Steinberg Cubase 7 User Manual

							781
Polyphonic voicingSetting up the voices
Setting up the voices
To set up your score for polyphonic voicing, proceed as follows:
1.Make sure that the desired staff is active.
2.Open the Score Settings dialog and select the Staff page.
3.Select the Polyphonic tab.
4.Open the Staff Mode pop-up menu and select Polyphonic.
This makes the voice list in the lower part of the dialog available. It consists of eight 
rows, one for each voice. They are numbered and therefore we refer to them as 
voices 1 to 8.
5.To activate a voice, click in its “On” column, so that a checkmark appears.
There are four voices on each staff, for a total of eight. If you activate one “upper” 
voice and one “lower” voice, you get a split (piano) staff.
6.If you have particular reasons to use specific MIDI channels, change the “Chan” 
settings for the voices.
The program automatically sets each voice to a different MIDI channel. If you do 
not have good reasons to make changes, leave the settings as they are.
7.Click in the “Rests–Show” column to decide for which voices you want rests 
displayed.
A checkmark indicates that rests are shown for a voice. Often you only want rests 
to be shown for one voice per staff, see below.
8.If you have activated “Rests–Show” for a voice, but do not want rests to be shown 
in empty bars, click in the “Rests–Reduce” column for that voice.
This is especially useful for cue voices, see “Cue notes” on page 806.
9.Click in the “Rests–Center” column to determine at which vertical positions rests 
are shown (for voices with “Rests–Show” activated).
When this option is activated for a voice, the rest is put in the vertical center of the 
staff, when it is not, the rest gets a vertical position based on the pitch of the notes.
!Do not confuse the voice numbers with the MIDI channel setting for each voice.
!If two voices are set to the same MIDI channel, the lower voice is treated as if it were 
turned off. 
						

							782
Polyphonic voicingSetting up the voices
10.Decide on a stem direction for each voice, by selecting from the pop-up menu in 
the Stems column.
If you select Auto, the program makes decisions about which stems go in which 
direction (just as when not using polyphonic voices). You can always force stem 
direction for individual notes by using the Flip Stem function, see 
“Flipping the 
stem of one or several notes” on page 791.
11.If you want the notes in a voice to be smaller than regular notes, put a checkmark 
in the Cue column for the voice.
12.Click Apply.
The staff is changed to polyphonic voicing, and the program distributes the 
existing notes into voices according to their MIDI channel values.
•At this point you may want to use the Explode function to automatically move notes 
into the proper voices, see 
“Automatically – the Explode function” on page 784.
If the “Some Notes Do Not Belong To Voices…” dialog appears
When you click Apply, a warning may appear saying “Some notes do not belong to 
any voice and may be hidden. Correct these notes?”.
This warning appears when the staff contains notes with MIDI channel settings which 
do not match any of the active voices.
If you click the “Correct” button, these notes are moved to active voices. If you click 
“Ignore”, nothing is changed, and some notes are hidden. However, they are not lost, 
they appear in all other editors and can be made to appear again in the Score Editor if 
you change the channel settings for the notes or voices, activate more voices, etc.
About the polyphonic presets
The Presets pop-up menu on the Polyphonic tab (below the list of voices) contains 
three very useful setups. Instead of making settings by hand, you can select one of the 
presets, saving some time. The presets are:
Variable Split
This sets up the dialog for two voices, one on each staff, each with auto stem 
direction. This is a good starting point for a piano staff when the fixed split option does 
not suffice.
Optimize Two Voices
In this preset, only voices 1 and 2 are activated, and set up like this:
This way the first voice behaves as in single staff mode, but if there are notes in the 
second voice, the stems of the first one are set to Up.
Optimize Four Voices
This is like “Optimize Two Voices”, but with two staves. Voices 5 and 6 are activated 
as well, with the same settings as voices 1 and 2. This is the recommended way to 
write piano music.
!There is a special stem feature for voice 1: If you set this to Auto, the stem direction 
depends on the pitch of the note as usual – except if there are voice 2 notes in the bar, 
because then the voice 1 stems are automatically set to Up! 
						

							783
Polyphonic voicingStrategies: How many voices do I need?
Strategies: How many voices do I need?
Well, it depends…
- If you are scoring for vocals, you simply need one voice for each voice, so to speak.
- If you use voices for resolving the problem of overlapping notes (see “Overlapping 
notes” on page 780), for example when scoring for piano, you need two voices 
each time two notes overlap. If three notes overlap, you need three voices. In other 
words you need to check for the “worst case” (largest number of overlapping 
notes at a certain position) and activate that many. If you do not know how many 
notes you need when starting out to prepare a score, do not worry, you can add 
more voices later.
- Voices 1 and 2 on the upper staff and 5 and 6 on the lower are special. These 
handle “collisions” (notes with small intervals, accidentals that otherwise would 
come too close, etc.) automatically which the other voices do not. Always use 
these voices first!
An example: in the situation below, three voices are required. The lowest note 
overlaps both the “melody” and the chords, so it cannot share a voice with the chords. 
The chords overlap the melody, so they cannot share a voice either.
Entering notes into voices
When you add new notes, you need to decide which voice they go into:
1.Make sure that the extended toolbar is visible.
2.Select the Object Selection tool.
3.If you have a split system, check the voice Insert buttons.
These are displayed after the text “Insert” on the left side on the extended toolbar. 
Only the voices that are activated on the Polyphonic tab are shown. If the upper 
staff is active, the voice Insert buttons are numbered 1, 2, etc., otherwise they are 
numbered 5, 6, etc.
4.If you need to switch the voice icons to the right “clef”, click somewhere in the 
system you want to insert notes in.
5.Select one of the voices by clicking on the corresponding button.
Any notes you enter from now on are inserted into that voice.
Voice 3 activated for insertion
6.Insert the notes as usual, see “Adding and editing notes” on page 756.
7.To switch to another voice, click the corresponding button.
8.To insert notes into a voice on the other clef, click on that clef and then select a 
voice using the buttons.
Symbols and voices
Later in this manual you will learn about symbols that can be added to the score. Many 
of these symbols must also be put into a particular voice, see 
“Important! – Symbols, 
staves, and voices” on page 815. 
						

							784
Polyphonic voicingChecking which voice a note belongs to
Checking which voice a note belongs to
When you select one single note, the corresponding voice button on the extended 
toolbar is selected. This allows you to quickly find out which voice a certain note is in 
(after you have used the Move To Voice function, for example).
•When you step through the notes using the arrow keys, you only step through the 
notes in one voice at a time. 
This can be used as a quick way to check which notes belong to the same voice as 
some other note.
Moving notes between voices
Manually
To manually move notes to another voice, proceed as follows:
1.Select the note(s) you want to move to a particular voice.
2.Right-click on one of the notes and select “Move to Voice” from the context menu.
3.On the submenu, select the voice to which you want to move the notes.
Only the activated voices are available on the menu.
•You can also press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click a voice Insert button on the 
extended toolbar to move the selected notes to the corresponding voice.
You can also assign key commands for this in the Score Functions category of the 
Key Commands dialog on the File menu.
Automatically – the Explode function
The Explode function distributes notes, either onto new tracks (see “The Explode 
function” on page 751) or into polyphonic voices:
1.Open the Scores menu and select “Explode” from the Functions submenu.
The Explode dialog, set to create polyphonic voices.
2.Make sure that “To Polyphonic Voices” is selected at the top of the dialog. 
						

							785
Polyphonic voicingHandling rests
3.Use the options in the lower half of the dialog to set up the criteria for the split.
Choose from the following options:
4.Click OK.
The notes are distributed to different voices.
Alternative ways of handling voices
Below we suggest further “advanced” ways of putting notes into voices. This is based 
on the relation between voices and MIDI channels, so please make sure that you 
understand how this connection works.
- Cubase only: You can use the Logical Editor (see the chapter “The Logical Editor, 
Transformer, and Input Transformer” on page 580) to put notes into voices, based 
on other more complex criteria, like for example their pitch and length. This is done 
by setting up the Logical Editor so that the notes that meet the criteria get their 
MIDI channel changed to that of their voice.
- When you enter notes using step input you can change the MIDI channel on your 
input device and directly enter notes into separate voices.
- You can play back each voice on a different MIDI channel, simply by setting the 
track to Any. This can be used as a convenient way of “proof-hearing” each voice 
separately.
- You can use the Input Transformer to assign a certain key range to a MIDI channel, 
and thereby automatically put notes into voices when recording.
- For brass and vocals, you might record each voice on its own track, and use the 
“Merge All Staves” function to automatically copy each recording to a separate 
voice on a new track (see 
“Automatic polyphonic voicing – Merge All Staves” on 
page 788).
- When you have assigned parts to voices, you can use the Extract Voices function 
to create one track out of each voice (see 
“Converting voices to tracks – Extract 
Voices” on page 789).
Handling rests
With polyphonic voices, you often get more rest symbols than desired.
•If a voice does not need any rests at all, you can deactivate rests separately for this 
voice on the Polyphonic tab of the Staff page in the Score Settings dialog.
•If you only need rests from one voice on a staff, activate Rests–Center for that 
voice (this is done in the same dialog). If two or more voices have rests, deactivate 
Rests–Center. The program then automatically makes sure the rests do not 
“collide” in the score, by adjusting their vertical position.
•To avoid having several rests displayed in empty bars, you can activate the Rests–
Reduce option for all voices (that have rests) except one. This option causes the 
program to hide rests in empty bars.
•You can use the Hide feature (see “Hiding/showing objects” on page 868) to 
totally remove individual superfluous rests from the score.
OptionDescription
Split NoteUse this to move all notes below a certain pitch to another voice.
Lines To TracksUse this when you want all musical “lines” to be put in one voice 
each. The notes with the highest pitch goes to the first voice, the 
notes with the second highest pitch goes to the second, and so on.
Bass To Lowest 
VoiceWhen this is activated, the lowest notes always ends up in the 
lowest voice. 
						

							786
Polyphonic voicingVoices and Display Quantize
•You can use the Object Selection tool to manually move rests up/down or 
sideways to adjust the “picture”.
•If needed you can add “rest symbols” (rests that do not affect the playback data in 
any way) by using the symbols.
Voices and Display Quantize
When you insert Display Quantize changes (see “Inserting Display Quantize changes” 
on page 750), you can either apply the settings to all voices (by [Alt]/[Option]-clicking 
with the tool) or to the current voice only.
Making Display Quantize settings for one single voice allows you to do two things:
•Make each voice have its own Display Quantize settings by inserting a Display 
Quantize event for each voice, at the beginning of the staff. This is valid for the 
entire staff, until another Display Quantize event is inserted.
•Insert Display Quantize “exceptions” anywhere in the score, independently for 
each voice. 
Proceed as follows:
1.Make sure that the “Display Quantize Tool affects all Voices” option is deactivated.
2.Select the voice for which you want to insert a Display Quantize event.
This is done by clicking at the corresponding voice button on the extended toolbar 
as described above, or by selecting a note that belongs to this voice.
3.Select the Display Quantize tool.
4.Click at the position at which you want to insert the event.
The Display Quantize dialog appears.
5.Fill out the dialog as described in the section “Display Quantize and Interpretation 
Options” on page 773. 
6.Click Apply.
!If “Display Quantize Tool affects all Voices” is activated in the Score Settings dialog on 
the Project–Notation Style subpage (Miscellaneous category), the Display Quantize 
settings always affects all voices (even if you do not press [Alt]/[Option] and click). 
						

							787
Polyphonic voicingCreating crossed voicings
Creating crossed voicings
Often, for example in vocal scoring, you have crossed voicings on one system. You 
can of course move notes manually into voices to get the stem direction and other 
note properties right, but there is a quicker way. Let’s explain how to do this by 
example. Without using polyphonic voicing, you have entered this:
1.Open the Score Settings dialog on the Staff page and select the Polyphonic tab.
2.From the Staff Mode pop-up menu, select Polyphonic.
3.Activate voice 1 and 2 only, and make settings for them as in the picture below.
4.Click Apply.
The staff is in Polyphonic staff mode, but all notes are still in the same voice.
5.Open the Scores menu and select “Explode” from the Functions submenu.
6.In the dialog that appears, select the “To Polyphonic Voices” option and activate 
“Lines To Tracks”.
Leave the other options off.
7.Click OK.
The notes have now been split in two “lines”, each in a separate voice. However, 
from the middle of the bar, notes that are in voice 1 should be in voice 2 and vice 
versa.
8.Select the two notes that you want to be moved from voice 1 to voice 2.
Two notes in 
voice 1 
selected.
9.Move the notes to voice 2.
The quickest way to do this is to press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click the voice Insert 
[2] button on the extended toolbar.
Two notes 
moved to the 
right voice. 
						

							788
Polyphonic voicingAutomatic polyphonic voicing – Merge All Staves
10.Select the two notes that you want to be moved to voice 1 and move them, too.
All notes in 
the right 
voices.
The voicing is now correct, as you can tell from the stem directions. However, there is 
still some work to do on the notes graphical positions (see 
“Graphic moving of notes” 
on page 805) and the display of stems and beams for some of the notes (see “Manual 
adjustment of beams” on page 802). When you have made those adjustments, the 
score may look like this:
After making 
graphical 
adjustments.
Automatic polyphonic voicing – Merge All Staves
If you have already created some tracks which look and play back as they should, and 
you want to combine these into one track with polyphonic voices, there is a special 
function on the Scores menu for this:
1.Open the tracks (up to four) in the Score Editor.
2.Open the Scores menu and select “Merge All Staves” from the Functions 
submenu.
Now a new track is created and shown in the score. The track has polyphonic 
voices activated, and the four original tracks are assigned to one voice each 
(voices 1, 2, 5 and 6 are used).
Before…
…and after 
merging the 
staves
Furthermore, all non-linked symbols that belong to the staff that become the first 
polyphonic voice in the merged staff are copied. They have the same positions as the 
original symbols. 
!When you later play back the music, you need to mute the four original tracks, or you 
get double notes.  
						

							789
Polyphonic voicingConverting voices to tracks – Extract Voices
Converting voices to tracks – Extract Voices
This function does the opposite of “Merge All Staves” – it extracts polyphonic voices 
from an existing track and creates new tracks, one for each voice. Proceed as follows:
1.Open a track containing 2 to 8 polyphonic voices in the Score Editor.
2.Open the Scores menu and select “Extract Voices” from the Functions submenu.
A number of new tracks is created and added to the display of the Score Editor. 
Each track contains the music from one polyphonic voice. If there were non-linked 
symbols in the original track, each new track gets a copy of these symbols. 
!When you later play back the music, you need to mute the original track (the one with 
polyphonic voices), or you get double notes.  
						

							790
Additional note and rest formatting
About this chapter
In this chapter you will learn:
- How to control stem direction.
- How to control beaming, and create cross-staff beaming.
- How to make detailed adjustments to note appearance.
- How to perform “graphic moving” of notes.
- How to create grace notes.
- How to create tuplets.
Background: Note stems
The direction of stems is governed by five things:
- How notes are grouped under beams.
- Any manual manipulation of beams.
- The Flip Stems function.
- How the note information is set for each note.
- How the Polyphonic tab on the Staff page of the Score Settings dialog is set up (if 
you use polyphonic voices).
The order of this list corresponds to the priority of the settings, i. e. on conflict, the 
grouping under beams has the highest priority and the settings made on the 
Polyphonic tab the lowest.
Setting stem direction
In polyphonic voices
In the Score Settings dialog, on the Staff page (Polyphonic tab), the stem direction 
can be set separately for each voice.
!If you have edited the stem length of a note and then flip it, the stem is reset to default 
length.
!If you have activated the “Fixed Stems” option on the Staff page of the Score Settings 
dialog (Options tab, see 
“Fixed Stems” on page 778), a lot of the automatic stem 
length settings are ignored. However, you can still edit the stem length and direction 
of individual notes.
The voice stem 
settings