Steinberg Nuendo 3 Working With MIDI Manual

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By default, this allows you to quantize to exact note values (straight, 
triplet or dotted notes) only. If you want more options, select “Quan-
tize Setup...” from the MIDI menu (or “Setup...” from the Quantize 
pop-up menu) to open the Quantize Setup dialog.
Any settings you make in the dialog are immediately reflected in the 
Quantize pop-up menus. However, if you want your settings permanently 
available on the Quantize pop-up menus, you have to use the presets 
functions (see page 63).
The dialog contains the following settings:  
						

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Grid display
The grid display shows one bar (four beats), with blue lines indicating 
the quantize grid (the positions that notes will be moved to).
The Grid and Type pop-ups
These are used to determine the basic note value for the quantizing 
grid. In other words, these have the same functionality as the Quantize 
pop-up menu on the toolbar.
Swing
The Swing slider is only available when a straight note value is selected 
for the grid and Tuplet is off (see below). It lets you offset every second 
position in the grid, creating a swing or shuffle feel. When you adjust 
the Swing slider, the result is shown in the grid display below.
A straight eighth note grid compared with a grid with 62% swing.
Tuplet
Allows you to create more rhythmically complex grids, by dividing the 
grid into smaller steps.     
						

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Magnetic Area
This allows you to specify that only notes within a certain distance 
from the grid lines should be affected by quantizing. 
•When the slider is set to 0%, the Magnetic Area function is deactivated, 
i.e. all notes are affected by quantizing.
If you move the slider gradually to the right, you will note how the magnetic areas are 
shown around the blue lines in the grid display.
Presets
The controls in the lower left corner of the dialog allow you to store 
the current settings as a preset, available on the Quantize menus in 
the toolbars. The usual preset procedures apply:
•To store the settings as a preset, click the Store button. 
•To “load” a stored preset, showing the stored settings in the dialog, 
just select it from the pop-up menu. 
This is useful if you want to modify an existing preset.
•To rename the selected preset, double click on the name and type in 
a new one. 
•To remove a stored preset, select it from the pop-up menu and click 
Remove.
You can also create presets by extracting existing grooves – see page 
65.
Only notes within the indicated zones will be affected by quantizing.  
						

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Auto and Apply
These functions allow you to apply quantizing directly from the dialog, 
as described below.
If you don’t want to apply the quantizing you have set up in the dialog, 
you can close the window by clicking its standard close box. You can 
also leave the dialog open while you continue working.
The Non Quantize setting
This is an additional setting that affects the result of the quantizing. It 
allows you to set a “distance” in ticks (120ths of sixteenth notes).
Events that already are within the specified distance from the quantize 
grid will not be quantized. This allows you to keep slight variations 
when you quantize, but still correct notes that are too far from the grid.
The Random Quantize setting
This is an additional setting that affects the result of the quantizing. It 
allows you to set a “distance” in ticks (120ths of sixteenth notes).
Events will be quantized to random positions within the specified “dis-
tance” from the quantize grid, thus creating a more “loose” quantizing. 
Much like the Non Quantize setting, this allows for slight variations, 
while at the same time keeping notes from ending up too far from the 
grid.
The Iterative Strength setting
This affects the results of the Iterative Quantize function, as described 
below.
The Move Controller setting
When this is activated, controllers related to notes (pitch bend, etc.) 
are automatically moved with the notes when these are quantized.  
						

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Extracting a groove
You can extract the groove from an audio event or MIDI part and turn 
it into a Quantize preset:
•To extract the groove from an audio event, you use Hitpoints and the 
“Create Groove Quantize” function.
See the chapter “Working with hitpoints and slices” in the Operation Manual.
•To extract the groove from a MIDI part, you select the part and select 
“Part to Groove” from the Advanced Quantize submenu on the MIDI 
menu.
In both cases, the resulting groove appears on the Quantize menus 
and you apply it as you would any Quantize preset. You can also view 
and edit the resulting quantize settings in the Quantize Setup dialog.
Applying quantize
There are several ways to apply the quantize:
•The standard method is to select “Over Quantize” from the MIDI menu 
(or using a key command, by default [Q]).
This quantizes the selected MIDI parts or notes, according to the current Quantize 
pop-up menu setting.
•You can also apply quantizing directly from the Quantize Setup dialog, 
by clicking the “Apply” button.
•If you activate the “Auto” checkbox in the Quantize Setup dialog, any 
change you make in the dialog is immediately applied to the selected 
MIDI parts or notes.
A great way of using this feature is to set up a playback loop, and adjust the settings in 
the dialog until you get the desired result. 
When you apply quantize, the result is based on the original position of 
the notes. Therefore, you can freely try different quantize settings with 
no risk of “destroying” anything. See also Undo and Freeze Quantize, 
page 68. 
						

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The Auto Quantize function
If you activate the Auto Q button on the Transport panel, all MIDI re-
cordings you make are automatically quantized according to the set-
tings you have made in the Quantize Setup dialog.
Iterative Quantize
Another way to apply “loose” quantization is to use the Iterative Quan-
tize function on the MIDI menu. It works like this:
Instead of moving a note to the closest quantize grid position, Iterative 
Quantize moves it only part of the way. You specify how much the 
notes should be moved towards the grid with the Iterative Strength 
setting in the Quantize Setup dialog.
Iterative Quantize is also different from “regular” quantization, in that 
the operation is not based on the notes’ original positions but on their 
current, quantized position. This makes it possible to repeatedly use 
Iterative Quantize, gradually moving the notes closer to the quantize 
grid until you’ve find the desired timing.  
						

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MIDI processing and quantizing 2 – 67
Quantize Lengths
This function is only available from within the MIDI editors.
This function (on the Advanced Quantize submenu on the MIDI menu) 
will quantize the length of the notes, without changing their start posi-
tions. At its most basic level, this function will set the length of the notes 
to the Length Quantize value on the MIDI editors’ toolbar. However, if 
you have selected the “Quantize Link” option on the Length Quantize 
pop-up menu, the function will resize the note according to the quantize 
grid, taking the Swing, Tuplet and Magnetic Area settings into account. 
An example:
1. Length Quantize set to “Quantize Link”.
2. Some notes, all a 1/16th note of length.
3. Here, the quantize value has been set to straight 1/16th notes with Swing at 
100%. Since Snap is activated (see page 140), the quantize grid is reflected in the 
note display’s grid.
4. Selecting Quantize Lengths will adjust the note lengths according to the grid. If 
you compare the result to the first figure above, you will find that notes that started 
within the odd sixteenth note “zones” got the longer grid length, and notes in the 
even zones got the shorter length.     
						

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Quantize Ends
The Quantize Ends function on the Advanced Quantize submenu will 
only affect the end positions of notes. Apart from that, it works just like 
regular quantizing, taking the Quantize pop-up menu setting into ac-
count.
Undo and Freeze Quantize
As mentioned above, the original position of each quantized note is 
stored. Therefore, you can make the selected MIDI notes revert to their 
original, unquantized state at any time, by selecting Undo Quantize from 
the Advanced Quantize submenu. This is independent from the regular 
Undo History.
However, there may be situations when you want to make the quantized 
positions “permanent”. For example, you may want to quantize notes a 
second time, having the results based on the current quantized posi-
tions rather than the original positions. To make this possible, select the 
notes in question and select “Freeze Quantize” from the Advanced 
Quantize submenu. This makes the quantized positions permanent.
After you have performed a Freeze Quantize for a note, you cannot undo 
its quantization. 
						

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Transpose 
The Transpose item on the MIDI menu opens a dialog with settings for 
transposing the selected notes:
Semitones
This is where you set the amount of transposition.
Scale Correction
Scale Correction transposes the selected notes by forcing them to 
the closest note of the selected scale type. This can be used for cre-
ating interesting key and tonal changes, either by itself or in conjunc-
tion with the other settings in the Transpose dialog.
•To activate Scale Correction, click the checkbox.
•Select a root note for the scale from the note drop-down menu.
Make sure to select the correct root note if you want to keep the result in the same key 
as the original notes, or select an entirely different key if you want to experiment.
•Select the desired scale type from the Scale drop-down menu.  
						

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Keep Notes in Range
When this checkbox is activated, transposed notes will remain within 
the Upper and Lower Barrier values.
•If a note ends up outside the barriers after transposition, it will be shifted 
to another octave, keeping the correct transposed pitch if possible.
If this isn’t possible (if you have set a very narrow range between the Upper and Lower 
Barrier), the note will be transposed “as far as possible”, i.e. to the Upper or Lower 
Barrier note. If you set the Upper and Lower Barriers to the same value, all notes will be 
transposed to this pitch!
OK and Cancel
Clicking OK performs the transposition. Clicking Cancel closes the 
dialog without transposing.
Other MIDI menu functions
The following items can be found on the MIDI menu–Functions sub-
menu:
Legato
Extends each selected note so that it reaches the next note. You can 
specify the desired gap or overlap with the “Legato Overlap” setting in 
the Preferences dialog (Editing page).
When using Legato with this setting, each note will be extended to end 5 ticks 
before the next note.