Steinberg Cubase LE 4 Menu Reference Manual

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Menu Reference
MIDI menu
Open Key Editor
This opens the Key Editor for the selected MIDI part(s) or 
track(s). This editor consists of a piano-roll type graphic 
interface, with the notes shown as boxes in a grid.
Scores
This opens a submenu, allowing you to open the Score 
editor and containing several Score Editor functions. The 
Score Editor shows MIDI notes as a musical score.
Open Drum Editor
This opens the Drum Editor which is designed especially 
for editing drum and percussion tracks.
Open List Editor
This opens the List Editor. In this editor, MIDI notes, con-
trollers and other events are shown in a list.
Over Quantize
Quantizing is a function that automatically moves re-
corded notes, positioning them on exact note values. This 
quantizes the selected MIDI parts or notes, according to 
the current Quantize pop-up menu setting.
Iterative Quantize
Instead of moving a note to the closest quantize grid posi-
tion, Iterative Quantize moves it only part of the way. You 
specify how much the notes should be moved towards the 
grid with the Iterative Strength setting in the Quantize 
Setup dialog.
Quantize Setup
In the Quantize Setup dialog you can make various quan-
tize settings.
Advanced Quantize
Quantize Lengths
This will quantize the length of the notes without changing 
their start positions. At its most basic level, this function 
will set the length of the notes to the Length Quantize 
value on the toolbar of the MIDI editors.
Quantize Ends
The Quantize Ends function on the Quantize submenu will 
only affect the end positions of notes. Apart from that, it 
works just like regular quantizing, taking the Quantize pop-
up menu setting into account.
Undo Quantize
You can revert the selected MIDI notes to their original, 
unquantized state at any time. This is independent from 
the regular Undo History.
Freeze Quantize
There may be situations when you want to make the quan-
tized positions “permanent”. For example, you may want to 
quantize notes a second time, having the results based on 
the current quantized positions rather than the original po-
sitions. To make this possible, select the notes in question 
and use this function.
Transpose…
This opens the Transpose dialog, where you can make 
transpose settings for selected notes.
Freeze MIDI Modifiers
This function applies all filter settings to the respective 
track and takes the result as the new standard. 
Dissolve Part 
This item has two uses:
To separate events according to MIDI channel when a 
MIDI Part contains events on different channels (MIDI 
channel “Any”).
To separate MIDI events according to pitch.
Drum tracks typically have separate drum sounds for each pitch. 
						

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Menu Reference
Functions
Legato
Extends each selected note so that it reaches the next note. 
You can specify the desired gap or overlap with the “Legato 
Overlap” setting in the Preferences (Editing page).
Fixed Lengths
Resizes all selected notes to the length set with the 
Length Quantize pop-up menu on the MIDI Editor toolbar.
Delete Doubles
Removes double notes, i.e. notes of the same pitch on the 
exact same position. Double notes can occur when re-
cording in Cycle mode, after Quantizing, etc. This function 
always affects whole MIDI parts.
Delete Controllers
Removes all MIDI controller events from the selected MIDI 
parts. This function always affects whole MIDI parts.
Delete Continuous Controllers
Removes all continuous MIDI controller events from the 
selected MIDI parts. On/Off events, such as sustain pedal 
events, are not removed. This function always affects 
whole MIDI parts.
Delete Notes…
Allows you to delete very short or weak notes. This is use-
ful for automatically removing unwanted “ghost notes” af-
ter recording. Selecting “Delete Notes…” opens a dialog 
in which you set up the criteria for the function.
Restrict Polyphony
Selecting this item opens a dialog in which you can spec-
ify how many “voices” should be used (for the selected 
notes or parts). Restricting the polyphony this way is use-
ful when you have an instrument with limited polyphony 
and want to make sure all notes will be played. The effect 
is achieved by shortening notes as required, so that they 
end before the next note starts.
Pedals to Note Length
This function scans for sustain pedal on/off events, 
lengthens the affected notes to match the sustain pedal 
off position, and then removes the Sustain Controller on/
off events.
Delete Overlaps (mono)
This function allows you to make sure that no two notes of 
the same pitch overlap (i.e. that one starts before the other 
ends). Overlapping notes of the same pitch can confuse 
some MIDI instruments (a new Note On is transmitted be-
fore the Note Off is transmitted). This command can then 
be used to automatically rectify the problem.
Delete Overlaps (poly)
This function shortens notes when required, so that no 
note begins before another ends. This happens regard-
less of which pitch the notes have.
Velocity…
Opens a dialog that allows you to manipulate the velocity 
of notes in various ways.
Fixed Velocity
This function sets the velocity of all selected notes to the 
Insert Velocity value on the toolbar in the MIDI Editors.
Thin Out Data
This thins out your MIDI data. Use this to ease the load on 
MIDI devices if you have recorded very dense controller 
curves etc.
Extract MIDI Automation
This option allows you to automatically convert continuous 
controller data of a MIDI part into MIDI track automation 
data.
Reverse
This inverts the order of the selected events (or of all 
events in the selected parts), causing the MIDI music to 
play backwards. Note though, that the effect is different 
from reversing an audio recording. With MIDI, the individ-
ual notes will still play as usual in the MIDI instrument – it’s 
only the order of playback that is changed. 
						

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Menu Reference
Logical Presets
This submenu contains various presets that let you perform 
advanced “search and replace” operations on MIDI data.
Drum Map Setup…
This is where you load, create, modify and save drum 
maps. The list to the left shows the currently loaded drum 
maps; selecting a drum map in the list displays its sounds 
and settings to the right.
Insert Velocities…
All MIDI editors feature an Insert Velocity pop-up, where 
one of five different velocity values can be selected when 
inserting notes. This menu item allows you to specify 
which five velocity values should be available on the Insert 
Velocity pop-up menu.
Reset
This function sends out note-off messages and resets 
controllers on all MIDI channels. You can use this if you 
experience hanging notes or stuck controllers etc.
Media menu
Open Pool Window
Opens the Pool.
Import Medium…
The Import Medium dialog is used for importing files di-
rectly into the Pool.
Find Missing Files…
This opens the Resolve Missing Files dialog that can be 
used to find referenced files that may have been moved or 
renamed etc. 
In the dialog that appears, decide if you want the program 
to try to find the file for you (Search), if you want to do it 
yourself (Locate) or if you want to specify in which direc-
tory the program should search for the file (Folder).
Remove Missing Files
If the Pool contains audio files that cannot be found or re-
constructed, you may want to remove these:
Select this item to remove all missing files from the Pool 
(and remove their corresponding events from the Project 
window).
Reconstruct
If a missing file cannot be found (e.g. if you have acciden-
tally deleted it from the hard disk), it will normally be indi-
cated with a question mark in the Status column in the 
Pool. However, if the missing file is an edit file (a file cre-
ated when you process audio, stored in the Edits folder 
within the project folder), it may be possible for the pro-
gram to reconstruct it by recreating the editing to the orig-
inal audio file.
Convert Files…
This opens the Convert Options dialog which operates on 
selected files. Use the pop-up menus to specify which au-
dio file attributes you want to keep and which you want to 
convert. 
						

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Menu Reference
Conform Files…
This will change all selected files that have different file at-
tributes to what is specified for the project, to conform to 
this standard.
Generate Thumbnail Cache
This generates a thumbnail cache of the video, used for 
display in case of strained computing resources.
Create Folder
This allows you to create a new audio or video subfolder.
Empty Trash
To delete a file permanently from the hard disk, it must first 
be moved to the Trash folder. When clips are in the Trash 
folder they can be removed permanently by using this 
command.
Remove Unused Media
This function finds all clips in the Pool that are not used in 
the project, and either moves them to the Pool Trash 
folder where they can be permanently deleted, or removes 
them from the Pool.
Prepare Archive…
This command should be used when you want to archive a 
project. It checks that every clip referenced in the project 
is located in the same folder.
Set Pool Record Folder
This is used to designate a new Pool Record folder. Se-
lect the folder, and choose this command to change the 
Pool Record folder to the selected folder.
Minimize File
This allows you to change the size of audio files according 
to the audio clips referenced in a project. The files pro-
duced using this option will only contain the audio file por-
tions actually used in the project, which can significantly 
reduce the size of the project (given that large portions of 
the audio files are unused).
New Version
This allows you to create a new version of a selected clip. 
The new version appears in the same Pool folder, with the 
same name but with a “version number” after it, to indicate 
that the new clip is a duplicate. The first copy made of a 
clip will logically get the version number “2” and so on.
ÖCopying a clip does not create a new file on disk, but 
just a new edit version of the clip (referring to the same 
original file).
Insert into Project
This allows you to insert clips selected in the Pool into the 
project, at the current cursor position or at the clip’s Ori-
gin position.
Select in Project
If you want to find out which events in the project refer to a 
particular clip in the Pool you can use this function. Select 
the clip in the Pool, and use this menu item. The corre-
sponding event(s) will then be selected in the Project win-
dow.
Search Media…
You can perform a search of the Pool to locate particular 
clips or regions. You can specify various criteria to match 
in the dialog that appears.
Transport menu
Transport Panel
This opens the Transport panel.
Locators to Selection
This will set the locators to encompass the current selec-
tion or selection range.
Locate Selection
This moves the project cursor to the start of the current 
selection or selection range.
Locate Selection End
This moves the project cursor to the end of the current se-
lection or selection range. 
						

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Menu Reference
Locate Next Marker
This moves the project cursor to the next marker position.
Locate Previous Marker
This moves the project cursor to the previous marker posi-
tion.
Locate Next Event
This moves the project cursor to the next event start or 
end on the selected track.
Locate Previous Event
This moves the project cursor to the previous event start 
or end on the selected track.
Play from Selection Start/End
This activates playback from the beginning or end of the 
current selection.
Play until Selection Start/End
This activates playback two seconds before the start or 
end of the current selection and stops at the selection 
start or end, respectively.
Play until Next Marker
This will activate playback from the current project cursor 
position to the next marker and stop.
Play Selection Range
This will play back the current selection range and stop at 
the end.
Loop Selection
This will loop playback of the current selection range.
Use PreRoll
When this is activated and you start playback or record-
ing, Cubase LE will “roll back” a bit before starting.
Use PostRoll
When this is activated, Cubase LE will play back a short 
section after automatic punch-out.
Start Record at Left Locator
If this is activated, the project cursor will jump to the left 
locator position and begin recording when you hit the 
Record button. If this is deactivated, recording will start di-
rectly from the current project cursor position.
Metronome Setup
This opens the Metronome Setup dialog where you can 
make various metronome settings.
Metronome On
This activates the metronome.
Precount On
Activates precount – a count-in that will be heard when 
you start recording from stop mode and the metronome is 
activated. This can also be activated on the Transport 
panel. You can specify the number of precount bars in the 
Metronome Setup dialog.
Sync Setup
This opens a dialog where settings relating to synchroni-
zation can be made.
Sync Online
This activates synchronization.
Retrospective Record
This performs retrospective MIDI recording. If the Retro-
spective Record function is enabled in the Preferences 
(Record page), and a MIDI track is record enabled, any 
MIDI notes you play in stop mode or during playback are 
captured in buffer memory. If you then select Retrospec-
tive Record, the MIDI notes you played – i.e. the contents 
of the buffer memory – is turned into a MIDI part on the 
record enabled MIDI track. The MIDI part will appear 
where the cursor was when you started playing. 
						

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Menu Reference
Devices menu
MIDI Device Manager
The MIDI Device manager allows you to install MIDI de-
vices. You can either select pre-configured MIDI devices 
from a list, or define a device from scratch.
Mixer
This opens the Mixer. All audio, MIDI, FX channel and 
Group tracks in a project have a corresponding channel 
strip in the Mixer, as do Output busses and any activated 
VST Instruments.
Plug-in Information
The Plug-in Information window lists all installed VST, 
Audio Codec and Program plug-ins, and shows various 
information about them.
VST Connections
This opens the VST Connections window. This where you 
set up Input- and Output busses to route the audio be-
tween your audio hardware and Cubase LE.
VST Performance
This window indicates the current CPU load and disk 
transfer rate.
Video
This opens the default video player. The default video 
player is selected in the Device Setup dialog.
Show Panel
This opens a panel where you can directly select any of 
the current devices on the Device menu.
Device Setup…
This dialog allows you to add or remove remote control 
devices and to make various basic settings for audio and 
MIDI such as selecting ASIO drivers and MIDI ports etc.
Window menu
Close
This closes the currently active window. If the active win-
dow is a Project window, the project will be closed.
Close All
This closes all windows including all open projects.
Minimize All
Minimizes all windows.
Restore All
Restores all minimized Cubase LE windows.
Tile Horizontally/Vertically (Windows only)
Arranges the open windows next to each other on screen.
Cascade (Windows only)
Arranges the open windows in a partially overlapping pat-
tern.
Windows…
This opens a dialog where you can manage and make set-
tings for all open windows.
The open windows list
Selecting a window from the list at the bottom of the menu 
brings it to front. 
						

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Menu Reference
Help menu
Documentation (Acrobat PDF format)
ÖTo be able to read these documents, you need to have 
the Acrobat Reader installed (included with Cubase LE).
Getting Started
Opens a separate pdf document that provides installation 
information, useful tipps on how to set up your computer 
for audio work, and a number of tutorials as a quick intro-
duction to Cubase LE.
Operation Manual
Opens the Operation Manual in Acrobat pdf format.
Remote Control Devices
Opens the separate pdf document describing the MIDI re-
mote control devices supported by Cubase LE.
Plug-in Reference
Opens the separate pdf document containing descrip-
tions of the included plug-in audio effects, VST instru-
ments, MIDI effects and their parameters.
Menu Reference
Opens the Menu Reference in Acrobat pdf format. It in-
cludes descriptions of all menu items in the program.
Registration
When you click this item, the Steinberg web page is 
opened, where you can register your product. An active 
internet connection is required.
About Cubase LE
ÖUnder Mac OS X, this menu item is accessed from the 
Cubase LE menu.
This opens a window with information about the Cubase 
LE version number etc.