Steinberg Cubase 5 Operation Manual

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Additional note and rest formatting
3.Click on the note and drag it to the desired position.
Note that movement is restricted to horizontally only.
ÖYou can also automatically select all notes making up 
a chord, by holding down [Alt]/[Option] and clicking on 
one of the notes with the Layout tool.
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 notes you 
want to move and press the assigned keys to adjust their 
graphical position.
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 533.
2.Click in the “Cue” column for the voice, so that a 
checkmark 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 531.
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 notes.
5.When you are done, close the dialog by clicking its 
close button.
“Cue” activated 
for voice 3. 
						

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Additional note and rest formatting
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 does not 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 is not important. However, 
the pitch of course is.
From here on there are two ways to go:
Select the notes and open the Set Note Info dialog, ei-
ther by double-clicking on one of the note heads or by 
clicking the “i” icon on the extended toolbar.
In the dialog, select the Grace note type.
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 different 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 exam-
ple 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 notes.
5.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 does not put any demand on the notes’ positions 
before the tuplet is created.
!Grace notes are always 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! 
						

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Additional note and rest formatting
 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.
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 do not, the lengths of the 
existing notes will not 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 554) 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 are not displayed as a tu-
plet (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 545 for details.
!Lengths and positions in a tuplet group are probably 
best edited using the info line.
Double-click here. 
						

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Additional note and rest formatting
Tuplet display options
On the Score Settings–Project page, Notation Style sub-
page (“Tuplets” category), you find the following settings 
for tuplets:
Option Description
Tuplet 
BracketsThere 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). 
						

							8
Working with symbols 
						

							556
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 552). 
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 602), 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 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 disap-
peared! Don’t worry, close the editor again, and open all 
four tracks for editing and the symbols are back.
This is due to the fact that 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.
For a detailed description of the layout layer, see the 
chapter “Working with layouts” on page 590.
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 Arran-
ger 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.
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 590.
 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.
Layout layer symbols
Note layer symbols 
						

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Working with symbols
Which symbols are part of which layer is described in the 
section “The available symbols” on page 558 and onwards.
The Symbols Inspector
To display the Symbols Inspector, click the Show Sym-
bols button on the toolbar.
Customizing the Symbols Inspector
You can customize the appearance of the Symbols In-
spector by showing/hiding tabs and by specifying their or-
der in the Inspector.
Showing/Hiding Symbols 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 Symbols Inspec-
tor tabs, select “Show All”.
The Symbols Inspector Setup dialog
If you right-click on any closed tab in the Symbols Inspec-
tor and select “Setup…” from the context menu, a dialog 
appears. In this dialog you can configure where the sepa-
rate tabs should be placed in the Inspector and save/re-
call different configurations of the Inspector.
The Setup dialog for the Symbols 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 
Symbols 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
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 Symbols 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. 
						

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Working with symbols
2.Select “Open as Palette” from the context menu.
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 button.
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.
The available symbols
The following symbols palettes/tabs are available:






 VST Expression. This is described in the chapter “VST Ex-
pression” on page 372.

 Note Symbols

 Line/Trill. Note that the arpeggios, hand indication and strum 
symbols are all “note-dependent”!
 Other
 Layout. All these symbols are drawn in their own “layer”.
 Project. These symbols will be present in all layouts.
 Words. This is described in the section “The Words tab” on 
page 587.
 User Symbols. This is described in the section “User Sym-
bols” on page 574.
When you place the mouse pointer on a symbol, a tooltip 
shows you information about the function. Further details 
about many of the symbols can be found in the section 
“Symbol details” on page 570.
Setting up the Favourites tab
In the Symbols Inspector, you will find a tab called Favou-
rites. Cubase allows you to fill this tab with a selection of 
symbols from other tabs. This way, you have instant access 
to the symbols you use most often:
1.Open the Favourites tab.
If it is the first time you are using this tab, it will be empty.
2.Open the tab from which you want to copy a symbol.
ÖNot all symbols can be placed on the Favourites tab.
3.Right-click on the symbol you want to add to the 
Favourites tab and select “Add to Favourites” on the con-
text menu.
You can also add a symbol to the Favourites tab by [Alt]/[Option]-click-
ing on it.
4.Repeat this procedures for other symbols you want to 
add to the Favourites tab.
To remove a symbol from the Favourites tab, select “Re-
move from Favourites” from the context menu or hold 
down [Alt]/[Option] and click on it.
Important! – Symbols, staves and 
voices
Most symbols belong to a staff when inserted. Only note 
symbols, slurs and ties are an exception. They belong to 
notes and therefore to voices. 
It is extremely important that the correct staff is active 
when you insert a symbol (if you are editing multiple 
staves).
If you for example insert a symbol while the wrong staff is 
active, the symbol might later “disappear” because you edit 
another configuration of tracks (the track you actually in-
serted the symbol on might not be opened for editing).
The same is true for note symbols and their relation to 
voices. Make sure the correct voice is active when insert-
ing symbols or they might wind up at the wrong position, 
fermatas may be turned upside down etc.
Layout symbols work slightly differently. Instead of belong-
ing to a certain staff or voice, they belong to a layout. 
Since different track combinations use different layouts, 
this means that if you insert a layout symbol in the score 
when you are editing two tracks (for example a trumpet  
						

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Working with symbols
and a saxophone part), it will not be there when you view 
each track by itself in the Score Editor. If you want the 
same symbols to appear in other layouts as well, you can 
copy the form of one layout to another. If you want a sym-
bol to appear in all layouts, use the Project tab.
Adding symbols to the score
Making space and handling margins
If you find there is not enough space between staves to 
add symbols (like for example text), see “Dragging staves” 
on page 604 for info on how to separate the staves.
If you find the score looks crammed after adding sym-
bols, check out the section “Auto Layout” on page 606.
About the Pencil tool
Unlike in the other MIDI editors, there is no Pencil tool 
among the tools on the Score Editor toolbar. Instead, the 
Pencil tool is “automatically” selected when you insert 
symbols. The following applies:
Normally, the Pencil tool is automatically selected when 
you click on a symbol in the Inspector. However, if the op-
tion “Double-click Symbol to get Pencil tool” is activated 
in the Preferences dialog (Scores–Editing page), you 
need to double-click the symbol to get the Pencil tool.
On the same page of the Preferences dialog, you will 
find an option called “Display Arrow tool after Inserting 
Symbol”. When this is activated, the Object Selection 
(“Arrow”) tool is automatically selected after you have in-
serted a symbol.
If you want to insert a lot of symbols with the Pencil tool, you may want to 
deactivate this option.
Adding note symbols
Adding a symbol to one note
1.Open the Note Symbols tab in the Inspector.
2.Click (or double-click) on the desired symbol in the tab.
As mentioned above, the “Double-click Symbol to get Pencil tool” prefer-
ence determines whether you need to double-click. In either case, the 
Pencil tool is selected.
3.Either click on the note or above or below it.
If you click on the note, the symbol is put in at a predefined distance from 
the note. If you instead click “above or below” the note, you decide for a 
vertical position yourself. In either case, the symbol is aligned horizontally 
with the note. It can later be moved up/down.
Clicking on a note inserts the note symbol (in this case a tenuto) at a 
predefined distance from the note head.
There are three options in the Accents category of the 
Score Settings dialog (Project page–Notation Style sub-
page) that affect the vertical positioning of note symbols:
Accents above Stems
When this is activated, accent note symbols are displayed at the stem 
side of notes instead of the note head.
Accents above Staves
When this is activated, accent note symbols are displayed above the 
staff, regardless of the stem direction of the notes. This setting overrides 
the “Accents above Stems” option.
Center Note-Linked Symbols on Stems
When this is activated, accents are centered on stems and not on note 
heads.
Adding a symbol to several notes using the Pencil tool
You might for example want to add a staccato symbol to 
all notes within a few measures. Proceed as follows:
1.Open the Note Symbols tab in the Inspector.
2.Select the notes to which you want to apply the symbol.
3.Click on the desired symbol in the Inspector.
4.Click on one of the notes.
The symbol is added to each selected note, at a predefined distance. 
The symbols can be moved later.
!Symbols you add outside the margins will not be 
printed! 
						

							560
Working with symbols
Adding a symbol without tying it to a note
Note-dependent symbols can be entered freely, too. This 
allows you to add a fermata to a rest symbol for example.
1.Make sure the correct staff is active.
2.Click the symbol so that the Pencil tool is selected, as 
described above.
3.Hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and click where you 
want to add the symbol.
Adding other symbols
1.Open the desired symbol tab in the Inspector.
2.Click on the symbol you want to add.
3.Click once or click and drag somewhere in the score.
The symbol appears. For many symbols with a length, you can drag to set 
the length of the symbol directly. The symbol appears with its handles 
selected (if it uses handles) so that you can change its size directly if you 
wish. This is all described in detail in the section “Changing length, size 
and shape” on page 569.
Press the mouse button – drag – and release!
You can change the size of most of the note symbols 
and dynamics in a score by right-click on the correspond-
ing object and selecting the desired option from the Size 
submenu on the context menu.
About note-dependent symbols
Note-dependent symbols like arpeggios and strum direc-
tions must be put in front of a note or they will belong to 
the following note instead (if there is no following note, the 
symbols will not be inserted at all).
Adding text
There are special methods for working with text, described 
in their own chapter, “Working with text” on page 580.
Adding slurs and ties
Slurs can be drawn in manually or inserted automatically 
for a group of notes. Ties are usually added by the pro-
gram but can also be drawn in as “graphic” symbols.ÖThere are two types of slurs – “regular” slurs and Bez-
ier slurs (with which you have full control over thickness, 
curve shape, etc.).
Slurs, ties and the Display Quantize value
Since a slur or tie “musically” always spans from one note 
(or chord) to another, the beginning and end of a slur/tie in 
Cubase is always related to two notes in the score.
When you draw in a tie or slur, the program uses the 
Quantize value to find the closest two notes to “attach” 
the symbol to. In other words, if you want to add the slur/
tie to a note at a sixteenth note position, make sure Quan-
tize is set to 1/16th notes or smaller (this is only true for 
manual drawing in of slurs and ties).
Please note that this does not necessarily mean that the 
symbol has to start or end exactly above/below two notes. 
Instead, what it means is that when you use the Layout 
tool to move the note graphically to adjust the look of the 
bar, the slur/tie moves with it (see “Graphic moving of no-
tes” on page 550). The same is true if you adjust the width 
of the measure – the slur/tie is adjusted accordingly.
ÖIf you want the end points of the slurs to snap to exact 
note positions, activate the option “Snap Slurs when drag-
ging” on the context menu or in the Preferences dialog 
(Scores–Editing page).
Drawing the slur/tie
1.Set the Quantize value depending on the positions of 
the two notes that the slur/tie should span. 
For example, if one of them is at a quarter note position and the other at 
an eighth note position, set Quantize to 1/8 note or a smaller note value.
2.Click on the correct slur/tie in the Symbols Inspector, 
so that the Pencil tool is selected.
3.Position the mouse close to the first note and drag to a 
position close to the second note.
The end points of the slur/tie will snap to their default positions – holding 
down [Ctrl]/[Command] allows you to move the end points freely.
There are two special functions for inserting a slur or tie 
that automatically spans from one note to another.