Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 Score Layout And Printing Manual

							CUBASE SXAdditional note and rest formatting 7 – 141
Beam appearance and slant settings
Global settings
The Notation Style dialog on the Scores–Global Settings menu has a 
tab called Beams and Bars. There you will find three options for how 
beams should appear:
•Thick Beams.
Activate this if you want beams to be displayed as thick lines.
•Show Small Slants as Flat Beams.
When this is activated, beams that would be only slightly slanted will be displayed flat.
Without and with “Show Small Slants as Flat Beams”.
•Slanted Beams only Slightly Slanted.
Activate this if you only want a slightly slanted beam even though there might be a sig-
nificant pitch difference between the notes under the beam.
Without and with “Slanted Beams only Slightly Slanted”.
❐Please note that these settings apply equally to all staves. 
						

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Staff settings
On the Options tab of the Staff Settings dialog, you will find a couple 
of settings for beams as well. 
Manual adjustment of beams
For very detailed control you can manually adjust the beam slant:
1.Group and flip notes and adjust the settings described above until the 
beams are as close as possible to how you want them.
2.Click on the corner made up by the beam and the stem.
A handle appears on the corner of beam and stem.
A beam handle.
3.Drag the handle up or down.
The slant of the beam changes.
Dragging a handle and the effect it has.
• You can adjust the distance between notes and their beam without 
changing the beam slant. Select both handles of a beam (by pressing 
the [Shift] key while selecting the second handle) and drag one of the 
handles up or down.
Option Description
Flat Beams Activate this when you don’t want any slant at all, no matter the 
pitch difference of the notes under the beams.
No Beams Activate this when you don’t want any beams at all. 
						

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Mixed staff direction
By dragging the beam handles you can put the beam between the 
note heads:
Putting the beam between the notes. 
						

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About tied notes
Sometimes, notes will be displayed as two or more notes tied together. 
Generally, there are three different occasions when this will happen:
• When a note is of an “uneven” length, that cannot be displayed without tying 
together two or more notes of different note values.
• When a note crosses a bar line.
• When a note crosses a “group line” within a bar.
The last case requires some explanation: Cubase SX uses a “cutting 
mechanism” that automatically creates tied notes depending on the 
length and position of the notes. For example, a quarter note is cut in 
two and tied if it crosses a half note beat, and an eighth note is cut in 
two and tied if it crosses a quarter note beat:
However, this isn’t always what you want. There are three ways to af-
fect the cutting mechanism:
Syncopation
When the Syncopation option in the Staff Settings dialog is activated, 
Cubase SX will be less prone to cut and tie notes. For example, the 
second quarter note in the figure above would not have been cut if 
syncopation had been activated.
The Syncopation setting in the Staff Settings dialog affects the whole 
track, but you can also make syncopation settings for separate sections 
in the score, by inserting display quantize events (see page 55).
This quarter note is cut. This eighth note is cut. 
						

							CUBASE SXAdditional note and rest formatting 7 – 145
Time signature changes
By inserting time signature changes, you can change the way notes 
are cut. This is done in the same way as when you specify how 
beamed notes should be grouped – see page 134.
The Cut Notes tool
By using the Cut Notes tool, you can disable the automatic cutting 
mechanism in a bar, and insert manual cuts at any given position in the 
score:
1.Select the Cut Notes tool.
2.Set the Quantize pop-up menu to an appropriate value.
As usual, this determines where you will be able to click.
With a regular 4/4 time signature.
With a composite time signature (3+2+3 eighth notes). 
						

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3.Click in the bar containing the note(s) you want to cut manually, at the 
position you want them cut.
This inserts a cutflag event in the bar at the position you clicked. If you hold down [Alt]/
[Option], a cutflag event is inserted for all voices in a polyphonic staff.
The following rules apply to cutflag events:
• If a bar contains a cutflag event, the automatic cutting mechanism is disabled 
within that bar.
• All notes or rests that start before and end after a cutflag event, will be cut at 
the position of the event.
• To display cutflag events, make sure that “Cutflag” is activated on the filter bar.
• To remove a cutflag event, either click again with the Cut Notes tool at the 
same position, or select it and press [Backspace] or [Delete].
Other options for tied notes
Tie direction
As described on page 132, you can set the direction of the tie manu-
ally in the Set Note Info dialog.
Flat ties
If you prefer ties to be displayed as flat lines, rather than regular 
“curved” ties, activate the option “Flat Ties” on the Options page in 
the Notation Style dialog on the Scores–Global Settings menu.
A half note, placed at 2.1.3. This is by default cut at 2.3.1 (the middle of the bar).
When you click at the position 2.2.1, a cutflag event is inserted.
As a result, the regular cutting mechanism is disabled and the note is cut 
at the position you clicked instead. 
						

							CUBASE SXAdditional note and rest formatting 7 – 147
Graphic moving of notes
There might be instances where the “graphical” order of the notes isn’t 
the one you want. In this case you can move the note without affecting 
the score or playback in any way. There are two ways to do this:
By using the Graphic Move tool
1.Select the Graphic Move tool.
2.Click on the note and drag it right or left.
Movement is restricted to horizontally only.
Before and after changing the “graphical order” of notes.
By using the computer keyboard
You can assign key commands for moving objects graphically. In the 
Key Commands dialog on the File menu, the commands are found un-
der the Nudge category and called Graphical Left, Right, Bottom and 
Top (only the Graphical Left and Right commands apply to notes). 
After assigning key commands, you select the note(s) you want to 
move and press the assigned keys to adjust their graphical position. 
						

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Cue notes
You can create cue notes by using voices or by converting individual 
notes into cue notes.
Setting a voice to display cue notes
1.Open the Staff Settings dialog and select the Polyphonic tab.
This is described on page 105.
2.Click in the “Cue” column for the voice, so that a tick mark appears.
3.Decide for a rest handling for the voice.
You might for example leave “Rests–Show” activated and activate “Reduce”. If you do, 
you will get rests in this voice, but not as many as otherwise. Empty bars, for example, 
will not have any rests at all.
4.Close the dialog.
5.Move the notes into the cue voice.
Polyphonic voicing is described in detail on page 101.
An example of a cue note voice.
“Cue” activated for voice 3. 
						

							CUBASE SXAdditional note and rest formatting 7 – 149
A quick example
Let’s say you have a flute part and want some cue notes for it.
1.Switch on polyphonic voices and activate voice 1 and 2.
2.Set voice 2 to “Auto” stem direction and centered rests.
3.Set up voice 1 to be a cue voice, with hidden rests and stems pointing 
up.
4.Insert the cue notes into voice 1.
Turning individual notes into cue notes
1.Select one or several notes.
2.Double click one of the notes or click the “i” icon on the extended tool-
bar.
The Set Note Info dialog appears.
3.Select Cue from the Type pop-up.
Note type set to Cue.
4.Click Apply.
The settings are applied to the selected note(s).
5.If you like, select other notes and make settings for them.
When you are done, close the dialog by clicking its close box. 
						

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Grace notes
You can turn any note into a grace note. Grace notes are considered 
to be notes without lengths. This means that once a note is turned into 
a grace note it doesn’t affect the rest of the score display in any way.
Before and after converting to grace notes. Note that after the conversion, the 
grace notes no longer “interfere” with the interpretation of the other notes.
❐Grace notes are always automatically positioned just before the next 
note on the staff. If there is no note after a grace note on the staff, the 
grace note will be hidden!
Creating grace notes manually
1.Locate the note for which you want a grace note.
2.Insert one or more new notes just before it.
The note value and exact position of the note isn’t important. However, the pitch of 
course is.
From here on there are two ways to go:
•Select the note(s) and click the “i” icon on the extended toolbar.
The Set Note Info dialog appears and you can select the Grace note type and make 
other settings if needed.
•Select the note(s) and then select “Grace Note” from the Staff Func-
tions submenu on the Scores menu.
This turns the note into a grace note without opening any dialog.