Steinberg Cubase 6 Manual

1
How the Score Editor works 

552
How the Score Editor works
About this chapter
In this chapter you will learn:
• How the Score Editor and MIDI data relate.
• What Display Quantize is and how it works.
Welcome!
Welcome to scoring in Cubase! The Score Editor has 
been created to allow you to get any possible piece of 
music displayed as a score, complete with all the neces
-
sary symbols and formatting. It allows you to extract parts 
out of a full orchestra score, to add lyrics and comments, 
create lead sheets, score for drums,...

553
How the Score Editor works
Display Quantize
Let’s say you used the Project window to record a figure 
with some staccato eighth notes. When you open the 
Score Editor, these notes are displayed like this:
This does not look anything like what you intended. Let’s 
start with the timing – obviously, you were off at a couple 
of places (the third, fourth and last note all seem to be a 
32nd note late). You can solve this by quantizing the fig
-
ure, but this would make the passage sound too “stiff”,...

554
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 is displayed like this:
With Display Quantize: Notes...

555
How the Score Editor works
Entering notes by hand vs. recording 
notes
Sometimes you enter and edit notes by hand (or rather us-
ing the mouse and/or the computer keyboard) and at other 
times you record them from a MIDI keyboard. Most of the 
time, you do a combination of both. In the chapter 
“Tran-
scribing MIDI recordings” on page 568 you can find out 
how to make a recorded score as legible as possible with-
out making any permanent changes to the MIDI data. The 
chapter 
“Entering and editing...

2
The basics 

557
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 clef, key, and time signature.
• How to transpose instruments.
• How to print and export your score.
Preparations
1.In the Project window,...

558
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 selecting 
Page Mode from the Scores menu. When Page Mode is 
activated, a checkmark appears next to this menu option.
In Page mode, the window switches to display one page 
at a time, as it appears 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...

559
The basics
ÖThis pop-up menu can also be opened by right-click-
ing in the ruler.
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...

560
The basics
The status line
The status line features the Mouse Time and the Mouse 
Note Position displays as well as the Current Chord Dis
-
play, which helps you identify chords in the Score Editor 
note display. It can be hidden/displayed using the “Status 
Line” option in the “Set up Window Layout” pane.
The status line has its own Setup dialog where you can 
specify exactly which properties you want to see. 
•Right-click on the status line and select “Setup…” from 
the context menu. 
In the dialog...