Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 Score Layout And Printing Manual

							 
CUBASE SX
 
How the Score Editor works 1 – 11 
How the Score Editor operates
 
The Score Editor basically does the following: 
• Reads the MIDI notes in the MIDI parts.
• Looks at the settings you have made.
• Decides how the MIDI notes should be displayed according to the settings.
 
The Score Editor takes MIDI data and settings as input and produces a score as 
output. 
The Score Editor does all this in real time. If you change some of the 
MIDI data (for example by moving or shortening a note) this is immedi-
ately reflected in the score. If you change some of the settings (for ex-
ample the time signature or key signature) this is also immediately 
apparent.
You should not think of the Score Editor as a drawing program, but 
rather as an “interpreter” of MIDI data.
MIDI data
Score Editor Score display
Score settings 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
1 – 12 How the Score Editor works 
MIDI notes vs. score notes
 
MIDI tracks in Cubase SX hold MIDI notes and other MIDI data. As 
you may know, a MIDI note in Cubase SX is only defined by its posi-
tion, length, pitch and velocity. This is not nearly enough information to 
decide how the note should be displayed in a score. The program 
needs to know more: What type of instrument are we talking about, 
Drums? Piano? What key is the piece in? What is the basic rhythm? 
How should the notes be grouped under beams? etc. You provide 
this information by making settings and working with the tools avail-
able in the Score Editor. 
An example of the MIDI/score relationship
 
When Cubase SX stores a MIDI note’s position it makes the measure-
ment in an absolute value, called ticks. There are 480 ticks to a quar-
ter note. Have a look at the example below. 
A quarter note at the end of a 4/4 measure. 
The note is on the fourth beat of the measure. Now, let’s say you 
change the time signature to 3/4. This shortens the length of a “mea-
sure” to only three quarter notes – 1440 ticks. Suddenly our quarter 
note is in the next measure: 
The same note in 3/4. 
Why? Since by changing the time signature you are not changing the 
MIDI data in the track/part (that would ruin your recording!), the note 
is still at the same absolute position. It’s just that now each “measure” 
is shorter, which effectively moves the note in the score.
What we are trying to get across here is that Score Editor is an “inter-
preter” of the MIDI data. It follows rules that you set up by making set-
tings in dialogs, on menus, etc. And this interpretation is “dynamic”, or 
in other words, it is constantly updated whenever the data (the MIDI 
notes) or the rules (the score settings) change. 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
How the Score Editor works 1 – 13 
Display quantize
 
Let’s say you used the project window to record a figure with some 
staccato eighth notes. When you open the Score Editor it displays it 
like this:
This doesn’t look anything like what you intended. Let’s start with the 
timing – obviously, you were off at a couple of places (the third, fourth 
and last note all seem to be a 32nd note late). You can solve this by 
quantizing the figure, but this would make the passage sound too 
“stiff”, and not fit in the musical context. To resolve this problem the 
Score Editor employs something called “display quantize”.
Display quantize is a setting which is used to tell the program two 
things: 
• 
How precise the Score Editor should be when displaying the note 
positions. 
• 
The smallest note values (lengths) you want displayed in the score.
In the example above, the display quantize value seems to be set to 
32nd notes (or a smaller note value). When reading the following 
chapters you will find out how to set the display quantize value yourself.
Let’s say we change the display quantize value to sixteenth notes in 
the example: 
With display quantize set to sixteenth notes. 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
1 – 14 How the Score Editor works 
OK, now the timing looks right, but the notes still don’t look like what 
you intended. Maybe you can understand that from a computer’s point 
of view, you did play sixteenth notes, which is why there is a lot of 
pauses. But that’s not how you meant it. You still want the track to 
play back short notes, because it is a staccato part, but you want 
something else “displayed”. Try setting the display quantize value to 
eighth notes instead: 
With display quantize set to eighth notes. 
Now we have eighth notes, as we wanted. All we have to do now is to 
add staccato articulation which can be done with one simple mouse 
click using the Pencil tool (you will find out about this in the chapter 
“Working with symbols”).
How did this work? By setting the display quantize value to eighth 
notes you give the program two instructions, that would sound some-
thing like this in English: “Please, display all notes as if they were on 
exact eighth note positions, regardless of their actual positions” and 
“Please, don’t display any notes smaller than eighth notes, regardless 
of how short they are”. Please note that we used the word display, 
which leads us to one of the most important messages of this chapter: 
❐
 
Setting a display quantize value does not alter the MIDI notes of your re-
cording in any way, as regular quantizing does. It only affects how the 
 
notes are displayed in the Score Editor (and nowhere else)! 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
How the Score Editor works 1 – 15 
Choose your display quantize values with care
 
As explained above, the display quantize value for notes puts a restric-
tion on the “smallest” note value that can be displayed. Let’s for a sec-
ond look what happens if we set it to quarter notes: 
With display quantize set to quarter notes. 
Oops, this doesn’t look too good. Well of course it doesn’t! We have 
now instructed the program that the “smallest” note that occurs in the 
piece is a quarter note. We have explicitly told it that there are no eighth 
notes, no sixteenths, etc. So when the program draws the score on 
screen (and on paper) it quantizes the display of all our eighth notes to 
quarter note positions, which makes it look like above. But again, please 
note that when you hit Play, the passage will still play as it originally did. 
The display quantize setting only affects the score image of the record-
ing. One last important note: 
❐
 
Even if you enter notes using the mouse and input perfect note values, it 
is very important that you have your display quantize settings right! 
These values are not just used for MIDI recordings! If you for example set 
the display quantize value for notes to quarter notes and start clicking in 
eighth notes, you will get eighth notes in the track (as MIDI data), but still 
 
only quarter notes in the display! 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
1 – 16 How the Score Editor works 
Using Rests display quantize
 
Above we used display quantize for notes. There is a similar setting 
called “Rests” display quantize which is used to set the smallest rest 
to be displayed. Often, this setting is very effective:
What if the original note example looked like this:
As you see, the first note is moved and appears one sixteenth note 
later. If we change the display quantize value for notes to eighth notes, 
the score will be displayed like this: 
With Notes display quantize set to eighth notes. 
Unfortunately, this moves the first note to the same position as the 
second, since sixteenth note positions aren’t allowed. We can solve 
this by inserting extra display quantize values within the bar with the 
Display Quantize tool (“Q”), but there is a much easier way: Change 
the display quantize value for notes back to sixteenths, but set the dis-
play quantize value for  
rests 
 to eighth notes! This tells the program not 
to display any rests smaller than eighth notes,  
except when neces-
sary 
. The result looks like this: 
With Notes display quantize set to sixteenth notes, but Rests display quantize set to 
eighth notes. 
How did this work? Well, you instructed the program not to display 
any rests smaller than eighth notes, except when “necessary”. Since 
the first note appeared on the second sixteenth note position, it was 
necessary to put a sixteenth rest at the beginning of the figure. All 
other rests, however, can be hidden by displaying the notes as eighth 
notes, and were therefore not “necessary”. 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
How the Score Editor works 1 – 17 
This leads us to the following general guidelines: 
• Set the Notes display quantize value according to the “smallest note po-
sition” you want to be shown in the score.
 
For example, if you have notes on odd sixteenth note positions, the Notes display quan-
tize value should be set to sixteenth notes.
 
• Set the Rests display quantize value according to the smallest note value 
(length) you want to be displayed for a single note, positioned on a beat.
 
A common setting would be to have Notes display quantize set to 16 
(sixteenth notes) and Rests display quantize set to 4 (quarter notes). 
Handling exceptions
 
Unfortunately, the guidelines above won’t work perfectly in every situa-
tion. You may for example have a mix of straight notes and tuplets of dif-
ferent types, or you may wish to display equally long notes with different 
note values depending on the context. There are several methods you 
can try: 
Automatic display quantize
 
If your score contains both straight notes and triplets, you can use au-
tomatic display quantize. When this is activated, Cubase SX tries to 
“understand” whether the notes should be display quantized to 
straight notes or triplets. See page 47. 
Using the Display Quantize tool
 
With the “Q” tool, you can insert new display quantize values any-
where in the score. Inserted display quantize values affect the staff 
from the insertion point onwards. See page 55. 
Permanent alteration of MIDI data
 
As a last resort, you can resize, quantize or move the actual note 
events. However, this would result in the music not playing back like it 
originally did. Often it is possible to get the score to look like what you 
want without altering any MIDI data. 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
1 – 18 How the Score Editor works 
Summary
 
This closes our discussion on the basic concept of display quantizing. 
There are a number of other special situations which require more ad-
vanced techniques, which you will find out about in the next chapters. 
You will also read about other settings which work along the same 
lines as display quantize but each with its own application. These are 
called “interpretation flags”. 
Entering notes by hand vs. recording notes
 
Sometimes you will enter and edit notes by hand (or rather using the 
mouse and computer keyboard) and at other times you will record them 
from a MIDI keyboard. Most of the time, you will do a combination of 
both. In the chapter “Transcribing MIDI recordings” you will find out 
how to make a recorded score as legible as possible without perform-
ing any permanent changes to the MIDI data. The chapter “Entering 
and editing notes using the mouse” shows you how to enter and edit 
notes using the mouse. In real life, even if you have recorded the piece 
perfectly, you will often have to do some permanent editing to your re-
cording before printing. Which leads to this conclusion: 
❐
 
You will have to read both chapters in order to understand how to pro-
 
duce legible scores! 
						

							 
2
 
The basics 
						

							 
CUBASE SX
 
2 – 20 The basics 
In this chapter you will learn:
 
• How to open the Score Editor.
• How to set up the page size and margins.
• How to switch between Page Mode and Edit Mode.
• How to hide and show the symbol palettes, the toolbar and extended toolbar.
• How to set up the ruler.
• How to set a zoom factor.
 
Preparations
 
1. 
In the project window, create a MIDI track for each instrument. 
Please note that you can prepare a piano (split) staff from a single track, there’s no 
need to create one track for the bass clef and one for the treble clef.
 
2. 
If you like, name each track after the instrument. 
This name can later be used in the score if you like.
 
3. 
Record into the tracks or create empty parts on all tracks. 
You can make very long parts that cover the entire piece, or you can start out with 
shorter parts to begin with. If you choose the latter option, you can always go back 
later and add new parts or copy existing parts.
 
Opening the Score Editor
 
Editing one or several parts
 
To open one or several parts in the Score Editor, select the parts (on 
the same or different tracks) and select “Open Score Editor” from the 
MIDI menu or “Open Selection” from the Scores menu. The default 
key command for this is [Ctrl]/[Command]-[R].  
• 
You can also select the Score Editor as your default editor, allowing 
you to open it by double clicking parts. 
This is done with the Default Edit Action pop-up menu in the Preferences dialog (event 
Display – MIDI page).