions, and events based 
on hitpoints.
The Range tab
On this tab you will find functions for working with ranges 
and selections (see “Making selections” on page 43).
The Process tab
This tab regroups the most important audio editing com-
mands from the Audio and Edit menus. For further infor-
mation on the options contained in the Select Process 
and Select Plug-in pop-up menus, see the chapter “Audio 
processing and functions” in the Operation Manual.
Disable Warp Changes
Disable Pitch Changes