Steinberg Cubase Ai 5 Manual
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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 Key Editor also allows for detailed editing of non-note events such as MIDI controllers. For more information, see “The Key Editor – Overview” on page 184. The Drum Editor is similar to the Key Editor, but takes advantage of the fact that with drum parts, each key corre- sponds to a separate drum sound. This is the editor to use when you’re editing drum or percussion parts. For more information, see “The Drum Editor – Overview” on page 199. The List Editor shows all events in the selected MIDI parts as a list, allowing you to view and edit their properties numerically. It also allows you to edit SysEx messages. For more information, see “The List Editor – Overview” on page 206 and “Working with System Exclusive messages” on page 210. The Score Editor shows MIDI notes as a musical score. This offers basic score editing and printing – see “The Score Editor – Overview” on page 213 for details). ÖYou can define each of the editors mentioned above as your default MIDI editor, see below. Please note that features that are identical in these editors (especially in the Key and Drum Editors) will be described in the Key Editor section. The sections about the Drum Ed- itor (see “The Drum Editor – Overview” on page 199), and the List Editor (see “The List Editor – Overview” on page 206) describe the specific features of these editors only. Opening a MIDI editor There are two ways to open a MIDI editor: Select one or several parts (or a MIDI track, with no parts selected), pull down the MIDI menu and select Open Key Editor, Open Drum Editor, Open List Editor or Open Score Editor from the Scores submenu (or use the corresponding key command). The selected parts (or all parts on the track, if no part was selected) will open in the chosen editor. Double-click a part to open it in the default editor. Which editor opens depends on the Default Edit Action setting in the Preferences (Event Display–MIDI page). If the option “Edit as Drums when Drum Map is assigned” is activated and a drum map is selected for the edited track (see “Selecting a drum map for a track” on page 204), the Drum Editor will open. This way you can double- click to open the Key Editor (or the Score Editor or List Editor, depending on your preferences) but drum tracks will automatically open in the Drum Editor. ÖIf the part you open for editing is a shared copy, any ed- iting you perform will affect all shared copies of this part. Shared copies are created by pressing [Alt]/[Option]-[Shift] and drag- ging, or by using the Repeat function with the “Shared copies” option activated. In the Project window, shared copies are indicated by the part name in italics and an icon in the bottom right corner of the part. Handling several parts When you open a MIDI editor with several parts (or a MIDI track containing several parts) selected, you might find it somewhat hard to get an overview of the different parts when editing. For such cases the editor toolbar features a few functions to make working with multiple parts easier and more com- prehensive: The Part List menu lists all parts that were selected when you opened the editor (or all parts on the track, if no parts were selected), and lets you select which part should be active for editing. When you select a part from the list, it is automatically made active and centered in the note display. ÖNote that it is also possible to activate a part by select- ing an event within this part with the Arrow tool.
183 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 so that it fills the screen by selecting “Zoom to Event” from the Zoom sub- menu on the Edit menu. The button “Show Part Borders” can be used if you want to see clearly defined borders for the active part. When this is activated, all parts except the active one are grayed out, mak- ing the borders easily discernible. In the Key Editor, there are also two “markers” in the ruler with the name of the active part, marking its begin- ning and end. These can be moved freely to change the size of the part. “Show Part Borders” is activated on the toolbar. It is possible to cycle between parts (making them ac- tive) using key commands. In the Key Commands dialog – Edit category, you will find two functions for this: “Activate Next Part” and “Activate Previous Part”. If you assign key commands to these, you can use them to cycle between parts in the edi- tors. For further information, see “Setting up key commands” on page 269.
184 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 values are displayed in the format currently selected for the ruler (see below). To hide or show the info line, click the icon in the toolbar. The ruler The ruler shows the timeline, by default in the display format selected on the Transport panel. You can select a separate format for a MIDI editor ruler on the Ruler pop-up menu, opened by clicking the arrow button to the right of it. For a list of the available formats, see “The ruler” on page 21. At the bottom of the pop-up menu, there are two additional items: Toolbar Info line Ruler Note display Controller display Show/Hide Info line Solo Editor buttonKey Editor toolsAutoscrollAcoustic FeedbackPart list Show/Hide Part borders Edit active part only Auto Select Controllers Nudge Tools Snap on/off Velocity for inserted notes Grid modes Quantize settings Step Input MIDI InputStep/MIDI input controls Color pop-up menuChord recognition display Mouse pointer display: current pitch and meter position
185 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 set the display format to “Bars+Beats” in “Bars+Beats Linear” mode when edit- ing MIDI. The note display The note display is the main area in the Key Editor. It con- tains a grid in which MIDI notes are shown as boxes. The width of a box corresponds to the note length, and the vertical position of a box corresponds to the note number (pitch), with higher notes higher up in the grid. The piano keyboard to the left serves as a guide for finding the right note number. For a description of how to display colors in the note dis- play, see “Coloring notes and events” on page 188. The chord recognition function Cubase AI features a handy chord recognition function that helps you identify chords in the Key Editor note dis- play. To find out which chord is formed by simultaneously played notes, place the project cursor over the notes. All MIDI notes currently “touched” by the project cursor are analyzed and the chord recognition display in the toolbar shows you which chord the notes form. In the picture above, the project cursor touches the notes C, Eb and G. As shown in the chord recognition display, this results in a C minor chord. The controller display The area at the bottom of the Key Editor window is the controller display. This consists of one or several control- ler lanes, each showing one of the following properties or event types: Velocity values of the notes Pitchbend events Aftertouch events Poly Pressure events Program Change events SysEx events Any type of continuous controller event (see “Editing conti- nuous controllers on the controller lane” on page 197) To change the size of the controller display, drag the di- vider between the controller display and the note display. This will make the controller display larger and the note display smaller, or vice versa.
186 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 length. The value of an event in the display is “valid” until the start of the next event. For a description of editing in the controller display, see “Editing in the controller display” on page 193. Key Editor operations Zooming Zooming in the Key Editor is done according to the stan- dard zoom procedures, using the zoom sliders, the Zoom tool or the Zoom submenu on the Edit menu. When you drag a rectangle with the Zoom tool, the result depends on the option “Zoom Tool Standard Mode: Hori- zontal Zooming Only” in the Preferences (Editing–Tools page). If this is activated, the window will only be zoomed horizontally; if not, the window will be zoomed both horizontally and vertically. Using the Trim tool The Trim tool allows you to change the length of note events by cutting off the end or the beginning of notes. It is available in the Key Editor and in the List Editor. Using the Trim tool means moving the note-on or the note- off event for one or several notes to a position defined with the mouse. Proceed as follows: 1.Select the Trim tool in the toolbar. The mouse pointer changes to a knife symbol. 2.Locate the notes that you wish to edit. 3.To edit a single note, click on it with the Trim tool. The range between the mouse pointer and the end of the note will be removed. You can use the mouse position display in the toolbar to find the exact position for the trim operation. 4.To edit several notes, click and drag with the mouse across the notes. A line is displayed. The notes will be trimmed along this line. Trimming the end of three note events. By default, the Trim tool will cut off the end of notes. To trim the beginning of the note(s), press [Alt]/[Option] while dragging. If you delete the second event… …the first event will be “valid” until the start of the third event.
187 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 to the grid. Playing back You can play back your music as usual when working in a MIDI editor. There are several features designed to make editing easier during playback: Solo button If you activate the Solo button, only the edited MIDI parts will be heard during regular playback. Autoscroll As described in the section “Autoscroll” on page 41, the Autoscroll function makes the window “follow” the project cursor during playback, so that the current play position is visible at all times. However, when you are working in a MIDI editor, you may want to deactivate Autoscroll – this way, the events you are working with will stay visible. The Autoscroll buttons in each MIDI editor are independent of the Project window Autoscroll setting, which means that Autoscroll can be activated in the Project window and de- activated in the MIDI editor you are working in. Acoustic Feedback If the speaker icon on the toolbar is activated, individual notes will automatically be played back (auditioned) when you move or transpose them, or when you create new notes by drawing. This makes it easier to hear what you’re doing. Snap Snap is activated on the toolbar. The Snap function helps you find exact positions when ed- iting in a MIDI editor. It does this by restricting horizontal movement and positioning to certain positions. Operations affected by snap include moving, duplicating, drawing, siz- ing, etc. How Snap works depends on the Snap mode pop-up menu next to the Snap button. See “The Snap function” on page 40. When the “Bars+Beats” display format is selected in the ruler, the snap grid is set by the Quantize value on the toolbar. This makes it possible to snap not only to straight note values but also to swing grids set up in the Quantize Setup dialog (see “The Quantizing functions” on page 172). When any of the other display formats is selected in the ruler, positioning is restricted to the displayed grid, i.e. you can snap in finer increments by zooming in, and in coarser increments by zooming out the display.
188 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 Editor, you use the Pencil tool or the Line tool. Drawing notes with the Pencil tool With the Pencil tool, you insert single notes by clicking at the desired time (horizontal) and pitch position (vertical). When you move the pointer in the note display, its bar position is indicated in the toolbar, and its pitch is indicated both in the toolbar and on the piano keyboard to the left. This makes it easy to find the right note and insert position. If Snap is activated, this determines the start position of the created note.If you click once, the created note will have the length set on the Length Quantize pop-up menu on the toolbar. You can create a longer note by clicking and dragging. The length of the created note will be a multiple of the Length Quantize value. Drawing notes with the Line tool The Line tool can be used for creating series of contigu- ous notes. To do so, click and drag to draw a line and then release the mouse button. ÖThe Line tool has several different modes. To select one of the modes, click on the Line tool icon on the toolbar when the tool is already selected. This opens a pop-up menu from which you can select one of the Line tool modes. The tool icon will change appearance according to the se- lected mode. Option Description Velocity The notes get different colors depending on their velocity values. Pitch The notes get different colors depending on their pitch. Channel The notes get different colors depending on their MIDI channel value. Part The notes get the same color as their respective part in the Project window. Use this option when you are work- ing with two or more tracks in an editor, to make it easier to see which notes belong to which track. GridMatch The notes get different colors depending on their time position. This mode makes it easy to see e.g. if the notes in a chord start at the exact same beat. Mode Description Line This is the default mode for the Line tool. When this mode is selected, you click and drag to create a straight line, in any angle. When you release the mouse button a series of notes will be created, aligned with the line. If Snap is activated, the notes will be spaced and sized ac- cording to the Quantize value. Parabola, Sine, Triangle, SquareThese modes insert events along different curve shapes. While they can be used for creating notes, they are prob- ably best suited for controller editing (see “Adding and editing events in the controller display” on page 195). Paint Allows you to insert multiple notes by dragging with the mouse button pressed. If Snap is activated, the notes will be positioned and sized according to the Quantize and Length Quantize values. If you press [Ctrl]/[Command] while painting, movement will be restricted to horizontal (i.e. the painted notes will have the same pitch).
189 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 selected notes to change the ve- locity. The cursor changes into a speaker and, next to the note, a field with the velocity value appears – the Note Velocity slider. Move the mouse pointer up or down to change the value. Value changes will be applied to all selected notes, as you can see in the controller lane. Selecting a predefined velocity value from the insert ve- locity pop-up menu. The menu contains five different predefined velocity values. The “Setup…” item opens a dialog that allows you to specify which five velocity values should be available on the pop-up menu. (This dialog can also be opened by selecting “Insert Velocities…” from the MIDI menu.) Manually entering the desired velocity value by clicking in the insert velocity field and typing in the desired value. Using a key command. You can assign a key command to each of the five available velocity val- ues in the Key Commands dialog (MIDI category – the items Insert Ve- locity 1–5). This allows for quick switching between different velocity values when entering notes. See “Setting up key commands” on page 269 for instructions on how to set up key commands. Selecting notes Selecting notes is done using any of the following methods: Use the Arrow tool. The standard selection techniques apply, like selecting by clicking on the note or using a selection rectangle. Note that when you press [Shift] and click on notes or draw a selection rectangle, these notes will be added to the overall selection. When you press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click on notes or draw a selection rectangle, these notes will be removed from the overall selection (standard Windows behavior). Use the Select submenu on the Edit menu or context menu. The Select menu options are: You can also use the left and right arrow keys on the computer keyboard to step from one note to another. If you press [Shift] and use the arrow keys, the current selection will be kept, allowing you to select several notes. To select all notes of a certain pitch, press [Ctrl]/[Com- mand] and click on the desired key in the keyboard display to the left. You can also press [Shift] and double-click on a note to select all the fol- lowing notes of the same pitch. If the option “Auto Select Events under Cursor” is acti- vated in the Preferences (Editing page), all notes “touched” by the project cursor are automatically selected. Option Description All Selects all notes in the edited part. None Deselects all events. In Loop Selects all notes that are partially or completely inside the boundaries of the left and right locators (only visible if lo- cators are set). From Start to CursorSelects all notes that begin to the left of the project cur- sor. From Cursor to EndSelects all notes that end to the right of the project cur- sor. All notes of the corresponding pitch are selected.
190 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 controllers will always be selected when the respective notes are selected. A note range lasts until the start of the next note or the end of the part. Selected controllers for notes are moved when the cor- responding notes are moved. Moving and transposing notes To move notes in the editor, use any of the following me- thods: Click and drag to a new position. All selected notes will be moved, maintaining their relative positions. If Snap is activated, this determines to which positions you can move the notes, see “Snap” on page 187. Use the up and down arrow keys on the computer key- board. This method allows you to transpose the selected notes, without risking to move them horizontally. You can also use the Transpose function (see “Transpose” on page 176) for this. Note that pressing [Shift] and using the up and down arrow keys will transpose notes in steps of one octave. Use the Move to Cursor function on the Edit menu. This moves the selected notes to the project cursor position. Select a note and adjust its position or pitch on the info line. See “Editing on the info line” on page 192. Use the Move buttons in the Nudge palette on the tool- bar. This moves the selected note(s) by the amount set on the Quantize pop- up menu. By default, the Nudge palette is not shown on the toolbar – see “Using the Setup options” on page 262 for more information. ÖNote that when you move selected notes to a different position, any selected controllers for these notes will move accordingly. See also “Moving and copying events” on page 197. You can also adjust the position of notes by quantizing (see “The Quantizing functions” on page 172). Duplicating and repeating notes Notes are duplicated much in the same way as events in the Project window: Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and drag the note(s) to a new position. If Snap is activated, this determines to which positions you can copy notes (see “Snap” on page 187). Selecting Duplicate from the Edit menu creates a copy of the selected note and places it directly after the original. If several notes are selected, all of these are copied “as one unit”, main- taining the relative distance between the notes. Selecting “Repeat…” from the Edit menu opens a dia- log, allowing you to create a number of copies of the se- lected note(s). This works like the Duplicate function, but you can specify the number of copies. You can also perform the Repeat function by dragging: Select the note(s) to repeat, press [Alt]/[Option], click the right edge of the last selected note and drag to the right. The longer to the right you drag, the more copies are created (as indi- cated by the tooltip). !Note also that you can restrict movement to horizon- tal or vertical only by holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] while dragging.