Steinberg Cubase 6 Manual

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Additional note and rest formatting
Automatic grouping
The program can also go through the selected notes and 
automatically create grouping for you, where it is deemed 
suitable. Proceed as follows:
1.Select the notes that you want checked for auto-
grouping.
Typically, you would select all notes on the track by using the Select All 
command on the Edit menu.
2.Right-click on one of the notes and select “Auto 
Group Notes” from the context menu.
In 4/4 you get for example two groups of eighth notes per bar, in 3/4 you 
get one group per bar, etc.
Before and after using auto grouping in 4/4
Cross-staff beaming
To create a beam that extends from one staff to another, 
proceed as follows:
1.Set up a split or polyphonic voicing system or open 
the Score Editor with more than one track.
2.Set up a beam of notes (using the group command) 
and adjust their pitches so that they are correct even 
though some of the notes are on the wrong staff.
Use the info line to edit the pitches if they are very low or high.
3.Select the notes that should appear on the other staff.
4.Select “Display in Staff” from the context menu for a 
selected note and select a staff from the submenu.
The notes are “graphically” moved to the selected system, 
but keep their actual pitch.
Before and after moving a note to the lower staff
5.If needed, adjust the beam appearance (see “Manual 
adjustment of beams” on page 612).
Cross-staff beaming with the beam in the middle
This does not move the affected notes to another track, but 
merely displays them as if they belonged to the other staff.
Handling beam groups
There are two settings for groups under a beam, Beam 
Subgroups and 16th Subgroups, both found on the Op
-
tions tab on the Staff page of the Score Settings dialog. If 
“Beam Subgroups” is activated, the program displays sub
-
groups after four sixteenth notes under a beam. If you also 
activate “16th Subgroups”, subgroups appear after only 
two sixteenths.
Beam Subgroups off
Beam Subgroups on
On with 16th Subgroups activated 
						

							612
Additional note and rest formatting
Beam appearance and slant settings
Global settings
In the Score Settings dialog, on the Project page (Nota-
tion Style subpage), you can find the following three op-
tions for beam appearance in the Beams category:
•Thick Beams.
Activate this if you want beams to be displayed as thick lines.
•Show Small Slants as Flat Beams.
When this is activated, beams that would be only slightly slanted are dis-
played flat.
Without and with “Show Small Slants as Flat Beams”
•Slanted Beams only Slightly Slanted.
Activate this if you only want a slightly slanted beam even though there 
might be a significant pitch difference between the notes under the beam.
Without and with “Slanted Beams only Slightly Slanted”
Staff settings
In the Score Settings dialog, on the Options tab of the Staff 
page, you can find a couple of settings for beams as well:
Manual adjustment of beams
For very detailed control you can manually adjust the 
beam slant:
1.Group and flip notes and adjust the settings described 
above until the beams are as close as possible to how you 
want them.
2.Click on the corner made up by the beam and the 
stem.
A handle appears on the corner of beam and stem.
A beam handle
3.Drag the handle up or down.
The slant of the beam changes.
Dragging a handle and the effect it has.
ÖYou can adjust the distance between notes and their 
beam without changing the beam slant. Select both han
-
dles of a beam (by pressing the [Shift] key while selecting 
the second handle) and drag one of the handles up or 
down.
Mixed stem direction
By dragging the beam handles you can put the beam be-
tween the note heads:
Putting the beam between the notes.
About tied notes
Sometimes, notes are displayed as two or more notes tied 
together. Generally, there are three different occasions 
when this happens:
•When a note is of an “uneven” length that cannot be 
displayed without tying together two or more notes of dif
-
ferent note values.
•When a note crosses a bar line.
•When a note crosses a “group line” within a bar.
!These settings are global for all staves.
OptionDescription
Flat BeamsActivate this when you do not want any slant at all, no 
matter the pitch difference of the notes under the beams.
No BeamsActivate this when you do not want any beams at all. 
						

							613
Additional note and rest formatting
The last case requires some explanation: Cubase uses a 
“cutting mechanism” that automatically creates tied notes 
depending on the length and position of the notes. For ex
-
ample, a quarter note is cut in two and tied if it crosses a 
half note beat, and an eighth note is cut in two and tied if it 
crosses a quarter note beat:
However, this is not always what you want. There are 
three ways to affect the cutting mechanism:
Syncopation
When the Syncopation option is activated on the Main tab 
of the Staff page in the Score Settings dialog, Cubase is 
less prone to cut and tie notes. For example, the second 
quarter note in the figure above would not have been cut if 
syncopation had been activated.
The Syncopation setting affects the whole track, but you 
can also make syncopation settings for separate sections 
in the score, by inserting display quantize events (see 
“In-
serting Display Quantize changes” on page 571).
Time signature changes
By inserting time signature changes, you can change the 
way notes are cut. This is done in the same way as when 
you specify how beamed notes are grouped – see 
“Grouping” on page 608.
The Cut Notes tool
By using the Cut Notes tool, you can disable the auto-
matic cutting mechanism in a bar, and insert manual cuts 
at any given position in the score.
Proceed as follows:
1.Select the Cut Notes tool.
2.Select a suitable quantize value from the “Quantize 
Presets” pop-up menu.
As usual, this determines where you can click.
3.When you are using polyphonic voices, select the 
voice you want to make settings for.
4.Click in the bar containing the notes that you want to 
cut manually, at the position you want them cut.
This inserts a cutflag event in the bar at the position you clicked. If you 
hold down [Alt]/[Option], a cutflag event is inserted for all voices in a 
polyphonic staff.
The following rules apply to cutflag events:
• If a bar contains a cutflag event, the automatic cutting mecha-
nism is disabled within that bar.
• All notes or rests that start before and end after a cutflag event 
are cut at the position of the event.
• To display cutflag events, make sure that “Cutflag” is activated 
on the filter bar.
• To remove a cutflag event, either click again with the Cut 
Notes tool at the same position, or select it and press [Back
-
space] or [Delete].
This quarter note is cut. This eighth note is cut.
With a regular 4/4 time 
signature
With a composite time 
signature (3+2+3 eighth 
notes)
A half note, placed at 2.1.3. This is by default cut at 2.3.1 (the middle 
of the bar). When you click at the position 2.2.1, a cutflag event is 
inserted.
As a result, the regular cutting mechanism is disabled and the note is 
cut at the position you clicked instead. 
						

							614
Additional note and rest formatting
Other options for tied notes
Tie direction
As described in the section “Tie pop-up menu” on page 
607, you can set the direction of the tie manually in the 
Set Note Info dialog.
Flat ties
If you prefer ties to be displayed as flat lines, rather than 
regular “curved” ties, activate the “Flat Ties” option in the 
Score Settings dialog, on the Project–Notation Style sub
-
page (H.W. Henze Style category).
Graphic moving of notes
There might be instances where the “graphical” order of 
the notes is not the one you want. In this case, you can 
move notes without affecting the score or playback in any 
way. This can be done with the Layout tool or using your 
computer keyboard.
By using the Layout tool
1.Select the Layout tool in the Score Editor toolbar.
2.Click again on the tool button to open the Mode pop-
up menu and select the desired option.
The following modes are available:
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 that 
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 dialog on the Staff page and 
select the Polyphonic tab.
This is described in the section “Setting up the voices” on page 595.
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 get rests in this voice, but not as many as otherwise. 
Empty bars, for example, do 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 593.
An example of a cue note voice
ModeDescription
Move Single 
ObjectIn this mode, only the object you move with the Layout tool 
is affected (moved). Use this if you want to “correct” the 
position of one single note in the score, for example.
Move Notes 
and ContextIn this mode, other score objects are moved accordingly 
when you move a note with the Layout tool. Use this mode 
if you want to correct the display of all score objects within 
a bar rather than modifying single note positions.
“Cue” activated 
for voice 3 
						

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Additional note and rest formatting
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 menu.
4.Click Apply.
The settings are applied to the selected notes.
5.Close the dialog.
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 are 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 are grouped under a beam.
It is possible to have beamed grace notes overlapping a 
beam of regular notes, as in the example 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.
2.Select a note value for the stem.
3.Activate Crossed, if needed.
When this is activated, the stem is crossed by a slanted line, to further in-
dicate that the note is a grace note.
!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 are hidden! 
						

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Additional note and rest formatting
4.Click Apply.
The settings are applied to the selected notes.
5.Close the dialog.
Converting grace notes to normal notes
1.Select the notes that 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 menu.
4.Click Apply.
Tuplets
The regular Display Quantize values do not apply to any 
other divisions than triplets. To create quintuplets, septup
-
lets, 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.
• 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 that 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 needed.
If you do, the program alters 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 is not 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 617) 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. 
						

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Additional note and rest formatting
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 are 
automatically grouped under a beam. If it is longer you 
have to perform the grouping manually, see 
“Grouping” on 
page 608 for details.
Tuplet display options
In the Score Settings dialog, on the Project–Notation Style 
subpage (Tuplets category), you can find the following set
-
tings for tuplets:
!Lengths and positions in a tuplet group are probably 
best edited using the info line.
Double-click here.
OptionDescription
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 tup-lets are displayed on the “head side”.
Display Tuplet 
values by the 
BeamsWhen this is activated, tuplets are 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 are “slur-like” 
(rounded). 
						

							8
Working with symbols 
						

							619
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 are 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. – are put in the note layer. Other symbols – such as re
-
peats, rehearsal marks, some types of text, etc. – can be 
put either in the layout layer (which is individual for each lay
-
out) 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 615). 
They always precede a note or chord. If there is no note “after 
them” on a staff, they 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 669), this affects 
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 655.
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 Ar-
ranger mode, you can have playback in the program follow 
the score – repeats, da Capos and endings are 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 655.
• 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 
						

							620
Working with symbols
Which symbols are part of which layer is described in the 
section 
“The available symbols” on page 621 and onwards.
The Symbols Inspector
To display the Symbols Inspector, click the “Set up Win-
dow Layout” button on the toolbar and activate the Sym-
bols option.
Customizing the Symbols Inspector
You can customize the appearance of the Symbols Inspec-
tor by showing/hiding tabs and by specifying their order in 
the Inspector.
Showing/Hiding Symbols Inspector tabs
If you right-click on any tab in the Inspector, a context menu 
appears. 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 are placed in the Inspector and save/recall differ-
ent configurations of the 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 Sym-
bols Inspector with the “Move Up” and “Move Down” but-
tons.
The changes are reflected directly in the Score Editor.
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 menu in the dialog or directly from the In
-
spector context menu.
•To revert back to the default Inspector settings, right-
click on any of the tabs and select “Default” from the con
-
text menu.
Working with symbol palettes
You can open any of the Symbols Inspector sections as 
separate symbol palettes.
Opening tabs as palettes 
1.In the Symbols Inspector, open the desired symbols 
tab.
2.Right-click on any of the symbols of the tab.
Note that you have to right-click on a symbol. Right-clicking on a tab 
header opens a different context menu instead.