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Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 Operation Manual Studio Manual
Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 Operation Manual Studio Manual
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566 Working with symbols The “Line/Trill” palette. Note that the arpeggios, hand indication and strum symbols are all “note-dependent”! The “Other” palette. The “Layout” palette. All these symbols are drawn in their own “layer”.The “Project” palette. These symbols will be present in all layouts. The “Words” palette. This is described in the section “The Words tab” on page 596. The “User Symbols” palette. This is described in the section “User Symbols” on page 583. Further details about many of the symbols can be found in the section “Symbol details” on page 579. Setting up the Favourites tab In the symbol Inspector, you will find a tab called Favou- rites. Cubase allows you to fill this tab with a selection of symbols from other tabs. This way, you have instant ac- cess to the symbols you use often: 1.Open the Favourites tab. If it’s the first time you are using this tab, it will be empty. 2.Open the tab from which you want to copy a symbol. ÖNot all symbols can be placed on the Favourites tab. 3.Right-click on the symbol you want to add to the Favourites tab and select “Add to Favourites” on the con- text menu that appears. You can also add a symbol to the Favourites tab by [Alt]/[Option]-click- ing on it. 4.Repeat this procedures for other symbols you want to add to the Favourites tab. Arpeggio Arpeggio Hand indication Arpeggio Strum Hand indication Segno (sizable) Strum Turn Trill Trill Trill Octave OctaveTrill Trill Main voice Acc. voice Ending Ending Line Line Beam BeamBeam Beam Bracket beam Bracket beam Tuplet bracket Tuplet bracket Lyrics Regular text Guitar chord symbol Block Text (import) Pedal down Chord Repeat Pedal up Segno Repeat Segno (sizable) Coda Keyboard symbol Box symbol Select Symbol, see “The “Other” tab” on page 581. Text (layout layer) BlockText (layout layer) Rehearsal mark Page Text Tempo as number Rehearsal mark D.C. al Fine (text) Tempo as note value Da Capo al Coda (text) Dal Segno al Fine (text) Fine (text) Dal Segno al Coda (text) Coda Segno Ending Ending Keyboard symbol Box symbol
567 Working with symbols To remove a symbol from the Favourites tab, select “Re- move from Favourites” from the context menu or hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click on it. Important! – Symbols, staves and voices Most symbols belong to a staff when inserted. Only note symbols, slurs and ties are an exception. They belong to notes and therefore to voices. It is extremely important that the correct staff is active when you insert a symbol (if you are editing multiple staves, of course). If you for example insert a symbol with the wrong staff ac- tive, the symbol might later “disappear”, simply because you edit another configuration of tracks (the track you actually inserted the symbol on might not be opened for editing). The same is true for note symbols and their relation to voices. Make sure the correct voice is active when insert- ing symbols or they might wind up at the wrong position, fermatas may be turned upside down etc. Layout symbols work slightly differently. Instead of belong- ing to a certain staff or voice, they belong to a layout. Since different track combinations use different layouts, this means that if you insert a layout symbol in the score when you are editing two tracks (for example a trumpet and a saxophone part), it will not be there when you view each track by itself in the Score Editor. If you want the same symbols to appear in other layouts as well, you can copy the form of one layout to another. If you want a sym- bol to appear in all layouts, use the Project tab. Adding symbols to the score Making space and handling margins If you find there isn’t enough space between staves to add sym- bols (like for example text), see “Dragging staves” on page 615 for info on how to separate the staves. If you find the score looks crammed after adding symbols, check out the section “Auto Layout” on page 617. About the Pencil tool Unlike in the other MIDI editors, there is no Pencil tool among the tools on the Score Editor toolbar. Instead, the Pencil tool is “automatically” selected when you insert symbols. The following applies: Normally, the Pencil tool is automatically selected when you click on a symbol in the Inspector. However, if the option “Double-click Symbol to get Pencil tool” is activated in the Preferences–Scores, you need to double-click the symbol to get the Pencil tool. On the same page of the Preferences dialog, you will find an option called “Display Arrow tool after Inserting Symbol”. When this is activated, the Object Selection (“Arrow”) tool is automatically selected after you have in- serted a symbol. If you want to insert a lot of symbols with the Pencil tool, you may want to deactivate this option. Adding note symbols Adding a symbol to one note 1.Open the Note Symbols tab in the Inspector. 2.Click (or double-click) on the desired symbol in the tab. As mentioned above, the “Double-click Symbol to get Pencil tool” prefer- ence determines whether you need to double-click. In either case, the Pencil tool is selected. !Symbols you add outside the margins will not be printed!
568 Working with symbols 3.Either click on the note or above or below it. If you click on the note, the symbol is put in at a predefined distance from the note. If you instead click “above or below” the note, you decide for a vertical position yourself. In either case, the symbol is aligned horizontally with the note. It can later be moved up/down. Clicking on a note inserts the note symbol (in this case a tenuto) at a predefined distance from the note head. There are three options in the Accents category of the Score Settings dialog (Project page–Notation Style sub- page) that affect the vertical positioning of note symbols: Accents above Stems. When this is activated, accent note symbols are displayed at the stem side of notes instead of the note head. Accents above Staves. When this is activated, accent note symbols are displayed above the staff, regardless of the stem direction of the notes. This setting overrides the “Accents above Stems” option. Center Note-Linked Symbols on Stems. When this is activated (default setting), accents are centered on stems an not on note heads. Adding a symbol to several notes using the Pencil tool You might for example want to add a staccato symbol to all notes within a few measures. Proceed as follows: 1.Open the Note Symbols tab in the Inspector. 2.Select the notes to which you want to apply the symbol. 3.Click (or double-click) on the desired symbol in the Inspector. 4.Click on one of the notes. The symbol is added to each selected note, at a predefined distance. The symbols can be moved later. Adding a symbol without tying it to a note Note-dependent symbols can be entered freely, too. This allows you to add a fermata to a rest symbol for example. 1.Make sure the correct staff is active. 2.Click (or double-click) the symbol so that the Pencil tool is selected, as described above. 3.Hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and click where you want to add the symbol. Adding other symbols 1.Open the desired symbol tab in the Inspector. 2.Click (or double-click) on the symbol you want to add. As mentioned above, the “Double-click Symbol to get Pencil tool” prefer- ence determines whether you need to double-click. In either case, the Pencil tool is selected. 3.Click once or click and drag somewhere in the score. The symbol appears. For many symbols with a length, you can drag to set the length of the symbol directly. The symbol appears with its handles selected (if it uses handles) so that you can change its size directly if you wish. This is all described in detail in the section “Changing length, size and shape” on page 577. Press the mouse button – drag – and release! You can change the size of most of the note symbols and dynamics in a score by right-click on the correspond- ing object and selecting the desired option from the Size submenu on the context menu. About note-dependent symbols Note-dependent symbols like arpeggios and strum direc- tions must be put in front of a note or they will belong to the following note instead (if there is no following note, the symbols will not be inserted at all). Adding text There are special methods for working with text, described in their own chapter, “Working with text” on page 589.
569 Working with symbols Adding slurs and ties Slurs can be drawn in manually or inserted automatically for a group of notes. Ties are usually added by the pro- gram but can also be drawn in as “graphic” symbols. ÖThere are two types of slurs – “regular” slurs and Bez- ier slurs (with which you have full control over thickness, curve shape, etc.). Slurs, ties and the display quantize value Since a slur or tie “musically” always spans from one note (or chord) to another, the beginning and end of a slur/tie in Cubase is always related to two notes in the score. When you draw in a tie or slur, the program uses the quantize value to find the closest two notes to “attach” the symbol to. In other words, if you want to add the slur/tie to a note at a sixteenth note position, make sure Quantize is set to 1/16th notes or smaller (this is only true for manual drawing in of slurs and ties). Please note that this does not necessarily mean that the symbol has to start or end exactly above/below two notes. Instead, what it means is that when you use the Layout tool to move the note graphically to adjust the look of the bar, the slur/tie moves with it (see “Graphic moving of no- tes” on page 557). The same is true if you adjust the width of the measure – the slur/tie is adjusted accordingly. ÖIf you want the end points of the slurs to snap to exact note positions, activate the option “Snap Slurs when dragging” on the context menu. This option is also avail- able in the Preferences dialog (Scores-Editing page). Drawing the slur/tie 1.Set the Quantize value depending on the positions of the two notes that the slur/tie should span. For example, if one of them is at a quarter note position and the other at an eighth note position, set Quantize to 1/8 note or a smaller note value. 2.Click (or double-click) on the correct slur/tie in the symbol Inspector, so that the Pencil tool is selected. 3.Position the mouse close to the first note and drag to a position close to the second note. The end points of the slur/tie will snap to their default positions – holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] allows you to move the end points freely. There are two special functions for inserting a slur or tie that automatically spans from one note to another. Adding a slur/tie between two notes 1.Select two notes. 2.Click (or double-click) the correct slur/tie symbol in the Inspector, so that the Pencil tool is selected. 3.Hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and [Shift] and click on one of the two notes. The slur/tie is added between the two selected notes. Inserting a slur over a selection of notes 1.Select a span of notes. 2.Pull down the Scores menu and select “Insert Slur”. A slur is created, starting at the first selected note and ending at the last. The Bezier slur The Bezier slur is a special slur symbol, found in the Dy- namics symbol tab. Unlike the regular slur, this symbol is made up of a bezier curve, allowing you to create more ad- vanced curve shapes. To add a Bezier slur, click (or double-click) on the symbol in the Inspector so that the Pencil tool is selected, and click or drag in the score. Clicking creates a Bezier slur of the default length and shape, while dragging creates a straight line. You will find that the default Bezier slur has four curve points – one at each end and two along the curve. To move the slur, click on it (but not on a curve point) and drag. To resize the slur, click and drag the end points.
570 Working with symbols To change the shape of the slur, click on one of the mid- dle curve points and drag in any direction. Right-clicking on a curve point brings up a context menu with the following options: Creating trills If you have recorded or entered a trill, Cubase can help you display this properly: 1.Select the notes that make up the trill. 2.Right-click on one of the notes and select “Build Trill…” from the context menu. 3.Select an option from the dialog that appears. The radio buttons determine how the trill should look. Activate the “Help Note” option if you want an extra note to indicate between which notes the trill should be played. 4.Click OK. Now the following happens: All notes except the first one (and possibly the second) are hidden. The first note automatically gets a display length matching the length of the whole trill. If you chose to include a help note, the second note is con- verted to a “Graphic” note, with brackets but without stem. Otherwise, the second note is hidden, too. The trill symbols you selected in the dialog are inserted. Inserting symbols across staves If you hold down [Alt]/[Option] while adding a symbol to one staff in a grand staff, this symbol will be put in at cor- responding positions on all staves. This allows you for ex- ample to insert rehearsal marks, repeats, etc. for all instru- ments at the same time. Adding a keyboard symbol The “Other” tab contains a piano keyboard symbol, useful for example in educational scores. The symbol has the fol- lowing properties: To insert the keyboard symbol, select it from the Inspec- tor, click with the Pencil tool at the desired position and drag a box to specify the approximate size of the keyboard. After you have inserted the keyboard symbol, you can drag its edges to resize it vertically or horizontally. Option Description Add Points/ Reduce PointsAdds another pair of curve points to the Bezier slur. This allows you to create very complex slur shapes. After add- ing points, there will be an additional menu item “Reduce Points” – selecting it removes the additional curve points. Add Thickness Makes the Bezier slur thicker. Reduce ThicknessMakes the Bezier slur thinner. Hide This hides the slur symbol, see “Hiding/showing objects” on page 609.
571 Working with symbols If you right-click on an inserted keyboard symbol and select “Properties” from the context menu, a dialog opens allowing you to specify further properties for the symbol. You can also double-click on an inserted keyboard symbol to open this dialog. Adding guitar chord symbols A fretboard symbol of a guitar chord can be inserted any- where in the score. Guitar symbols are found on the “Guitar Symbols” tab and the “Other” tab in the symbol Inspector. The Guitar Symbols tab contains all Guitar symbols of the current guitar library, see “Using the guitar library” on page 572. If the symbol you want to insert is among these, select it and insert it as you would any other symbol, see above. To insert a guitar symbol not present in the guitar library, proceed as follows: 1.Open the “Other” tab. 2.Click (or double-click) on the guitar chord symbol, so that the Pencil tool is selected.3.Click in the score, at the position where you want the symbol to appear. The Guitar Symbol dialog appears. To put a black dot on any fret and string, click on it. To remove it, click again. To input a symbol just above the string, outside the fret- board, click there. Consecutive clicks allow you to select between a ring (open string), a cross (don’t play this string) and no symbol. To add a capodaster number, click to the left of the symbol. Consecutive clicks allow you to step through the possibilities. You can also add a capodaster symbol (a line over the strings), by setting the “Capo String” parameter to a value higher than 0. By adjusting the Capo End and Start values, you can create capodaster symbols that span fewer strings. Use the “Size” value field to adjust the size of the chord symbol. If you want the symbol to be horizontal, activate the “Horizontal” checkbox. If you want to display more or fewer frets than the de- fault six, change the “Frets” value. 4.Click Apply. The guitar symbol appears in the score. Clicking the Insert Notes button will insert the actual notes in the chord into the score. You can also right-click and select “Insert Notes” from the context menu that appears. Option Description Size Governs the width of the keys. Start Note This is the leftmost note in the keyboard symbol. Show Note NamesWhen this is activated, each C key is displayed with note name and octave (C1, C2, etc.). White/Black Keys transparentActivate these if you want the white and/or black keys to be transparent.
572 Working with symbols You can edit the symbol at any time by double-clicking it, changing the settings in the dialog and clicking Apply. Note that you can also access the symbols you have de- fined in the guitar library by right-clicking a guitar symbol – see below. ÖIf you select “Make Chord Symbol” from the context menu, the corresponding chord symbol will be displayed above the guitar symbol. This function is very useful when writing lead sheets, for example. Using the guitar library The above method is fine if you only want to add a few chord symbols to your score. If you need a lot of chord symbols, or if you are using chord symbols in a lot of dif- ferent scores, you can gather all your chord symbols in a “guitar library” instead. This way you don’t need to recre- ate the same chord symbol over and over again. Defining chord symbols 1.Double-click on one of the symbols in the Guitar Sym- bols tab in the Inspector to open the guitar library. Alternatively, you can open the Score Settings–Project page and select the “Guitar Library” subpage. 2.To add a guitar chord symbol to the library, click the New button. A chord symbol appears in the list to the left. 3.To edit the chord symbol, double-click it in the list. This opens the Guitar Symbol dialog, as when editing a chord symbol in the score. The symbol you create will also be “interpreted” and its name will be displayed to the right of the fretboard symbol. This can also be edited by double-clicking if you like. To sort the available symbols in the library according to their root notes, click the Sort button. To remove a symbol from the library, select it in the list and click Remove. To save the current library as a separate file, select “Save…” from the Functions pop-up menu. A file dialog appears, allowing you to specify a name and location for the file. To load a guitar library file, select “Load current Pane…” from the Functions pop-up menu. In the file dialog that appears, locate and open the desired guitar library file. There are also two additional checkboxes in the Guitar Library dialog: Inserting symbols from the library Apart from the “Use for ’Make Chords’” option above, there are two ways to insert symbols from the guitar library into the score: Use the Functions pop-up menu in the Guitar Library subpage of the Score settings–Project page when creat- ing or editing guitar symbols. Right-click on a guitar symbol in the score and select a chord symbol from the Presets submenu on the context menu. !Loading a guitar library file replaces the current library! Option Description Use for ’Make Chords’When this is activated, and you use the “Make Chord Symbol” function (see “Using Make Chord Symbol” on page 587), the program will insert guitar symbols as well as regular chords (if any fitting guitar symbols can be found). If there are several guitar symbols for a certain chord in the Guitar Library, the first one will be used. Small Display If this is activated, the chord symbols in the list will be displayed in the size they will have in the score. If it is de- activated, the symbols will be displayed in a larger size, for easier editing.
573 Working with symbols Using layout symbols Symbols inserted from the “Layout” tab belong to the lay- out layer. When you are editing a layout containing several tracks, you can have inserted layout symbols automatically copied to any combination of tracks in the layout. You de- cide which staves should display layout symbols by ticking their “L” column in the Score Settings–Layout page (opened by selecting “Settings…” on the Scores menu). Here, layout symbols will be displayed for the first two tracks. Any editing you perform to layout symbols is automatically du- plicated in the other tracks. The display of layout symbols for different tracks can be deac- tivated at any time. Layout symbols can be copied between layouts, by using the Get Form function on the Score Settings–Layout page. One example of how to use layout symbols: Let’s say you are editing a full orchestra score, and want rehearsal marks inserted for more than one staff (typically, above each instrument group – brass, strings, percussion, etc.). Now all you need to do is insert the rehearsal marks from the Layout tab for one of the tracks. To do so, open the Score Settings–Layout page, tick the “L” column for the desired tracks/staves and click Apply. Using Project symbols Project symbols are part of the project layer and will there- fore appear in all layouts. The project layer also contains changes to bar lines (e.g. repeats and double bar lines) and bar number offsets. Typically you use Project symbols when you know you want these shown for all combina- tions of tracks.ÖYou can also use Project symbols in combination with the Arranger mode to have the program play back accord- ing to the score – including repeats, Da Capos, endings etc. See “Scores and the Arranger mode” on page 629. Selecting symbols Almost all symbols can be selected by clicking on them. For symbols that have a length or size, one or more han- dles appear. A selected crescendo. An exception to this are the slurs and ties which can be selected by clicking on the end points or by drawing a se- lection rectangle. Using the lock layers Sometimes it can be very hard to click on a symbol or other object in the score without accidentally selecting other symbols nearby. To remedy this, you can assign dif- ferent types of objects to different “lock layers” (up to three) and instruct Cubase to “lock” one or two of these layers, making them “unmovable”. Furthermore, you can lock the layout and project layers separately if needed. Proceed as follows: Setting up the lock layers 1.Open the Preferences dialog from the File menu, and select the Scores–Event Layers page.
574 Working with symbols 2.Assign each event type to a layer (1, 2 or 3). It is a good idea to assign event types that might “conflict graphically” to different layers. For example, you might want to assign bar numbers and note symbols to different layers, if you find that you accidentally move bar numbers when editing note symbols and vice versa. 3.Click OK to close the dialog. Alternatively, you can right-click on one of the Layer but- tons (1-2-3) on the extended toolbar to bring up a pop-up menu, showing which object types are associated with that layer. A checkmark for an object type means it belongs to that layer. If no checkmark is shown, you can select the object type from the pop-up menu and move it to that layer. Locking a layer To “lock” a layer, click on its lock layer button. In this figure, layer 2 is locked. Event types assigned to layer 2 cannot be selected, moved or deleted. Visual indication of the layers Objects belonging to locked event layers will be “greyed out” in the score. This makes it very easy to find out which object belongs to which layer – perhaps especially useful for the layout and project layers. For example, to quickly spot all objects in the layout layer, lock all other layers by clicking their buttons. Now, only layout layer objects will be shown normally; all other objects will be greyed out. Moving and duplicating symbols There are four ways to move and duplicate symbols: By dragging them with the mouse (see below). By using the computer keyboard (moving only – see “Moving by using the computer keyboard” on page 576). By using the bar handles (see “Moving and duplicating with the bar handles” on page 576). By using the Paste Note Attributes function (duplicating note symbols only – see “Copying settings between notes” on page 552). Moving and duplicating by using the mouse This is done much as with other objects in Cubase. The following rules apply: Note symbols and note-dependent symbols move with the notes/chords they belong to. In other words, if you move the note/chord, the symbols move with it/them. Note symbols (like accents and lyrics) can only be moved ver- tically. Other symbols (like braces and brackets) can only be moved horizontally. All other symbols without handles can be moved freely. If you hold down [Ctrl]/[Command], movement is restricted to one direction only. If the symbol has one or more handles when it is selected, don’t drag it by the handles, or you will change its shape in- stead of moving it. Slurs and ties are an exception, as they can only be moved by first dragging one handle and then the other. However, if you use the Layout tool (see “Graphic moving of notes” on page 557) to move the notes they belong to, or if you change the measure width, they will be adjusted automatically. Duplicating is done by moving with [Alt]/[Option] pressed, as always in Cubase. Slurs, ties and bar lines cannot be dupli- cated with this method. There are two features to help you position symbols (and other score objects) correctly: the rulers and the Position Info window.
575 Working with symbols The rulers Unlike other editors, the Score Editor does not have a meter/time position-based ruler. Instead, its rulers are “graphical”, i.e. they indicate the actual x-y position of ob- jects (with “zero” at the upper left corner). The current pointer position is indicated by thin lines in the rulers. To hide the rulers, pull down the pop-up menu above the scroll bar to the right and select “Off”. This pop-up menu can also be shown by right-clicking in the ruler. To display the ruler again, pull down the same pop-up menu and select one of the units (inches, centimeters or points). This setting will also affect the units used in the Position Info window (see below). The Position Info window If you need to fine-tune the graphical positions of symbols and other objects, you should use the Position Info win- dow. This makes positioning easier in two ways: You get a numerical indication of the exact position of the mouse pointer (and any object you are dragging). You can move objects or staves by typing in position values. You display the Position Info window by clicking in the ruler.The window contains the following settings and values: Dragging symbols across staves If you drag a symbol across the staves, you will note how the “active staff” indicator to the left follows the mouse pointer. Use this as an indication, to make sure that sym- bols end up in the correct staff. If you are editing several tracks at the same time, and want to make sure that a symbol isn’t accidentally moved to another track when you drag it vertically, click on the “L” button on the extended toolbar. When this is activated, you cannot move symbols across staves by drag- ging. Option Description Measure in Inch/cm/mm/ptClick this label to change units for the Position Info win- dow. This choice will also affect the units used in the rulers. Abs/Rel. Pos Click this label to select whether X-Y position values should be “absolute” (referring to the upper left corner of the current page) or “relative” (referring to the upper left corner of the active staff). X, Y When a single object is selected, these values show the horizontal and vertical position of this object. When no objects or several objects are selected, these values show the current horizontal and vertical position of the pointer. When a single object is selected, you can click on these values and type in a new position for the object. dX, dY When you are moving an object, these values indicate the horizontal and vertical distance you have moved it. You can click and type in values to move the object(s) by the specified distances. Sel. Staff If “Abs. Pos” is selected (see above), this value shows the distance from the top of the score page to the top of the active staff. You can click and type in a value to move the active staff. If “Rel. Pos” is selected, this value will always be 0, since vertical positions are related to the top of the active staff! To Prev Staff The distance between the active staff and the staff above it. Clicking and typing in a value will move the active staff. To Next Staff The distance between the active staff and the staff below it. Clicking and typing in a value will move the staves be- low the active staff.