Steinberg Cubase 5 Operation Manual

							491
How the Score Editor works
Using Rests as Display Quantize setting
Above we used Display Quantize for notes. There is a sim-
ilar Display Quantize setting called “Rests” which is used 
to set the smallest rest to be displayed. Often, this setting 
is very effective:
Let’s start with the following note example:
As you see, the first note appears one sixteenth note late. 
If we change the Display Quantize value for notes to 
eighth notes, the score will be displayed like this:
With Display Quantize: Notes set to eighth notes
Unfortunately, this moves the first note to the same posi-
tion as the second, since sixteenth note positions are not 
allowed. We can solve this by inserting extra Display 
Quantize values within the bar with the Display Quantize 
tool (see “Inserting Display Quantize changes” on page 
508), but there is a much easier way: Change the Display 
Quantize value for notes back to sixteenths, but set the 
value for rests to eighth notes! This tells the program not 
to display any rests smaller than eighth notes, except 
when necessary. The result looks like this:
With Display Quantize: Notes set to sixteenth notes, but Rests set to 
eighth notes.
How did this work? Well, you instructed the program not 
to display any rests smaller than eighth notes, except 
when “necessary”. Since the first note appeared on the 
second sixteenth note position, it was necessary to put a 
sixteenth rest at the beginning of the figure. All other rests, 
however, can be hidden by displaying the notes as eighth 
notes, and were therefore not “necessary”.
This leads us to the following general guidelines:
ÖSet the Notes value according to the “smallest note 
position” you want to be shown in the score.
For example, if you have notes on odd sixteenth note positions, the Notes 
value should be set to sixteenth notes.
ÖSet the Rests value according to the smallest note 
value (length) you want to be displayed for a single note, 
positioned on a beat.
Common Display Quantize settings would be to have 
Notes set to 16 (sixteenth notes) and Rests set to 4 (quar-
ter notes).
Handling exceptions
Unfortunately, the guidelines above will not work perfectly 
in every situation. You may for example have a mix of 
straight notes and tuplets of different types, or you may 
wish to display equally long notes with different note val-
ues depending on the context. There are several methods 
you can try:
Automatic Display Quantize
If your score contains both straight notes and triplets, you 
can use Auto Quantize. When this is activated, Cubase 
tries to “understand” whether the notes should be display 
quantized to straight notes or triplets. See “If your music 
contains mixed straight notes and triplets” on page 527.
Using the Display Quantize tool
With the “Q” tool, you can insert new Display Quantize 
values anywhere in the score. Inserted Display Quantize 
values affect the staff from the insertion point onwards. 
See “Inserting Display Quantize changes” on page 508.
Permanent alteration of MIDI data
As a last resort, you can resize, quantize or move the ac-
tual note events. However, this would result in the music 
not playing back like it originally did. Often it is possible to 
get the score to look the way you want without altering any 
MIDI data.
Summary
This closes our discussion on the basic concept of display 
quantizing. There are a number of other special situations 
which require more advanced techniques, which you will 
find out about in the next chapters. You will also read about 
other settings which work along the same lines as Display 
Quantize. These are called “interpretation options”. 
						

							492
How the Score Editor works
Entering notes by hand vs. recording 
notes
Sometimes you will enter and edit notes by hand (or rather 
using the mouse and/or the computer keyboard) and at 
other times you will record them from a MIDI keyboard. 
Most of the time, you will do a combination of both. In the 
chapter “Transcribing MIDI recordings” on page 505 you 
will find out how to make a recorded score as legible as 
possible without making any permanent changes to the 
MIDI data. The chapter “Entering and editing notes” on 
page 511 shows you how to enter and edit notes using 
the mouse. In real life, even if you have recorded the piece 
perfectly, you will often have to do some permanent edit-
ing to your recording before printing.
!You will have to read both chapters in order to un-
derstand how to produce legible scores! 
						

							2
The basics 
						

							494
The basics
About this chapter
In this chapter you will learn:
 How to open the Score Editor.
 How to switch between Page Mode and Edit Mode.
 How to set up the page size and margins.
 How to hide and show the Symbols Inspector, the toolbar and 
the extended toolbar.
 How to set up the ruler.
 How to set a zoom factor.
 How to make initial settings for key, clef and time signature.
 How to transpose instruments.
 How to print and export your score.
Preparations
1.In the Project Window, create a MIDI track for each in-
strument.
You can prepare a piano (split) staff from a single track, i. e. there is no 
need to create one track for the bass clef and one for the treble clef.
2.Name each track after the instrument.
This name can later be used in the score if you like.
3.Record into the tracks or create empty parts on all 
tracks.
You can make very long parts that cover the entire project, or you can 
start out with shorter parts to begin with. If you choose the latter option, 
you can always go back later and add new parts or copy existing parts.
Opening the Score Editor
Editing one or several parts
To open one or several parts in the Score Editor, select 
the parts (on the same or on different tracks) and select 
“Open Score Editor” from the MIDI menu or “Open Selec-
tion” from the Scores menu. The default key command for 
this is [Ctrl]/[Command]-[R]. 
You can also select the Score Editor as your default ed-
itor, allowing you to open it by double-clicking parts.
This is done with the Default Edit Action pop-up menu in the Preferences 
dialog (Event Display–MIDI page).
Editing whole tracks
When preparing a score for printing, you probably want to 
open whole MIDI tracks in the Score Editor. To do this, se-
lect the track(s) in the Track list and make sure no parts are 
selected – then open the Score Editor as described above.
Editing parts on different tracks
If you have selected parts on two or more tracks (or sev-
eral entire tracks – no parts) and open the Score Editor, 
you will get one staff for each track (although you can split 
a staff in two, e.g. when scoring for piano). Think of the 
Project window as an overview of your entire score and 
the tracks as representing one instrument each.
Editing predefined combinations of tracks
In the section “Layout operations” on page 591, you will 
find out how to open the Score Editor for a certain combi-
nation of tracks that you edited before.
Displaying single voices or the complete score
When the option “Double-click on staff flips between full 
score/part” is activated in the Preferences dialog 
(Scores–Editing page), double-clicking on the blue rect-
angle to the left of a staff will switch between display of ei-
ther the whole score or the current voice.
The project cursor
The project cursor appears as a vertical line across the 
staff. When you open the Score Editor, the view is auto-
matically scrolled so that the project cursor is visible in the 
window. This means you do not always see the beginning 
of the edited part when you first open the Score Editor.
Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and [Shift] and click anywhere 
in the score to move the project cursor there.
This is handy when the project cursor is not visible. This is not possible if 
Keyboard Input mode is activated, see “Entering notes using the compu-
ter keyboard” on page 514.
Playing back and recording
You can play back and record MIDI in the Score Editor us-
ing the standard transport commands, just like in the other 
MIDI editors. See the chapter “The MIDI editors” on page 
337. 
						

							495
The basics
Page Mode
When you are preparing a score for printout, you should 
set the Score Editor to Page Mode. This is done by se-
lecting Page Mode from the Scores menu. When Page 
Mode is activated, a checkmark will appear next to this 
menu option.
Page Mode is activated.
In Page mode, the window switches to display one page 
at a time, as it will appear on printout.
Page Mode vs. Edit Mode
When Page Mode is not activated, the Score Editor is in 
Edit Mode. All you can do in Edit Mode, you can also do in 
Page Mode. But Page Mode offers lots of additional fea-
tures which are directly related to how the score is dis-
played and printed.
Using the scroll bars in Page Mode
In Page Mode, the scroll bars are used to scroll the image 
of the page inside the window.
Moving between pages in Page Mode
If your score takes up more than one page, you use the 
page number indicator in the lower right corner to move to 
another page in your score. The number can be adjusted 
using the standard editing techniques.
The Page Number indicator – adjust it to move to another page.
Also, if Autoscroll is activated on the toolbar, the score 
display will follow the project cursor position. This way you 
can scroll the score by using fast forward or rewind.
Editing individual parts in Page Mode
When you view a single part in Page Mode, the bars be-
fore and after the part will normally be shown as empty 
measures in the Score Editor. This is to preserve the lay-
out of the track, i.e. the spacing between staves and bar 
lines, number of bars per staff, etc.
If you want to view and print a single part, without any 
surrounding empty bars, activate the option “Unlock Lay-
out when editing single parts” in the Preferences dialog 
(Scores–Editing page). Note, however, that if you adjust 
the layout when editing the part in this mode, this will 
erase the layout for the whole track!
Changing the Zoom factor
There are two ways to change the zoom in Page Mode: by 
setting a zoom factor on the zoom pop-up menu or by us-
ing the Zoom tool (magnifying glass).
Using the zoom pop-up menu
Above the vertical scrollbar to the right you will find a pop-
up allowing you to set the zoom factor. 
The zoom pop-up
By zooming in you will be able to make detailed adjust-
ments to symbols, etc. By zooming out you will get a bet-
ter overview.
If you select “Fit Page”, the zoom factor is adjusted ac-
cording to the window size so that the whole page be-
comes visible.
If you select “Fit Width”, the zoom factor is adjusted ac-
cording to the window width so that the full width of the 
page becomes visible.
ÖThis pop-up menu can also be opened by right-click-
ing in the ruler.
!This section of the manual assumes you are in Page 
Mode. It will be mentioned explicitly if something in 
this text specifically relates to Edit Mode. 
						

							496
The basics
Using the Zoom tool
The Zoom tool in the Score Editor works much like in the 
Project window:
Click once with the Zoom tool to zoom in one step.
Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click once with the Zoom 
tool to zoom out one step.
Drag a rectangle with the Zoom tool to set a custom 
zoom factor.
The section encompassed by the rectangle is zoomed to fill the window.
Hold down a modifier key and right-click with the Zoom 
tool to open the Zoom context menu, and select the de-
sired Zoom setting.
Using the Mouse wheel
You can also zoom by holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] 
and moving the mouse wheel. The mouse position will be 
kept (if possible) when zooming in or out.
The active staff
One thing to note when you are working with multiple 
staves is the “active” staff. Only one staff at a time can be 
active, and it is indicated by a blue rectangle to the left of 
the clef symbol.
ÖTo make a staff active, click anywhere on it.
By default, you can also use the up and down arrow keys on the com-
puter keyboard to step between staves.
Making page setup settings
Before preparing the score for printout, you have to make 
some page settings for your project. This does not have to 
be the first thing you do, but it is a good working habit, be-
cause it will also affect the on-screen display of the score.
1.On the File menu, select Page Setup.
The Page Setup dialog appears. This is the regular operation system 
Page Setup dialog, described in detail in your system’s documentation. 
The only things that Cubase adds to this are the margin settings.
2.Select the preferred printer, paper size, orientation, etc.
3.If you need to, change the margins by setting the left, 
right, top and bottom settings.
To make the settings permanent, save the project.
If you want new projects to always start with certain page setup settings, 
you can create project templates with these, see “Setting up a default 
template” on page 457.
Designing your work space
Some of the areas in the Score Editor can be hidden. Ex-
actly which areas to show/hide depends on what kind of 
project you are working on, how big a monitor you have, 
and so on.
These areas can be hidden or displayed.
You can configure the toolbar, the info line and the In-
spector in their own setup dialogs. Here you can specify 
exactly which buttons, which properties for a particular 
object, or which symbol tabs you wish to see.
The handling is the same for the different Setup dialogs. For a detailed 
description of the Inspector Setup dialog, see “The Symbols Inspector 
Setup dialog” on page 557.
This staff is active.
Inspector
Extended 
toolbarInfo line
Display filter 
bar
Ruler  
						

							497
The basics
The info line
The info line displays information about the selected note. 
It can be hidden/displayed by clicking the “Show Info” 
button on the toolbar, or by using a key command, by de-
fault [Ctrl]/[Command]-[I].
The extended toolbar
The extended toolbar can be displayed/hidden by clicking 
the “Show Tool Strip” button on the main toolbar.
The display filter bar
This area contains checkboxes determining which indica-
tors, handles and other non-printed elements should be 
shown in the score. You can show/hide the filter bar by 
clicking the “Show Filter View” button on the toolbar.
The ruler
In the Score Editor there are no meter/time position rulers 
as in the other editors. Instead, there are horizontal and 
vertical “graphic rulers” in Page Mode. These help you to 
position symbols and graphical objects in the score.
To specify which units to show on the rulers, open the 
Zoom pop-up menu and select one of the options.
You can choose between points, inches and centimeters.
To hide the rulers, select “Off” from the pop-up menu.
The Symbols Inspector
The symbol buttons, which are used to add symbols to the 
score, can be found in the Inspector to the left of the score 
display.
To display the Inspector, click the Show Symbols but-
ton on the toolbar. 
You can open Symbols Inspector tabs as free-floating 
palettes by right-clicking on one of the buttons and select-
ing “Open as Palette” from the context menu.
You can move symbol palettes around on the screen by clicking and 
dragging their title bars. 
Right-clicking on a symbol palette brings up a pop-up 
menu.
 Select “Toggle” to switch between a vertical or horizontal view 
of the palette.
 Select one of the symbol palettes on the pop-up menu to 
bring up that palette (and replace the current palette).
 Hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and select a palette from the 
pop-up menu to open the selected palette in a new window 
(without closing the existing one).
 Click the close button to close a symbol palette.
How to work with symbols is explained in detail in the 
chapter “Working with symbols” on page 555. 
						

							498
The basics
The Position Info window
To help you further when positioning objects in the score, 
Page Mode has a special Position Info window, in which 
you can view and adjust object positions numerically, in 
the unit selected for the ruler. To display the Position Info 
window, click in the ruler.
Showing and hiding “invisible” elements
Some of the elements in the score will not be printed, but 
rather serve as indicators for layout changes, handles, etc. 
These elements can be hidden or shown in any combina-
tion by using the display filter bar.
If the filter bar is not shown, click the Show Filter View 
button on the toolbar.
The checkboxes on the filter bar determine whether an 
element should be visible (checkbox ticked) or not. The 
following options are available:
About the Score Editor context 
menus
Many functions and settings of the Score Editor can be 
accessed via context menus, opened by right-clicking on 
certain elements of the score. If you choose a note, for ex-
ample, the note context menu is opened, listing note-re-
lated functions.
If you hold [Alt]/[Option] and right-click on an empty 
area of the score, the context menu opens. It lists all avail-
able tools (allowing you to quickly switch between tools) 
and it contains many functions of the main menus.
Provided that the “Popup Toolbox on Right Click” option in the Preferen-
ces dialog (Editing–Tools page) is activated, a right-click holding a mod-
ifier key brings up the context menu.
About dialogs in the Score Editor
There are two types of dialogs available in the Score Editor:
Non-modal dialogs can remain open while you continue 
working in the score.
In a non-modal dialog, you click the Apply button to apply the settings in 
the dialog to the selected objects in the score. This means you can se-
lect different elements in the score and change their settings, without 
having to close the dialog in between.
The dialog is closed by clicking the standard close button in the window 
title bar. The Score Settings dialog is an example for a non-modal dialog.
Regular dialogs have an OK button instead of an Apply 
button.
Clicking OK applies the settings you have made and closes the dialog. 
You cannot continue working in the score (or select other objects) until 
you close the dialog.
ÖIf the option “Apply closes Property Windows” is acti-
vated in the Preferences dialog (Scores–Editing page), 
clicking the Apply button in a non-modal dialog closes the 
dialog.
In other words, this makes a non-modal dialog work a bit more like a reg-
ular dialog.
Option Description
Bar Handles Displays the bar handles, used for copying bars (see 
“Moving and duplicating with the bar handles” on page 
568).
Hidden Notes Displays any notes you might have hidden (see “Hiding/
showing objects” on page 599).
Hide Displays markers in the score for each hidden element 
(notes excepted, see “Hiding/showing objects” on page 
599).
Quantize Displays markers in the score where you have made Dis-
play Quantize “exceptions” (see “Inserting Display Quan-
tize changes” on page 508).
Layout tool Displays markers in the score where you have made ad-
justments with the Layout tool (see “Graphic moving of 
notes” on page 550).
Grouping Displays markers in the score where you have made 
beam groupings (see “Grouping” on page 545).
Cutflag Displays markers in the score where you have inserted 
cutflag events (see “The Cut Notes tool” on page 550).
Split Rests Displays markers in the score wherever you have split 
multiple rests (see “Splitting multi-rests” on page 601).
Stems/Beams Displays markers in the score where you have made any 
stem or beam adjustments (see “Setting stem direction” 
on page 541 and “Manual adjustment of beams” on page 
549). Option Description 
						

							499
The basics
Setting key, clef and time signature
When preparing to enter notes into a score, you will prob-
ably want to start out by setting the desired key, clef and 
time signature for the staff. The text below assumes you 
are working on one track only. If you have multiple staves, 
you either make this setting independently for each staff or 
for all staves at once. See “Staff settings” on page 507.
Normally, all these symbols appear at the beginning of 
each staff. However, you can control this by using the Real 
Book option (see “Real Book” on page 598) and by hiding 
objects (see “Hiding/showing objects” on page 599).
When entering or editing keys, there is one important 
thing to note:
Using the Symbols Inspector to set the initial 
key, clef and time signature
1.Click the Show Symbols button in the Score Editor 
toolbar to open the Symbols Inspector.
2.Select the Keys tab and click on the symbol for the key 
that you wish to use.
The Pencil tool is now selected.
3.Click anywhere in the first bar of the staff to set the key 
for the track.
4.Open the Clefs tab of the Inspector and click on the 
symbol for the clef that you wish to use in your score.
5.Click anywhere in the first bar of the staff to set the 
clef for this track.6.Open the Time Signatures tab of the Inspector and 
click on the symbol for the time signature value that you 
wish to use.
If you cannot find the desired time signature, you can use the Edit Time 
Signature dialog (see below).
The settings you have made so far are valid for the entire 
track. If you wish to further edit these settings, or if you 
need different settings for different bars of your track, pro-
ceed as described in the next section.
Editing the time signature
1.Double-click on the time signature symbol at the be-
ginning of the staff.
A dialog opens.
The Edit Time Signature dialog with a 4/4 signature
2.If the project is in 4/4 or 2/2, you can select common 
time/cut time directly by clicking one of the two symbols 
on the right.
This will set the time signature to 4/4 or 2/2, respectively and will also in-
sert a common/cut time symbol on the staff.
3.If the project is in any other time, set the numerator 
and denominator above and below the line, respectively.
The numerator can consist of several numbers for composite time signa-
tures. However, if the project is in a simple time signature you only need 
to fill in the first number above the line. The more advanced options are 
described below.
The “Pickup Bar” option is described in the section “By 
using the Pickup Bar feature” on page 602.
4.Click OK or press [Return].
!On the Score Settings–Project page, on the Nota-
tion Style subpage (Keys category) you will find the 
option “Key Changes for the entire Project” (acti-
vated by default). When this option is activated, all 
changes made to the key will always affect every 
staff in the project, i.e. it is not possible to define dif-
ferent keys for different staves.
!All tracks share the time signature! In other words, 
when you set the time signature, you do this for all 
tracks in the project. 
						

							500
The basics
If you need to enter half a bar somewhere (for example) 
you have to make a time signature change (e.g. from 4/4 
to 2/4 and back again). See “Inserting and editing clefs, 
keys or time signatures” on page 522 to find out how to 
enter time signature changes.
Composite time signatures and the For Grouping Only 
option
For composite signatures, the numerator can be made up 
of up to four groups. For example, “4+4+3+/” on the upper 
line and 8 on the lower means the time signature is 11/8.
The reason for dividing the numerator into several num-
bers is to get beaming and tied notes displayed correctly 
automatically. This does not affect the metronome or any-
thing else, only beams and ties. For more information on 
beaming, see “Handling beaming” on page 545.
If “For Grouping Only” is not activated, the numerator will 
show all the numbers entered. If it is activated, it will show 
the sum of the numbers entered, as for “simple” time 
signatures.
“For Grouping Only” off and on
Note that Cubase tries to preserve the denominator when 
you insert a composite signature with “For Grouping Only” 
activated. This means that if you have a 4/4 time signature, 
and change it to a composite value (3+3+2 eighths for ex-
ample), the time signature will still be displayed as 4/4 in-
stead of 8/8.
Setting the time signature on the Transport panel
You can also set the time signature directly on the Trans-
port panel. Please note that you cannot create composite 
time signatures from the Transport panel.
Setting the time signature using the signature track/
Tempo Track Editor
You can also add, edit and delete time signatures using 
the signature track or the Tempo Track Editor (see the 
chapter “Editing tempo and signature” on page 401).Please note:
 The score always shows the time signature events set in the 
signature track/Tempo Track Editor, regardless of whether or 
not the Tempo button is activated. Likewise, any time signa-
tures you create in the Score Editor are shown in the signature 
track/Tempo Track Editor.
 You cannot create composite time signatures using the signa-
ture track/Tempo Track Editor.
Editing the clef
On the clef context menu
When you right-click on a clef symbol, a context menu 
with a list of all available clefs is opened. This menu also 
contains the following options:
Display Clef Changes as Small Symbols
If you activate this option and insert a clef change in the score, the clef 
will be displayed with a smaller symbol.
Warnings for new Clefs at Line Breaks
If you activate this option and insert a new clef at a line break, the Clef 
change symbol will be inserted in the last bar before the staff break. 
When this is deactivated, the symbol will be inserted in the first bar of the 
next staff line.
Hide
If you select this function, the clef will be hidden.
Properties
If you select this function, the Edit Clef dialog is opened.
In the Edit clef dialog
1.Double-click on the current clef.
A dialog appears.
Double-clicking on a clef brings up the Edit Clef dialog.
2.Use the scroll bar to select a clef.
3.Repeat the steps above for all staves in the system.
The time signature on the Transport panel
!This does not work if Auto Clef is activated on the 
Score Settings–Staff page, see below.