Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 Operation Manual Studio Manual

							291
The MediaBay
Folder operations
The Browser section shows the folder structure of your 
computer’s file system in a way very similar to the Win-
dows Explorer or the Mac OS Finder:
Click on the folder icons in the Browser display to se-
lect the corresponding folder.
Double-click on the folder icons in the Browser display 
to open the corresponding folder.
When a folder contains subfolders, this is indicated by a 
plus icon in front of the folder icon. The plus icon changes 
to a minus icon when the folder is open. To open or close 
a folder, you can also click the plus/minus icons.
You can switch the Browser display between the Full 
view and the Focus view.
Focussing a selected folder means showing only this folder and any sub-
folders it contains. Any folder levels above the focussed folder are not 
displayed. When you switch back to the Full view, the entire file system 
node can be accessed.
The Focus view for the Audio folder.
You can hide all folders not being scanned for files by 
clicking the “Show Mediabay Managed Items Only” button.
This will keep the list less cluttered.
Use the buttons “Previous Browse Location”, “Next 
Browse Location” and “Browse Containing Folder” to 
navigate to folders.
Click “Previous Browse Location” or “Next Browse Location” to select 
the previous or next folder in a sequence of previously selected folders. 
Clicking the “Browse Containing Folder” button will select the parent 
folder of the previously selected folder.
You can create a new folder inside the folder selected in 
the Browser section by clicking the “Create New Folder” 
button (the folder icon).
A dialog is opened in which you can enter a name for the new folder.
The SoundFrame node
The SoundFrame node in the Browser section.
The Browser section provides a shortcut to user content 
and factory content files, including the preset folders. You 
find this node at the top of the Browser folder hierarchy, at 
the same level as the File System node. 
The folders below the SoundFrame node represent the 
folders in which content files and newly created track pre-
sets, VST presets, etc. are stored by default.
To find out the “true” location of such a file, right-click on it in the Viewer 
section and select “Open in Explorer” (Win)/“Reveal in Finder” (Mac). 
This will open an Explorer/Finder window in which the corresponding file 
is highlighted.
Creating Favorites
If you constantly find yourself returning to specific folders 
during your work, you can save these browse locations as 
presets so that selecting such a preset will take you to the 
folder instantly. Proceed as follows:
1.Select the desired folder in the folder display.
2.Click the Add Browse Location Preset button (the “+” 
icon).
A naming dialog for the new preset is displayed.
3.Accept the default name (the complete folder path) or 
enter a new name for the preset.
The “Create new 
folder” buttonThe folder naviga-
tion buttons 
						

							292
The MediaBay
4.Click OK.
The new preset is added to the Select Browse Location Presets pop-up 
menu (which can be opened by clicking on the down arrow icon).
When you now open the Select Browse Location Presets 
pop-up menu and select the new preset, the respective 
preset folder will be selected in the Browser display.
To remove a preset from the Select Browse Location 
Presets pop-up, select it from the pop-up and click the 
“Remove Browse Location Preset” button (the “-” icon).
Finding files in the Viewer section
The Viewer section consists of two panes: the Filter section 
at the top and below it, the Viewer display. In the Filter sec-
tion, you can set up filters and define searches for specific 
files. The Viewer display lists any files contained in the folder 
selected in the Browser, and tags of these files. How to set 
up the tag display in the Viewer is described in the section 
“Managing the tag lists (Cubase only)” on page 297. 
ÖCubase only: Note that it is only possible to edit tags 
in the Viewer if “Allow Editing in Viewer” is activated in the 
Preferences dialog (MediaBay page). 
When this preference is deactivated, editing is only possible in the Tag 
Editor (see “Editing tags in the Tag Editor” on page 297).
The Viewer section
Depending on your settings, the number of files displayed 
in the Viewer can be huge (the info line at the bottom of 
the window shows the number of files found with the cur-
rent filter settings). Therefore, the MediaBay provides a 
number of ways to display only specific files and to per-
form very refined file searches.
ÖBy default, the number of files displayed in the Viewer 
section is limited to 10,000 files. You can change this by 
specifying a new value for “Maximum Number of Results in 
Viewer” in the Preferences dialog (MediaBay page).
Filtering the Viewer display
The MediaBay provides a number of filter buttons that can 
be used to limit the number of files displayed in the Viewer 
section.
At the top of the Viewer section you will find the filter 
buttons that can be used to show all supported file types 
or any combination of file types.
For example, when you activate the Audio and the MIDI filter buttons, 
only the audio and the MIDI files contained in the folder selected in the 
Browser will be displayed. When none (or all) of these buttons are acti-
vated, files of all supported types will be displayed.
The filter buttons. The display is filtered to show only audio files.
Defining searches for specific files
The filter buttons let you find files according to the folder(s) 
they might be located in, or according to their file type. 
However, you can also perform very detailed searches for 
files that meet certain criteria.
Cubase only: The Details search mode allows you to 
perform a search for a specific file tag value.
You define which tag to search for, e. g. “Name”, and specify the corre-
sponding value, e. g. “myfilename.wav”.
In Category search mode, the Filter section will display 
all values found for a specific tag (or “category”). Select-
ing one of these values will result in a list of files all show-
ing this particular tag value.
For example, you could look for sample rates and pick 44.1 kHz to give 
you a list of all files with that particular sample rate. But Category search 
mode becomes really interesting when making extensive use of tagging – 
see “Performing a Category search” on page 294 and “Tagging media 
files” on page 299. 
						

							293
The MediaBay
Once a search operation has been completed, the very 
first entry in the Viewer list is selected. When you now 
press [Tab] once, this selected entry will receive the focus 
and you can use the Up and Down arrow keys to browse 
the list of files.
Cubase only: Performing a Details search
The following section briefly describes how to perform a 
search for a particular file name in the file system.
Proceed as follows:
1.Select the root folder of your hard disk in the Browser 
section.
2.Select the Details search mode by clicking on the De-
tails tab at the top of the Filter section.
3.By default, the tag pop-up menu to the left is set to 
“Any Attribute”, and the condition pop-up menu in the 
middle is set to “contains”.
Leave these as they are.
4.Enter part of the name of the file that you wish to find 
in the text field to the right.
Note how the search is performed anew every time you enter a new let-
ter. Detail searches are not case sensitive.
A Details search for files whose names contain “piano”.
The Tag pop-up menu shows an alphabetical list of file 
tags you can choose from. At the top of the pop-up menu, 
the MediaBay maintains a smaller list of the last 5 tags se-
lected during previous searches.
Note that you can select more than one tag. This will create an OR con-
dition: the files found will match either one or the other tag. Click OK to 
set the tag(s) to search for. How to configure the tag list is described in 
the section “Managing the tag lists (Cubase only)” on page 297.
To reset all search fields to their default settings, click 
the Reset button in the top right corner of the Filter section.
This will also reset the tag list settings.
The Reset button in the Filter section
The condition pop-up menu contains the following op-
tions:
Note that for all conditions except “range”, you can en-
ter more than one string in the text field (separate different 
search strings with a space).
These strings form an AND condition, i. e. the files found will match all 
strings entered in the field.
To open a new filter line, move the mouse pointer to the 
right end of the text field and click the “+” button that ap-
pears.
This way, you can set up up to five additional filter lines in which you can 
define new search conditions. Note that two or more filter lines form an 
AND condition, i. e. the files searched for must match the conditions de-
fined in all filter lines. Click the “-” button for a filter line to remove it.
Enter the file name here.
Option Description
contains The searched tag value must contain the text or number speci-
fied in the text field to the right.
omits The searched tag value must not contain the text or number 
specified in the text field to the right.
equals The searched tag value must match the text or number speci-
fied in the text field to the right, including any file extension. Note 
however, that detail searches for text are not case sensitive.
>= The searched tag value must be higher than, or equal to, the 
number specified in the field to the right.

						

							294
The MediaBay
Performing a Category search
The MediaBay allows you not only to view and edit some 
of the standard file attributes found in all computer files, 
but it also provides preconfigured tags, or “categories”, 
that you can use to organize your media files. 
The advantages of such categorization become obvious 
when having to find one specific file, e. g. a certain guitar 
sound, among large numbers of media files from various 
contexts, without knowing the name of that file.
When you select the Category search mode, the Filter 
section will show the tag columns, each with its own list of 
tag values. 
The default setup of Category search mode
By clicking on individual tag values in the tag columns, you 
define the search filter: only the files that match the se-
lected tag values will be displayed in the Viewer. Select 
more tag values from other columns to further refine your 
search.Selected tag values in the same tag column form an OR 
condition.
This means that files must be tagged according to either one or the other 
value to be displayed in the Viewer section.
For the “Style” tag, the files found will show either the “Blues” OR the 
“Jazz” tag value.
Tag values in different columns form an AND condition.
This means that files must be tagged according to all these values to be 
displayed in the Viewer section.
The files found will belong to the “E. Guitar” sub category tag AND 
show “Blues” for the Style tag.
Categorization by tagging makes it easy to organize your 
media files. How to assign tag values to your files is de-
scribed in the section “The Tag Editor (Cubase only)” on 
page 296 and in the section “Tagging media files” on 
page 299. 
ÖCubase only: Note that you can use existing tags or 
use the user tag feature (see “Defining user tags (Cubase 
only)” on page 298) to create your own categories.
Category searches are used not only in the MediaBay, but 
throughout Cubase in various SoundFrame-related con-
texts (see the chapter “SoundFrame” on page 284).
!When you are using Cubase Studio, note that Cate-
gory search is the only search mode available.
!By default, the first two tag columns are set to “Cate-
gory” and “Sub Category”. These tags are directly 
linked to each other: for each Category value, there is 
a number of Sub Category values. Changing to a dif-
ferent Category value in the first tag column will give 
you different values in the Sub Category column!
These tag values were found in the currently selected folder.
The files displayed in the Viewer match the selected tag values.
!Each tag column displays only the tag values found 
in the folder selected in the Browser section of the 
MediaBay! This means that selecting a different 
folder in the Browser may lead to the display of dif-
ferent Category search settings. 
						

							295
The MediaBay
Further options for Category searches
The text field at the top serves as an additional name fil-
ter: you can enter a file name or part of a file name here.
This corresponds to a “Name: contains” Details search, which means 
that the name of the searched file must contain the text you enter here. 
See also “Cubase only: Performing a Details search” on page 293.
In addition to the filter defined by the tag columns, the name of the 
searched file must contain “120”.
You can change which tag is displayed at the top of 
each tag column by clicking on the tag and selecting a dif-
ferent tag from the Filter tag list pop-up menu.
How to configure the Filter tag list is described in the section “Managing 
the tag lists (Cubase only)” on page 297.
To select a tag value, simply click on it. To deselect it, 
click the value again.
Note that you can select more than one value in each tag column.
Click the Reset button on the top right of the Filter sec-
tion to clear all settings in the tag columns.
This will also reset the tag list settings.
Previewing files in the Scope section
Below the Viewer you will find the Scope section. It allows 
you to play back files selected in the Viewer section.
The elements visible in this section and their functions 
depend on the type of media file selected in the Viewer.
Previewing audio files
The Scope section for an audio file.
To preview an audio file, simply click the Start button.
When Auto Play is activated, selecting a file in the 
Viewer will automatically start playback.
When “Play in Project context” is activated, the file will 
be played back together with the current project, starting 
at the current project cursor position.
Previewing MIDI files
The Scope section for a MIDI file.
To preview a MIDI file (.mid), you first have to select an 
output device in the Output pop-up.
The “Auto Play” and “Play in Project context” options work in the same 
way as with audio files.
Auto Play and “Play in Project context” work as for audio 
files, see above.
!The Scope section does not play back video files or 
project files. Also, it is not possible to preview audio 
track presets in the MediaBay (see below).
Auto PlayPlay in Project 
context Preview level Transport controls
OutputAuto  Play Play in Project 
context Transport controls 
						

							296
The MediaBay
Previewing MIDI loops
To preview a MIDI loop file, click the Start button.
Auto Play works as for audio files, see above.
MIDI Loops are always played in the project context.
Previewing track and instrument presets
The Scope section for a MIDI track preset.
Track presets for MIDI or Instrument tracks and VST plug-
in presets require MIDI notes for previewing. There are 
two ways these notes can be sent to the track template:
Click the “MIDI Input” button and play MIDI notes on a 
MIDI keyboard connected to your system.
Clicking “Choose MIDI File” will open a file dialog where 
you can navigate to a MIDI file. When you now click “Play”, 
the notes received from the MIDI file will be played with 
the settings of the track preset applied.
You can also set the preview level.
Track presets for audio tracks cannot be previewed in the 
MediaBay. You can do this in the Apply Track Template 
dialog (for further information, see “Previewing track or 
VST presets before applying” on page 309).
The Tag Editor (Cubase only)
When a file is selected in the Viewer section, the Tag Editor 
shows a two-column list of tags and tag values for this file.
Tags for media files (also called “attributes”) are sets of 
metadata providing additional information on the file. The 
different types of media files have different tags: for exam-
ple, for .wav audio files you will find standard tags like 
name, length, size, sample rate, etc., while for .mp3 files, 
additional tags such as “Artist” or “Genre” are available.
The Media Management System provides further tags, 
such as “Category” or “Character”.
You have access not only to the standard tags and the 
preconfigured tags provided by Cubase, but you can also 
define your own tags and add these to your files (Cubase 
only). 
The following sections describe how to set up the various 
tag lists, how to edit tags in the Tag Editor, and how to de-
fine user tags.
 MIDI In activity
!When you are using Cubase Studio, tags can be ed-
ited only in the Viewer. 
						

							297
The MediaBay
Managing the tag lists (Cubase only)
Lists of tags and tag values are used in various places in 
the MediaBay window. You can configure these lists and 
define certain tag properties in the Manage Tags dialog.
Proceed as follows:
1.Open the Manage Tags dialog by clicking on the Man-
age Tags button in the lower right corner of the MediaBay 
window.
2.Click one of the filter buttons at the top of the Manage 
Tags dialog to select the file type for which you want to 
configure the tag lists.
The Manage Tags dialog shows a list of all tags available for the media 
files supported by the MediaBay, and three columns of checkboxes, one 
for the Filter section, one for the Viewer and one for the Tag Editor.
3.To display a certain tag in the Filter tag lists, the Viewer 
or the Tag Editor, activate the corresponding checkbox for 
this tag:
4.Close the Manage Tags dialog by clicking its close box.
Your settings will be applied.
The Type column shows whether the value for a tag is a 
number, text or a Yes/No-type switch. The Precision col-
umn shows the number of decimals displayed after a point 
for number tags.
Click and drag in the tag display to select several tags 
(click somewhere outside the selected area to deselect).
This way, you can activate/deactivate all selected check boxes in one go.
To return to the default tag display settings for the Filter, 
Viewer and Tag Editor sections, click the “Reset to Default” 
button (above the tag display) in the Manage Tags dialog.
Displaying tags in the Tag Editor
You can switch the tag display in the Tag Editor:
Click on “Managed” to show only the tags activated for 
display in the Manage Tags dialog.
Use this view to limit the tag display to only those tags that are of interest 
to you.
Click on “All” to show all tags for the file selected in the 
Viewer for which values are available.
Use this display if you wish to see all tags, including standard file at-
tributes such as Name, Size or Date Modified.
Displaying tags in the Viewer
Most of the time, tags displayed in the MediaBay are 
sorted alphabetically. Only in the Viewer can you change 
the tag display order:
Move the mouse pointer to a column heading, click and 
drag that heading to a different position in the display.
Editing tags in the Tag Editor
You can use the Tag Editor to edit tag values of the vari-
ous media files. 
ÖNote that changing a tag value in the Tag Editor may 
permanently change the corresponding file.
When it comes to editing, you will notice that there are dif-
ferent types of tags:
“Display only” tags cannot be edited. Their values are 
displayed in a slightly lighter color.
In this case, the file format probably doesn’t permit changing this value, 
or changing a particular value makes no sense (e. g. you cannot change 
the file size in the MediaBay, because you have no way of adding or re-
moving media information).
Most tag values can be edited by double-clicking in the 
Value column of the Tag Editor.
Tag values can be text, numbers or yes/no switches. Simply enter/change 
the text, number or Yes/No setting in the field displayed for a value.
Renaming a file in the Tag Editor
The “Category” tag 
is selected for dis-
play in the Filter tag 
lists, the Viewer and 
in the Tag Editor.
!When you are using Cubase Studio, tags can be ed-
ited only in the Viewer. 
						

							298
The MediaBay
When clicking in the Value column for “Category”, “Sub 
Category” or “Style”, a pop-up menu opens from which 
you can choose a value.
The tags “Category” and “Sub Category” are directly linked to each 
other. The “Category” pop-up allows you to set a category, the “Sub 
Category” pop-up allows you to set a category and a corresponding sub 
category. If you pick a sub category from a category that is different from 
the category set for the “Category” tag, this tag will be changed as well.
Clicking in the Value column for the “Character” tag will 
open the Edit Character dialog.
Click a radio button on the left or the right side and then click OK to de-
fine values for the Character tag.
Clicking in the Value column for the Rating tag allows 
you to rate the file on a scale from 1 – 5.
For example, use this to indicate the file’s sound quality or its suitability 
for a certain purpose.
Defining user tags (Cubase only)
You can define your own tags and save these in the Media-
Bay. You can use such user tags for example to define your 
own filter categories, further refining the categorization of 
your media files.
To define a user tag, proceed as follows:
1.Open the Manage Tags dialog by clicking the Manage 
Tags button in the lower right corner of the MediaBay win-
dow.
2.Click on the Add Tag button.
The Add User Tag dialog opens.
3.Enter a name for the new tag and define its type.
Tags can be of type “Text”, “Number” or “Yes/No” switch.
For tags of type “Number”, you can also specify how 
many decimals should be displayed after a decimal point.
Enter the corresponding value in the Precision field.
4.Click OK.
The new tag is added to the list of available tags and can be displayed in 
the Tag Editor and the Viewer.
To remove a user tag, select it in the Tags list and click 
the Remove Tag button.
The tag will be removed from all tag lists in which it was previously dis-
played.
Media management
General handling
You can use the [Tab] key on your computer keyboard 
to move the focus between the different sections of the 
MediaBay window. Use the arrow keys to navigate to dif-
ferent folders, files or tags.
When assigning tag values, note that you can select 
several files and assign the same tag value to all files.
File management
You can use the MediaBay for various file management 
tasks, similar to what you can do in the Windows Explorer/
Mac OS Finder.
When the option “Show file extensions” is activated in 
the Preferences dialog (MediaBay page), file name exten-
sions (e. g. “.wav” or “.cpr”) will be displayed in the Media-
Bay. When this is deactivated, file extensions will not be 
shown.
Browser operations
The following tasks can be performed in the Browser sec-
tion:
To delete a folder, right-click on the folder icon and se-
lect “Delete from Disk” from the context menu.
A warning message is displayed, asking you to confirm that you really 
want to move this folder to the operating system’s trash folder.
To rename a folder, select it in the list, click on its name 
and enter a new name.
You can drag & drop a folder to a different location.
You will be asked if you wish to copy or move the folder to the new 
location.
Viewer operations
You can move/copy a file from the Viewer section to a 
different location by clicking and dragging it to a different 
folder in the Browser section.
You will be asked if you wish to copy or move the file to the new location.
To insert a file into the project, right-click the file and se-
lect one of the “Insert into project” options from the con-
text menu.
This will import this file into your current project, either at the start of the 
project or at the current cursor position. 
						

							299
The MediaBay
To delete a file, right-click on it in the Viewer and select 
“Delete” from the context menu.
A warning message is displayed, asking you to confirm that you really 
want to move this file to the operating system’s trash folder.
Cubase only: When the option “Allow Editing in Viewer” 
is activated in the Preferences dialog–MediaBay page, 
you can also edit tags in the Viewer.
Otherwise this is possible only in the Tag Editor.
Tagging media files
The search functions, especially the Category search 
mode, become a truly powerful media management tool 
when making extensive use of tagging.
Media files are usually organized in complex folder struc-
tures to provide a logical way of guiding the user to the 
desired files, with the folder and/or file names indicating 
the instrument, style, tempo etc.
To find a particular sound or loop in such a folder structure 
can be very time consuming – tagging is the answer! To 
assign a number of meaningful tags, e. g. to a library of 
loop files, proceed as follows:
1.Copy the loop files to your hard disk.
Tagging means editing the files, so you need them on your system.
2.Open the MediaBay and browse to where the new 
loops are located.
3.Navigate to a folder containing loops.
For example, you might have a folder containing Metal style drum loops, 
at 120 bpm.
4.In the Viewer, select all files contained in this folder.
Make sure that the Deep Results button is deactivated, so that only files 
contained in this folder are displayed.
5.Assign tags that reflect the information indicated by 
the folder structure.
In the above example, you would put “Metal” as a value for the Style tag, 
and “Drums” for the Instrument tag. The Tag Editor also allows you to 
display a “Tempo” tag, for which you could specify a value of “120”.
You can now use the Category search mode to find quickly 
all Metal style drum loops at 120 bpm, without the need to 
navigate through a large number of folders and subfolders. 
						

							23
Track Presets