Steinberg Nuendo 3 Working With MIDI Manual

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The MIDI editors 3 – 121
• If both Snap and Use Global Quantize are activated, the note will snap to po-
sitions according to the Quantize setting on the toolbar (next to the Use Glo-
bal Quantize button).
The length of the inserted note is determined by the Insert Length set-
ting on the toolbar. However, if this is set to “Drum-Map Link”, the 
note will get the length of the quantize value for the drum sound.
• You can quickly audition the drum sounds by clicking in the leftmost 
column in the drum sound list.
This plays the corresponding note.
• Clicking with the Drumstick tool on an existing note will remove it.
This makes drum pattern editing very quick and intuitive.
Setting velocity values
The notes you enter will get the insert velocity value set in the insert 
velocity field on the toolbar – to speed up things you may want to as-
sign key commands to the insert velocity options. See page 94.
Selecting notes
Selecting notes is done by any of the following methods:
•Use the Arrow tool.
The standard selection techniques apply.
•Use the Select submenu on the Quick menu (see page 95).
•Use the left and right arrow keys on the computer keyboard to step 
from one note to the next or previous note.
If you press [Shift] and use the arrow keys, the current selection will be kept, allowing 
you to select several notes.
•You can also press [Shift] and double click on a note to select all the 
following notes for the same drum sound.
•If the option “Auto Select Events under Cursor” is activated in the 
Preferences dialog (Editing page), all notes currently “touched” by the 
project cursor are automatically selected. 
						

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3 – 122 The MIDI editors
Moving, duplicating or repeating notes
To move or copy notes in the editor (to other positions or other drum 
sounds), you use the same methods as in the Key Editor: click and 
drag, use the arrow keys or Edit menu functions, etc. – see page 96. 
There is one thing to note:
When you are moving or copying several selected notes by dragging 
them and Snap is activated but Use Global Quantize turned off, the 
notes will snap to positions according to the quantize values for the 
drum sounds. If the moved/copied notes have different quantize val-
ues, the largest value will determine snapping. For example, if you are 
moving two notes, with the quantize values 1/16 and 1/4 respectively, 
the notes will snap to quarter notes (1/4).
• You can also adjust the position of notes by quantizing (see page 59).
Again, which quantize value is used depends on whether Global Quantize is used.
Muting notes and drum sounds
You can mute individual notes by clicking or enclosing them with the 
Mute tool or by using the Mute function on the Edit menu (see page 
99).
Furthermore, if a drum map is selected (see page 128), the drum 
sound list will have a Mute column. Click in the Mute column for a drum 
sound to mute that sound. Finally, clicking the Drum Solo button will 
mute all drum sounds other than the selected one.
Muted drum sounds
Please note that the mute state for drum sounds is part of the drum 
map, so any other tracks using the same map will also be affected.   
						

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The MIDI editors 3 – 123
Deleting notes
To delete notes, click on them with the Drumstick tool or Eraser tool or 
select them and press [Backspace].
Other editing methods
As in the Key Editor, you can edit notes on the info line or via MIDI, 
and enter notes using step input. Please refer to page 100.
Working with drum maps
Background
As discussed earlier, a drum kit in a MIDI instrument is most often a 
set of different drum sounds with each sound placed on a separate 
key (i.e. the different sounds are assigned to different MIDI note num-
bers). One key plays a bass drum sound, another a snare and so on.
Unfortunately, different MIDI instruments often use different key assign-
ments. This can be troublesome if you have made a drum pattern using 
one MIDI device, and then want to try it on another. When you switch 
device, it is very likely that your snare drum becomes a ride cymbal, or 
your hi-hat becomes a tom, etc. – just because the drum sounds are 
distributed differently in the two instruments.
To solve this problem, and simplify several aspects of MIDI drum kits 
(like using drum sounds from different instruments in the same “drum 
kit”), Nuendo features so-called drum maps. A drum map is basically a 
list of drum sounds, with a number of settings for each sound. When 
you play back a MIDI track for which you have selected a drum map, 
the MIDI notes are “filtered” through the drum map before being sent 
to the MIDI instrument. Among other things, the map determines which 
MIDI note number is sent out for each drum sound, and so which 
sound is played in the receiving MIDI device.
A solution to the problem above would therefore be to make up drum 
maps for all your instruments. When you want to try your drum pattern 
on another instrument, you simply switch to the corresponding drum 
map and your snare drum sound will remain a snare drum sound. 
						

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3 – 124 The MIDI editors
Drum map settings
A drum map consists of settings for 128 drum sounds (one for each 
MIDI note number). To get an overview of these settings, open the 
Drum Editor and use the Map pop-up menu below the drum sound list 
to select the “GM Map” drum map.
This drum map is set up according to the General MIDI standard. For information on 
how to load, create and select other drum maps, see page 128.
Now, take a look at the drum sound list (you may have to drag the di-
vider between the list and the note display to the right to see all col-
umns). The columns show the settings of the drum map for each sound.
Here’s a brief description (details follow below):
Column Description
Pitch The actual note number of the drum sound. This is what links notes on a 
MIDI track to drum sounds. For example, with the above drum map, all 
MIDI notes with the pitch C1 would be mapped to the Bass Drum 
sound. More on this below.
Instrument The name of the drum sound.   
						

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The MIDI editors 3 – 125
• All settings in a drum map (except the Pitch setting) can be changed 
directly in the drum sound list, or in the Drum Map Setup dialog (see 
page 129).
Note that the changes you make will affect all tracks that use the drum map.
About Pitch, I-note and O-note
This can be a somewhat confusing area, but once you’ve grasped 
how it all works it’s not very complicated. Going through the following 
“theory” will help you make the most out of the drum map concept – 
especially if you want to create your own drum maps.
As we said earlier, a drum map is a kind of “filter”, transforming notes 
according to the settings in the map. It does this transformation twice; 
once when it receives an incoming note (i.e. when you play a note on 
your MIDI controller) and once when a note is sent from the program 
to the MIDI sound device.
Quantize This value is used when entering and editing notes as described on 
page 120 and page 122.
Mute Allows you to mute a drum sound, excluding it from playback. 
See page 122.
I-note This is the “input note” for the drum sound. When this MIDI note is sent 
into Nuendo, (i.e. played by you), the note will be mapped to the corre-
sponding drum sound (and automatically transposed according to the 
Pitch setting for the sound). See below.
O-note This is the “output note”, i.e. the MIDI note number that is sent out every 
time the drum sound is played back. See below.
Channel The drum sound will be played back on this MIDI channel.
Output The drum sound will be played back on this MIDI output. If you set this to 
“Default”, the MIDI output selected for the track will be used. Column Description 
						

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3 – 126 The MIDI editors
In the following example, we have modified the drum map, so that the 
Bass Drum sound has different Pitch, I-note and O-note values.
I-notes
Let’s look at what happens on input: When you play a note on your 
MIDI instrument, the program will look for this note number among the 
I-notes in the drum map. In our case, if you play the note A1, the pro-
gram will find that this is the I-note of the Bass Drum sound.
This is where the first transformation happens: the note will get a new 
note number according to the Pitch setting for the drum sound. In our 
case, the note will be transformed to a C1 note, because that is the 
pitch of the Bass Drum sound. If you record the note, it will be re-
corded as a C1 note.
O-notes
The next step is the output. This is what happens when you play back 
the recorded note, or when the note you play is sent back out to a 
MIDI instrument in real time (MIDI Thru):
The program checks the drum map and finds the drum sound with the 
pitch of the note. In our case, this is a C1 note and the drum sound is 
the Bass Drum. Before the note is sent to the MIDI output, the second 
transformation takes place: the note number is changed to that of the 
O-note for the sound. In our example, the note sent to the MIDI instru-
ment will be a B0 note.  
						

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The MIDI editors 3 – 127
Usage
So, what’s the point of all this? Again, the purposes are different for I-
notes and O-notes:
• Changing the I-note settings allows you to choose which keys will play 
which drum sounds, when playing or recording from a MIDI instrument.
For example, you may want to place some drum sounds near each other on the key-
board so that they can be easily played together, move sounds so that the most impor-
tant sounds can be played from a short keyboard, play a sound from a black key 
instead of a white, and so on.
If you never play your drum parts from a MIDI controller (but draw them in the editor) 
you don’t need to care about the I-note setting.
• The O-note settings let you set things up so that the “Bass Drum” sound 
really plays a bass drum.
If you’re using a MIDI instrument in which the bass drum sound is on the C2 key, you 
set the O-note for the Bass Drum sound to C2. When you switch to another instru-
ment (in which the bass drum is on C1) you want the Bass Drum O-note set to C1. 
Once you have set up drum maps for all your MIDI instruments, you don’t have to care 
about this anymore – you just select another drum map when you want to use another 
MIDI instrument for drum sounds.
The channel and output settings
You can set separate MIDI channels and/or MIDI outputs for each 
sound in a drum map. The following rules apply:
• When a drum map is selected for a track, the MIDI channel settings in the 
drum map override the MIDI channel setting for the track.
In other words, the MIDI channel setting you make in the Track list or Inspector for the 
track is normally disregarded. If you want a drum sound to use the channel of the track, 
set it to channel “Any” in the drum map.
• If the MIDI output is set to “default” for a sound in a drum map, the sound will 
use the MIDI output selected for the track.
Selecting any other option allows you to direct the sound to a specific MIDI output.
By making specific MIDI channel and output settings for all sounds in 
a drum map, you can direct your drum tracks directly to another MIDI 
instrument simply by selecting another drum map – you don’t need to 
make any channel or output changes for the actual track. 
						

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3 – 128 The MIDI editors
• To select the same MIDI channel for all sounds in a drum map, click the 
Channel column, press [Ctrl]/[Command] and select the desired channel.
All drum sounds will be set to this MIDI channel. The same procedure can be used for 
selecting the same MIDI output for all sounds as well.
It can also be useful to select different channels and/or outputs for dif-
ferent sounds. This allows you to construct drum kits with sounds 
from several different MIDI devices, etc.
Managing drum maps
Selecting a drum map for a track
To select a drum map for a MIDI track, use the Map pop-up menu in 
the Inspector or in the Drum Editor:
Selecting “No Drum Map” turns off the drum map functionality in the 
Drum Editor. Even if you don’t use a drum map, you can still separate 
sounds by name using a name list (see page 131).
Initially, the Map pop-up menu will only contain one map: “GM Map”. 
However, you will find a number of drum maps included on the program 
DVD – how to load these is described below.  
						

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The MIDI editors 3 – 129
The Drum Map Setup dialog
To set up and manage your drum maps, select Drum Map Setup from 
the Map pop-up menus or the MIDI menu. This opens the following 
dialog:
This is where you load, create, modify and save drum maps. The list to 
the left shows the currently loaded drum maps; selecting a drum map 
in the list displays its sounds and settings to the right.
• The settings for the drum sounds are exactly the same as in the Drum 
Editor (see page 124).
As in the Drum Editor, you can click the leftmost column to audition a drum sound. 
Note: if you audition a sound in the Drummap Setup dialog, and the sound is set to 
MIDI output “Default”, the output selected on the Default pop-up menu in the lower left 
corner will be used. When auditioning a Default output sound in the Drum Editor, the 
MIDI output selected for the track will be used, as described on page 127.
Below the drum sound list you will find a number of buttons, with the 
following functionality:
Button Description
New Map Click this to add a new drum map to the project. The drum sounds will 
be named “Sound 1, Sound 2” and so on, and have all parameters set 
to default values. The map will be named “Empty Map”, but you can re-
name it by clicking and typing in the list.  
						

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3 – 130 The MIDI editors
• Drum maps are saved with the project files. If you have created or mod-
ified a drum map, you should use the Save function to store it as a sep-
arate file, available for loading into other projects.
If you always want to have the same drum map(s) included in your projects, you may 
want to load these into the default project – see the chapter “File handling” in the Op-
eration Manual.
O-Note Conversion
This function on the MIDI menu goes through the selected MIDI 
part(s) and sets the actual pitch of each note according to its O-note 
setting. This is useful if you want to convert the track to a “regular” 
MIDI track (with no drum map) and still have the notes play back the 
correct drum sound. A typical application is if you want to export your 
MIDI recording as a standard MIDI file (see the chapter “File handling” 
in the Operation Manual) – by first performing an O-Note Conversion 
you make sure that your drum tracks play back as they should when 
they are exported.
New Copy Adds a copy of the currently selected drum map. This is probably the 
quickest way to create a new drum map: select the map that is similar 
to what you want, create a copy, change the desired drum sound set-
tings and rename the map in the list.
Remove Removes the selected drum map from the project.
Load Opens a file dialog, allowing you to load drum maps from disk. On the 
Nuendo CD you will find a number of drum maps for different MIDI in-
struments – use this function to load the desired maps into your 
project.
Save Opens a file dialog for saving the drum map selected in the list. If you 
have created or modified a drum map, you should use this function to 
save it as a file on disk – this allows you to load it into other projects. 
Drum map files have the extension “.drm”.
Assign Click this button to assign the selected drum map to the current MIDI 
track (only available if a MIDI track was selected when you opened the 
Drum Map Setup dialog). This is the same as selecting the drum map 
from the Map pop-up menu.
OK Closes the dialog. Button Description