Steinberg Cubase Ai 5 Manual

19
The MIDI editors 

182
The MIDI editors
Introduction
There are several ways to edit MIDI in Cubase AI. You can 
use the tools and functions in the Project window for large-
scale editing, or the functions on the MIDI menu to process 
MIDI parts in various ways (see “What is affected by the 
MIDI functions?” on page 172). For hands-on graphical ed-
iting of the contents of MIDI parts, you use the MIDI editors:
The Key Editor is the default MIDI editor, presenting 
notes graphically in an intuitive piano roll-style grid.
The...

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The MIDI editors
The button “Edit Active Part Only” lets you restrict edit-
ing operations to the active part only.
For example, if you select “All” from the Select submenu on the Edit menu 
with this option activated, only events in the active part will be selected. 
Similarly, if you select notes by dragging with the Arrow tool (making a se-
lection rectangle), only the notes in the active part will be selected.
“Edit Active Part Only” is activated on the toolbar.
You can zoom in on the active part...

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The MIDI editors
The Key Editor – Overview 
The toolbar
As in other windows, the toolbar contains tools and vari-
ous settings. You can specify which toolbar items should 
be shown and store/recall different toolbar configurations 
– see “Using the Setup options” on page 262. 
The info line
The info line shows information about selected MIDI 
notes. You can edit all values on the info line using regular 
value editing (see “Editing on the info line” on page 192 
for details). Length and position...

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The MIDI editors
If “Time Linear” is selected, the ruler, note display and 
controller display will be linear in relation to time.
This means that if the ruler shows bars and beats, the distance between 
the bar lines will vary depending on the tempo.
If “Bars+Beats Linear” is selected, the ruler, note display 
and controller display will be linear in relation to tempo.
This means that if the ruler shows bars and beats, the distance between 
beats will be constant.
In most cases, you would probably...

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The MIDI editors
Velocity values are shown as vertical bars in the controller 
display, with higher bars corresponding to higher velocity 
values.
Each velocity bar corresponds to a note in the note display.
Events other than velocity values are shown as blocks, the 
heights of which correspond to the values of the events. 
The beginning of an event is marked by a curve point. To 
select an event, click on the curve point, so that it turns red.
ÖUnlike notes, events in the controller display have no...

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The MIDI editors
If you press [Ctrl]/[Command] while dragging, you will 
get a vertical trim line, allowing you to set the same start or 
end time for all edited notes.
You can change the Trim tool key commands in the Prefe-
rences (Editing–Tool Modifiers page).
ÖNote that when you trim the beginning of a note in the 
List Editor, the note may move to a different position in the 
list (since other events may now begin before the edited 
event).
ÖNote that the trimmed note ends or starts do not snap...

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The MIDI editors
Coloring notes and events
By using the Colors pop-up menu on the toolbar, you can 
select a color scheme for the events in the editor. The fol-
lowing options are available:
When any of the options (apart from “Part”) is selected, 
you can select “Setup…” from the Colors pop-up menu. 
This opens a dialog in which you can specify which colors 
should be associated with which velocities, pitches or 
channels, respectively.
Creating and editing notes
To draw in new notes in the Key...

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The MIDI editors
Setting velocity values
When you draw notes in the Key Editor, the notes will get 
the velocity value set in the insert velocity field on the tool-
bar.
You can use one of four different methods for determining 
the velocity:
When a tool modifier is assigned for the Select tool–
Edit Velocity action (in the Editing–Tool Modifiers page of 
the Preferences dialog), you can select one or more notes, 
press the modifier (by default [Ctrl]/[Command]-[Shift]) 
and click on one of the...

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The MIDI editors
Toggle selections
If you want to toggle the selected elements within a selec-
tion rectangle, press [Ctrl]/[Command] and enclose the 
same elements within a new selection rectangle. Once 
you release the mouse button, the previous selection is 
deselected and vice versa.
Selecting controllers within the note range
You can select the controllers within the range of the se-
lected notes. The following applies:
When the Auto Select Controllers button is activated 
on the toolbar, the...