Steinberg Cubase Le 4 Manual
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171 The MIDI editors 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 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 Pref- erences (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 don’t 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 38, 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 of the MIDI editors are inde- pendent of the Project window Autoscroll setting, which means that Autoscroll can be activated in the Project win- dow and deactivated in the MIDI editor you are working in. Auditioning 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 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 “Snap” on page 37. 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 155). 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. 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: 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.
172 The MIDI editors 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 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. 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: 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. Option Description 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’re proba- bly best suited for controller editing (see “Adding and editing events in the controller display” on page 179). 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 only (i.e. the painted notes will have the same pitch).
173 The MIDI editors When a key command 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 [Ctrl]/[Command]+[Shift] and click on one of the selected notes to change the velocity. 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 250 for instructions on how to set up key commands. Selecting notes Selecting notes is done using any of the following me- thods: 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 Quick 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 currently “touched” by the project cursor are automatically selected. 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. 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 correspond-ing pitch are selected.
174 The MIDI editors 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 in 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 171. 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 159) or the info line (see “The info line” on page 168) 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 176. 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 isn’t shown on the toolbar – see “The Se- tup dialogs” on page 244 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 180. You can also adjust the position of notes by quantizing (see “The Quantizing functions” on page 155). 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 171). 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 dialog, al- lowing you to create a number of copies of the selected 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 tool tip). Using cut and paste You can use the Cut, Copy and Paste options on the Edit menu to move or copy material within a part or between different parts. When you paste copied notes, you can ei- ther use the regular Paste function or the function “Paste Time” from the Range submenu of the Edit menu. “Paste” inserts the copied notes at the project cursor position without affecting existing notes. !Note also that you can restrict movement to horizon- tal or vertical only by holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] while dragging.
175 The MIDI editors “Paste Time” inserts at the project cursor position, but moves (and if necessary, splits) existing notes to make room for the pasted notes. Resizing notes To resize a note, use one of the following methods: Position the arrow tool at the start or end of the note, so that the pointer takes on the shape of a small double ar- row. Click and drag to the left or right to resize the note. This method allows you to resize the note from either direction. Click with the Pencil tool within the note box and drag to the left or the right (to make the note shorter or longer, respectively). With both these methods, the resulting length will be a multiple of the Length Quantize value on the toolbar. Use the Trim Start/End buttons on the Nudge palette on the toolbar. This resizes the selected note(s) by moving their start or end positions, in steps according to the Length Quantize value on the toolbar. By default, the Nudge palette isn’t shown on the toolbar – see “The Setup dialogs” on page 244 for more information. Select the note and adjust its length on the info line. See “Editing on the info line” on page 176 for details on info line editing. Use the Trim tool, see “Using the Trim tool” on page 170. Splitting notes There are three ways to split notes: Clicking on a note with the Scissors tool splits the note at the position you pointed (taking the Snap setting into account if activated). If several notes are selected, they are all split at the same position. If you select “Split at Cursor” in the Edit menu, all notes that are intersected by the project cursor are split at the cursor position. If you select “Split Loop” in the Edit menu, all notes that are intersected by the left or right locator are split at the locator positions. Gluing notes Clicking on a note with the Glue Tube tool will “glue it to- gether” with the next note of the same pitch. The result will be one long note spanning from the start of the first note to the end of the second note and with the properties (ve- locity, etc.) of the first note. Muting notes Individual notes can be muted in the Key Editor, as op- posed to muting an entire MIDI part in the Project window. This allows you to exclude notes from playback, but keep the option to bring them back again at any time. To mute a note, use one of the following methods: Click on it with the Mute tool. Drag a rectangle with the Mute tool, enclosing all notes you want to mute. Select the note(s) and choose Mute from the Edit menu. The default key command for this is [Shift]+[M]. Muted notes are “dimmed” in the note display. To unmute a note, either click it or enclose it with the Mute tool, or select it and choose Unmute from the Edit menu. The default key command for this is [Shift]+[U]. Selecting “Paste Time” with this data on the clipboard and the project cur- sor here… …will give you this.
176 The MIDI editors Deleting notes To delete notes, either click on them with the Eraser tool or select them and press [Backspace]. Editing on the info line The info line shows the values and properties of the se- lected event(s). If a single event is selected, its values are displayed on the info line. If several events are selected, the info line shows the values of the first of these events in yellow. Several events selected. You can edit the values on the info line using regular value editing. This allows you to move, resize, transpose or change velocity of events in a very precise manner. It’s also possible to click the Pitch or Velocity field in the info line and play a note on your MIDI keyboard – the pitch or velocity will be adjusted according to the note you played. ÖIf you have several events selected and change a value, all selected events will be changed by the set amount. ÖIf you have several events selected, hold down [Ctrl]/ [Command] and change a value, the change will be abso- lute. In other words, the value setting will be the same for all selected events. Editing notes via MIDI You can change the properties of notes via MIDI. For ex- ample, this can be a fast way to get the right velocity value, since you will hear the result even as you edit: 1.Select the note you want to edit. 2.Click on the MIDI connector symbol on the toolbar. Click this button to enable editing via MIDI. 3.Use the note buttons on the toolbar to decide which properties should be changed by the MIDI input. You can enable editing of pitch, note-on and/or note-off velocity. With this setting, the edited notes will get the pitch and velocity values of the notes input via MIDI, but the note-off velocities will be kept as they are. 4.Play a note on your MIDI instrument. The note selected in the editor will get the pitch, velocity and/or note-off velocity of the played note. The next note in the edited part is automatically selected, making it easy to quickly edit a series of notes. If you want another try, select the note again (e. g. by pressing the left arrow key on the computer keyboard) and again play a note on your MIDI instrument. Step input Step input, or step recording, is when you enter notes one at a time (or one chord at a time) without worrying about the exact timing. This is useful e.g. when you know the part you want to record but are not able to play it exactly as you want it. Proceed as follows: 1.Click the Step Input button on the toolbar to activate Step Input mode. 2.Use the note buttons to the right to decide which properties should be included when you input the notes. For example, you may not want to include the velocity and/or note-off ve- locity of the played notes. It’s also possible to turn off the pitch property, in which case all notes will get the pitch C3, no matter what you play. 3.Click anywhere in the note display to set the start po- sition (the desired position of the first note or chord). The step input position is shown as a blue line in the note display, and in the lower mouse pointer display in the toolbar.
177 The MIDI editors 4.Specify the desired note spacing and length with the Quantize and Length Quantize pop-up menus. The notes you input will be positioned according to the Quantize value and have the length set with the Length Quantize value. For instance, if you set Quantize to 1/8 notes and Length Quantize to 1/16 note, the notes will be sixteenth notes, appearing on each eighth note position. 5.Play the first note or chord on your MIDI instrument. The note or chord appears in the editor and the step input position ad- vances one quantize value step. ÖIf Insert mode is activated, all notes to the right of the step input position will be moved to “make room” for the inserted note or chord. Insert mode activated. 6.Continue in the same way with the rest of the notes or chords. You can adjust the Quantize or Length Quantize value as you go along, to change the timing or note lengths. You can also move the step input position manually by clicking anywhere in the note display. To insert a “rest”, press the right arrow key on the com- puter keyboard. This advances the step input position one step. 7.When you’re done, click the Step Input button again to deactivate step input. Editing in the controller display About controller lanes By default, the controller display has a single lane, show- ing one event type at a time. However, you can add lanes by right-clicking in the display and selecting “Create new controller lane” from the Quick menu. This allows you to view and edit different controllers at the same time. The controller display with two lanes set up. To remove a lane, right-click in it and select “Remove this Lane” from the Quick menu, or click on the minus button. This hides the lane from view – it doesn’t affect the events in any way. If you remove all lanes, the controller display will be completely hidden. To bring it back again, select “Create new controller lane” from the Quick menu. Selecting the event type Each controller lane shows one event type at a time. To select which type should be displayed, use the pop-up menu to the left of the lane. Selecting “Setup...” opens a dialog in which you can specify which continuous controller event types should be available on the pop-up menu. Controller types in this list are already listed on the pop-up menu.Controller types in this list are not listed on the pop-up menu. Click this button to add the selected controller type to the pop-up menu. Click this button to remove the controller type selected in the left list from the pop-up menu.
178 The MIDI editors Each MIDI track has its own controller lane setup (num- ber of lanes and selected event types). When you create new tracks, they get the controller lane setup used last. Controller lane presets Once you have added the required number of controller lanes and selected the event types you need, you can store this combination as a controller lane preset. You could for example have a preset with one velocity lane only, another with a combination of velocity, pitch bend and modulation, and so on. This can make working with controllers much quicker. To add the current controller lane setup as a preset, pull down the pop-up menu to the left of the horizontal scroll- bar and select “Add”. Enter a name for the preset in the dialog that appears and click OK. To apply a stored preset, select it from the pop-up menu. This immediately brings up the controller lanes and event types in the preset. To remove or rename presets, select “Organize” from the pop-up. Editing velocity values When “Velocity” is selected for viewing, the lane shows the velocity of each note as a vertical bar. Velocity values are edited with the Pencil or the Line tool. The different tools and Line tool modes offer several pos- sibilities, as listed below. ÖIf the option “Controller Lane Editing: Select Tool de- faults to Pen” is activated in the Preferences (Editing–MIDI page), the Arrow tool automatically switches to the Pencil tool when you move the pointer into the controller display. If you want to use the Arrow tool to select events in the controller display, press [Ctrl]/[Command]. ÖIf the Speaker icon (Acoustic Feedback) is activated on the toolbar, the notes will be played back when you ad- just the velocity, allowing you to audition your changes. You can use the Pencil tool to change the velocity of a single note: click on its velocity bar and drag the bar up or down. While you drag, the current velocity value is shown in the display to the left. You can use the Pencil tool or the Line tool in Paint mode to change the velocity values of several notes by painting a “freehand curve”. When editing velocity, these two methods have the same functionality. Use the Line tool in Line mode for creating linear veloc- ity ramps. Click where you want the ramp to start and drag the cursor to where you want the ramp to end. When you release the mouse button, the velocity values are aligned with the line between the two points.
179 The MIDI editors Parabola mode works in the same way, but aligns the velocity values to a Parabola curve instead. Use this for smooth, “natural” velocity fades, etc. The remaining three Line tool modes (Sine, Triangle and Square) align the velocity values to continuous curve shapes (see below). Note: If there is more than one note at the same position (e.g. a chord), their velocity bars will overlap in the controller lane. If none of the notes are selected, all notes at the same position will be set to the same velocity value when you draw. To edit the velocity of only one of the notes at the same position, first select the note in the note display. Now, editing will only affect the velocity of the selected note. You can also adjust the velocity of a single note by select- ing it and changing its velocity value on the info line. Adding and editing events in the controller display When any option other than “Velocity” is selected for a controller lane, you can create new events or edit the val- ues of existing events using the Pencil tool or the Line tool in its various modes: Clicking with the Pencil tool or the Line tool in Paint mode creates a new event. Note the “Select Tool defaults to Pen” option – see “Editing velocity va- lues” on page 178. Press [Alt]/[Option] and use the Pencil tool or the Line tool in Paint mode to modify the value of an event (without creating a new one). Note that you can click and drag to change or add multiple events, draw controller curves, etc. You can press or release [Alt]/[Option] while draw- ing, switching dynamically between “edit mode” and “create mode”. ÖWith the Pencil tool and the Line tool in Paint mode, the quantize value determines the “density” of created control- ler curves (if Snap is activated, see “Snap” on page 171). For very smooth curves, you should use a small quantize value or turn off Snap. However, this will create a very large number of MIDI events, which can cause MIDI playback to “stutter” in some situations. A medium-low density is often sufficient. Clicking and dragging with the Line tool in Line mode shows a line in the controller lane, and creates events with values aligned to this line. This is the best way to draw linear controller ramps. If you press [Alt]/ [Option], no new events are created – use this mode for modifying exist- ing controller curves. If you want to enter or adjust a single event, click once with the Pencil tool or the Line tool in Paint mode. If you want to “paint a curve”, drag the tool (with the mouse button pressed): When you move the pointer in the controller lane, the corresponding value is displayed in this field. Converting a controller curve to a ramp using the Line tool.
180 The MIDI editors The Parabola mode works in the same way, but aligns the values to a parabola curve instead, giving more “natu- ral” curves and fades. Note that the result depends on the direction from which you draw the parabola. In Parabola mode, you can use modifier keys to deter- mine the shape of the parabola curve. If you press [Ctrl]/[Command], the parabola curve will be reversed. If you press [Alt]/[Option]+[Ctrl]/[Command] while Snap is activated, you can change the position of the whole curve (in both cases the snap value for the positioning will be a quarter of the quantize value). If you press [Shift], the exponent will be increased or decreased. ÖIn Line and Parabola modes, the length quantize value determines the “density” of created controller curves (if Snap is activated). For very smooth curves, you should use a small length quantize value or turn off Snap. To avoid over-dense controller curves (which may cause MIDI playback to “stutter”), use a medium-low density. The Sine, Triangle and Square modes create events with values aligned to continuous curves. In these modes, the quantize value determines the period of the curve (the length of one curve “cycle”) and the length quantize value deter- mines the density of the events (the lower the length quantize note value, the smoother the curve). In Sine, Triangle and Square mode you can also use modifier keys to determine the shape of the curve. If you press [Ctrl]/[Command] you can change the phase of the beginning of the curve, if you press [Alt]/[Option]+[Ctrl]/[Command] while snap is activated you can change the position of the whole curve (in both cases the snap value for the positioning will be a quarter of the quantize value). ÖYou can also set the curve period freely by holding down [Shift] when you insert events in Sine, Triangle or Square mode. Activate Snap, [Shift]-click and drag to set the length of one period. The period length will be a multiple of the quantize value. In Triangle and Square mode, you can press [Shift]+[Ctrl]/[Command] to change the maximum position of the triangle curve (to create sawtooth curves) or the pulse of the square curve. As in other modes, you can press [Alt]/[Option] if you want to change the existing events rather than creating new ones. Again, the snap value for the positioning will be a quarter of the quantize value. Moving and copying events You can move or duplicate events in a controller lane, much like you can with notes: 1.Click with the Arrow tool to select the events you want to cut or copy. If the option “Controller Lane Editing: Select Tool defaults to Pen” is ac- tivated in the Preferences (Editing–MIDI page), you need to press [Ctrl]/ [Command] to get the Arrow tool. 2.Click and drag the events to move them. If Snap is activated, this determines to which positions you can move the events (see “Snap” on page 171). If you hold down [Alt]/[Option] and drag, the events will be copied rather than moved. !If there is an event of the same type at the exact same position already, this will be replaced by the moved event.