Steinberg Nuendo 3 Working With MIDI Manual

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The MIDI editors 3 – 101
Editing Notes via MIDI
You can change the properties of notes via MIDI. For example, this 
can be a fast way to get the right velocity value, since you will hear the 
result even as you edit:
1.Select the note you want to edit.
2.Click on the MIDI connector symbol on the toolbar.
The symbol should be lit. This enables editing via MIDI.
3.Use the note buttons on the toolbar to decide which properties 
should be changed by the MIDI input.
You can enable editing of pitch, note-on and/or note-off velocity.
With this setting, the edited notes will get the pitch and velocity values of the notes 
input via MIDI, but the note-off velocities will be kept as they are.
4.Play a note on your MIDI instrument.
The note selected in the editor will get the pitch, velocity and/or note-off velocity of the 
played note.
The next note in the edited part is automatically selected, making it 
easy to quickly edit a series of notes.
•If you want another try, select the note again (easiest by pressing the 
[←] key on the computer keyboard) and again play a note on your 
MIDI instrument.   
						

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Step input
Step input, or step recording, is when you enter notes one at a time 
(or one chord at a time) without worrying about the exact timing. This 
is useful e.g. when you know the part you want to record but are not 
able to play it exactly as you want it.
Proceed as follows:
1.Click the Step Input button on the toolbar to activate Step Input 
mode.
2.Use the note buttons to the right to decide which properties should 
be included when you input the notes.
For example, you may not want to include the velocity and/or note-off velocity of the 
played notes. It’s also possible to turn off the pitch property, in which case all notes will 
get the pitch C3, no matter what you play.
3.Click anywhere in the note display to set the start position (the desired 
position of the first note or chord).
The step input position is shown as a blue line in the note display, and in the lower 
mouse pointer display in the toolbar.   
						

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The MIDI editors 3 – 103
4.Specify the desired note spacing and length with the Quantize and 
Length Quantize pop-up menus.
The notes you input will be positioned according to the Quantize value and have the 
length set with the Length Quantize value. For instance, if you set Quantize to 1/8 
notes and Length Quantize to 1/16 note, the notes will be sixteenth notes, appearing 
on each eighth note position.
5.Play the first note or chord on your MIDI instrument.
The note or chord appears in the editor and the step input position advances one 
quantize value step.
• If Insert mode is activated, all notes to the right of the step input posi-
tion will be moved to “make room” for the inserted note or chord.
Insert mode activated.
6.Continue in the same way with the rest of the notes or chords.
You can adjust the Quantize or Length Quantize value as you go along, to change the 
timing or note lengths. You can also move the step input position manually by clicking 
anywhere in the note display.
•To insert a “rest”, press the right arrow key on the computer keyboard.
This advances the step input position one step.
7.When you’re done, click the Step Input button again to deactivate 
step input.  
						

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3 – 104 The MIDI editors
Editing in the controller display
About controller lanes
By default, the controller display has a single lane, showing one event 
type at a time. However, you can easily add lanes by right-clicking 
(Windows) or [Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) in the display and selecting “Cre-
ate new controller lane” from the Quick menu. This allows you to view 
and edit different controllers at the same time.
The controller display with three lanes set up.
• To remove a lane, right-click in it and select “Remove this Lane” from 
the Quick menu.
This hides the lane from view – it doesn’t affect the events in any way.
• If you remove all lanes, the controller display will be completely hidden.
To bring it back again, select “Create new controller lane” from the Quick menu.  
						

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Selecting event type
Each controller lane shows one event type at a time. To select which 
type should be displayed, use the pop-up menu to the left of the lane.
•Selecting “Setup...” opens a dialog in which you can specify which con-
tinuous controller event types you want available on the pop-up menu.
Controller types in 
this list are already 
listed on the pop-
up menu.Controller types 
in this list are not 
listed on the 
pop-up menu.
Click this button 
to add the 
selected controller type 
to the pop-up menu. Click this button to 
remove the control-
ler type selected in the left list 
from the pop-up menu.   
						

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3 – 106 The MIDI editors
•Each MIDI track has its own controller lane setup (number of lanes 
and selected event types). 
When you create new tracks, they get the controller lane setup last used.
Controller Lane presets
Once you have added the required number of controller lanes and se-
lected the event types you need, you can store this combination as a 
controller lane preset. You could for example have a preset with one 
velocity lane only, another with a combination of velocity, pitch bend 
and modulation, and so on. This can make working with controllers 
much quicker.
•To add the current controller lane setup as a preset, pull down the pop-
up menu in the lower left corner of the editor window and select “Add”.
Enter a name for the preset in the dialog that appears and click OK.
•To apply a stored preset, select it from the pop-up menu.
This immediately brings up the controller lanes and event types in the preset.
•To remove or rename presets, select “Organize” from the pop-up.
Editing velocity values
When “Velocity” is selected for viewing, the lane shows the velocity of 
each note as a vertical bar.
Velocity values are edited with the Pencil or the Line tool. The different 
tools and Line tool modes offer several possibilities, as listed below.  
						

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The MIDI editors 3 – 107
• If the option “Controller Lane Editing: Select Tool defaults to Pen” is ac-
tivated in the Preferences dialog (Editing page), the Arrow tool automat-
ically switches to the Pencil tool when you move the pointer into the 
controller display.
If you need to use the Arrow tool to select events in the controller display, press [Ctrl]/
[Command].
• If the Speaker icon (Acoustic Feedback) is activated on the toolbar, the 
notes will be played back when you adjust the velocity, allowing you to 
audition your changes.
• You can use the Pencil tool to change the velocity of a single note: click on its 
velocity bar and drag the bar up or down.
While you drag, the current velocity value is shown in the display to the left.
• You can use the Pencil tool or the Line tool’s Paint mode to change the veloc-
ity values of several notes by painting a “freehand curve”.
When editing velocity, these two methods have the same functionality.   
						

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• Use the Line tool’s Line mode for creating linear velocity ramps.
Click where you want the ramp to start and drag the cursor to where you want the 
ramp to end. When you release the mouse button, the velocity values are aligned with 
the line between the two points.
• Parabola mode works in the same way, but aligns the velocity values with a 
Parabola curve instead.
Use this for smooth, “natural” velocity fades, etc.
• The remaining three Line tool modes (Sine, Triangle and Square) align the ve-
locity values with continuous curve shapes (see below).
Note:
•If there is more than one note on the same position (e.g. a chord), their 
velocity bars will overlap in the controller lane. 
If none of the notes are selected, all notes at the same position will be set to the same 
velocity value when you draw. To edit the velocity of only one of the notes at the same 
position, first select the note in the note display. Now, editing will only affect the veloc-
ity of the selected note.
You can also adjust the velocity of a single note by selecting it and 
changing its velocity value on the info line.     
						

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The MIDI editors 3 – 109
Adding and editing events in the controller display
When any option other than “Velocity” is selected for viewing in a con-
troller lane, you can create new events or edit the values of existing 
events using the Pencil tool or the Line tool in its various modes:
• Clicking with the Pencil tool or the Line tool in Paint mode creates a new event.
Note the “Select Tool defaults to Pen” option - see the chapter “Editing velocity values”. 
• To modify the value of an event (without creating a new one), press [Alt]/[Op-
tion] and use the Pencil tool or the Line tool’s Paint mode.
Note that you can click and drag to change or add multiple events, draw controller 
curves, etc. You can press or release [Alt]/[Option] while drawing, switching dynami-
cally between “edit mode” and “create mode”.
• With the Pencil tool and the Line tool in Paint mode, the quantize value de-
termines the “density” of created controller curves (if Snap is activated).
For very smooth curves, you should use a small quantize value or turn off Snap. How-
ever, please note that this creates a very large number of MIDI events, which can cause 
MIDI playback to “stutter” in some situations. A medium-low density is often sufficient.
If you want to enter or adjust a single event, click once with the Pencil tool or the 
Line tool in Paint mode:
If you want to “paint a curve”, drag the tool (with the mouse button pressed):
When you move the pointer in the controller lane, the 
corresponding value is displayed in this field.   
						

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• Clicking and dragging with the Line tool in Line mode shows a line in the con-
troller lane, and creates events with values aligned with this line.
This is the best way to draw linear controller ramps. If you press [Alt]/[Option], no new 
events are created – use this mode for modifying existing controller curves.
• The Parabola mode works in the same way, but aligns the values with a pa-
rabola curve instead, giving more “natural” curves and fades.
Note that the result depends on from which direction you draw the parabola:
• In Parabola mode you can use modifier keys to determine the shape of the pa-
rabola curve.
If you press [Ctrl]/[Command] the parabola curve will be reversed, if you press [Alt]/
[Option]+[Ctrl]/[Command] while snap is activated you can change the position of the 
whole curve (in both cases the snap value for the positioning will be a quarter of the 
quantize value). If you press [Shift], the exponent will be increased or decreased.
Converting a controller curve to a ramp using 
the Line tool: