Steinberg Sequel 2 Operation Manual

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Tutorial 2: Editing
Splitting with Snap off
Splitting with Snap off allows you to cut the event any-
where you like, without locking to the grid.
1.Make sure that Snap is deactivated. You can now split 
the event anywhere you like.
You can press [J] on your computer keyboard to toggle Snap on and off.
2.Select the “Synth” event.
3.Hover the cursor along the bottom of the event. The 
cursor turns into the Split tool.
4.Click anywhere along the bottom of the event to split 
it. Create as many splits as you like.
5.Undo your actions by selecting the Undo Split option 
from the Edit menu. Make sure there are no splits in the 
“Synth” event any more.
Splitting with Snap on
Having the Snap button activated allows you to split or cut 
with precision, directly on bars or beats.
1.Make sure that the Snap button is activated.
You can press [J] on your computer keyboard to toggle Snap on and off.
2.Let’s split the “Drums” event on the third beat of every 
bar.
3.If you can’t see beats in the grid, zoom in using the [H] 
key on your keyboard until you can see them.4.Cut on bar 1 beat 3, bar 2 beat 3, bar 3 beat 3, and 
bar 4 beat 3.
5.Undo your actions by selecting the Undo Split option 
from the Edit menu. Make sure there are no splits in the 
“Drums” event any more.
Moving
Let’s move all of the events in the project so that all the 
events on all tracks line up with bar 2.
1.Make sure that Snap is activated.
You can press [J] on your computer keyboard to toggle Snap on and off.
2.Click and hold the mouse in an empty area of the Ar-
range Zone. Drag to create a selection of all the events. 
When you release the mouse button, all of the events will 
be selected.
3.With all of the events selected, click and drag them so 
that the events line up with bar 2.
4.Click on an empty area of the Arrange Zone so that no 
events are selected.
All of the events have moved together, and have stayed in 
the same relative position.
5.Select all of the events again, and drag them back to 
bar 1. 
						

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Tutorial 2: Editing
Muting
Muting an event stops you from hearing just that event. 
You may want to mute events on a track so that the track 
continues to play except for the muted events.
ÖNote that this is different from muting a track.
1.Hover the cursor over the event you wish to mute. The 
mute button will appear in the top right hand corner of the 
event.
2.Click on the Mute button. The event will turn gray. This 
means that the event in muted.
3.To unmute the event click on the “Mute” button again.
Repeating
The Repeat function is great for repeating something over 
and over directly after the event you want to repeat. This 
function is built right into events in Sequel.
Let’s repeat the “Drums” event:
1.Click on the “Repeat handle” on the middle right side 
of the event and drag until the “Repeat Count” is three.
2.We now have five “Drums” events. Two original ones 
and three repeats.
Copying
Copying can be used to copy an event to another area in 
the Arrange Zone.
Using copy and paste
1.To copy an event, click on the desired event and choose 
“Copy” from the Edit menu. In our case, let’s copy the “Gui-
tar” event.
2.Position the cursor at the point in the project where 
you would like the copy to be made. We’ll place the cursor 
at bar 5 beat 2.
3.Select the track that you want the event to be copied 
to by clicking on it in the track list. 
4.Choose “Paste” from the Edit menu. 
ÖIf a different track is selected, the Paste command will 
paste the event to this track instead. Therefore, always 
make sure that the right track is selected before choosing 
Paste.
5.We have now two “Guitar” events.
Using the [Ctrl]/[Command] key
1.Place the cursor in the center of the Synth event and 
hold down [Ctrl]/[Command].
2.We are going to copy the “Synth” event. Click and 
hold the selected event and drag to the position you wish 
the copy to be made. In this case, drag until the copy is 
lined up with bar 5.
3.Release the mouse button.
4.Now we have two “Synth” events.
Erasing
1.Select an event to erase.
2.Press [Delete] or [Backspace] to delete the event.
You can also select the Delete option on the Edit menu. 
						

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Tutorial 2: Editing
About the Sample Editor
The Sample Editor is used for detailed editing. It can be 
used for the following:
 Quantization

 Adding Silence
 Reversing
These features are described in the chapter “Advanced 
features” on page 79.
1.To open the Sample Editor, select an audio event and 
then select the Editor Page in the Multi Zone.
You can also double click the event in the Arrange Zone to display it in 
the Sample Editor.
2.The selected audio event is displayed in the center of 
the Editor Page. Here you can see a detailed waveform 
rendering of the audio file.
The functions along the left side of the window such as Vol-
ume, Mute, Transpose, Transpose lock and Reverse are de-
scribed in the section “The Editor Page” on page 70.
Editing instrument parts
In this section, we are going to look at some of the editing 
functions for instrument parts that are available in Sequel.
Key Editor
The Key Editor is where we can make changes to the in-
strument data on our instrument tracks.
Importing
You can import Instrument parts by simply dragging them 
from the MediaBay Page or your desktop and dropping 
them in the Arrange Zone. 
Deleting notes
Select the “Synth” event and go to the Editor Page in the 
Multi Zone to view the Key Editor. Here you can see the 
synth notes lined up with a keyboard or piano roll on the 
left. At the bottom the velocity of each of the notes is 
shown and at the top we can see the time ruler.
Let’s delete all the notes in bar 1.
1.Click once and hold the mouse while dragging a selec-
tion rectangle over the first bar.
A common term for this is to “lasso” the notes.
2.Press [Delete] or [Backspace] on your computer key-
board to delete all the notes in the first bar.
!Load the project “Key Editor” found in the “Sequel 
Tutorial 2” folder. 
						

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Tutorial 2: Editing
Copying notes
Let’s copy all of the notes from the second bar into the 
first bar.
1.Lasso all the notes in bar 2.
2.Hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and drag the notes from 
bar 2 to bar 1 to copy them.
Resizing notes
We can shorten or lengthen notes using the Key Editor. 
Let’s make all the eighth notes in the first two bars into 
quarter notes.
1.Lasso all the notes in the first two bars.
2.Put the mouse pointer at the end of any of the lassoed 
notes. It changes to look like two arrows pointing away 
from each other.
3.Click and drag right to resize the notes.
Creating or drawing in notes
We can use the Key Editor to draw in notes. This is great 
for creating instrument arrangements that you are having 
trouble playing in yourself.
Let’s add some notes to the first two bars of the song:
1.Make the Key Editor larger by clicking on the bar along 
the top of the Multi Zone and dragging upwards.
2.Make the notes in the Key Editor larger by adjusting 
the zoom slider along the right hand side of the Key Editor.
3.Let’s draw in a G above the first C in bar 1 so that two 
notes will be played instead of one.
4.Hold down [Alt]/[Option] so that the cursor becomes a 
pencil.
5.Click and drag to draw in an eighth note G.
6.Next, draw in notes above the rest of the notes in bar 1 
and 2.
Have fun and experiment with different note placements.
!Pressing [Alt]/[Option] is the magic way to get the 
Pencil tool, for drawing in instrument parts in the Ar-
range Zone or events in the Key Editor! 
						

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Tutorial 2: Editing
The Controller lane
The Controller Lane allows us to add in or modify instru-
ment data such as velocity and controller information. The 
most common use for this is to edit velocity or pitch bend. 
If you find that the velocity is too strong or weak on certain 
notes, you can view and edit them at the bottom of the Key 
Editor.
1.On the pop-up menu, select the information you wish 
to view or change; in this example, choose “Velocity”.
Along the bottom, you can see the velocity setting for each note con-
tained in the instrument part.
2.Hold down [Alt]/[Option] so that the cursor becomes a 
pencil.
3.Click and drag to move the velocity information for a 
note up or down.
4.You can also click and move the cursor across the 
controller lane in a wave-type motion to draw in curves or 
ramps in the information.
Move ahead to the next chapter where we will discuss 
mixing, EQs, automation, effects, and exporting.
The controller lanePop-up menu 
						

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Tutorial 3: Mixing 
						

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Tutorial 3: Mixing
Introduction
In this chapter, we’ll show you how to get to a mix ready 
with proper levels, EQs and effects. Automation will be 
added and then we’ll export the audio.
ÖThe following sections make references to tutorial 
projects, located in the default Sequel project folder.
Setting levels
The first thing that we need to do is set the levels for our 
project. This helps us get a great starting point for the mix 
so we can add EQ and effects later.
1.Select the Mixer Page in the Multi Zone.
2.Press the space bar on your computer keyboard to 
start playing back the project and listen to your mix.
3.Move the faders on each track so that you hear every-
thing the way you like it.
ÖIf for any reason you need to reset a fader back to its 
default position of 100, [Ctrl]/[Command]-click directly in 
the fader area.
ÖBe careful how high you raise the faders. Make sure 
that everything is at a good volume without clipping or dis-
tortion or any other unpleasant sounds. You will know that 
your tracks are too loud when the Master fader area turns 
red. If this happens, lower the levels and click the red Au-
dio Overload indicator to reset it.That’s it for setting levels. Let’s check out pan next.
Setting Pan
Setting the pan for each track moves its position in the ste-
reo mix. You can either keep the signal balanced in the mid-
dle of the left and right speaker, slightly to the left or slightly 
to the right or be completely in the left or right speaker.
Keep the “Drums” track in the middle. Move the “Bass” 
track slightly to the left and move the “Guitar” track almost 
all the way left and the “Synth” track almost all the way to 
the right. This will give the mix a little bit more of a feeling 
of space.
ÖIf you need to get the panner back to the center, [Ctrl]/
[Command]-click directly in the panner area.
That’s it for pan, let’s move on to Mute and Solo.
!Load the project “Mixing 1” found in the “Sequel 
Tutorial 3” folder.
!Load the project “Mixing 2” found in the “Sequel 
Tutorial 3” folder. 
						

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Tutorial 3: Mixing
Mute and Solo
For each track, there are buttons for Mute and Solo. Mute 
will prevent you from hearing the track, and Solo will only 
play that track or tracks that have Solo enabled.
ÖYou can have several tracks muted or soloed at a time.
ÖWhen you Solo a track, the other tracks become 
muted.
To disable a Solo or Mute simply click the button again.
To simultaneously mute a track that is soloed and solo an-
other track, [Ctrl]/[Command]-click on the solo button of 
the track that you wish to solo.
That’s it for Solo and Mute. Let’s move on to adding EQ.
Adding EQ
EQ or equalization adds or subtracts frequencies, so that 
you can place each instrument correctly in the mix. EQ is 
subjective and can be influenced by the kind of music you 
are mixing or the kind of music that you like to listen to.
We are going to run through the EQ features that Sequel 
has to offer, but feel free to experiment and try our differ-
ent presets on your mix.
1.Select the “Drums” track in the Arrange Zone.
2.Solo the Drums track and select the Track Inspector 
Page in the Multi Zone.3.Click on the “Equalizers” tab.
ÖMake sure that you have a section of your project play-
ing that features the “Drums” track so that you can hear 
your EQ changes.
Each track in Sequel has a 3-band EQ. The low shelf or 
bass frequency sets the frequency at which the low tones 
will be affected. The parametric mid or middle frequency 
sets the frequency at which the middle tones will be 
affected. The high shelf or treble frequency sets the fre-
quency at which the high tones will be affected.
You can adjust the frequency of each EQ by clicking on the 
corresponding frequency slider and dragging left or right.
The exact frequency that is being affected is displayed in 
the EQ settings display.
!Load the project “Mixing 3” found in the “Sequel 
Tutorial 3” folder.
!Load the project “Mixing 4” found in the “Sequel 
Tutorial 3” folder.
The different sections where Lo, Mid and Hi EQ are shown 
						

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Tutorial 3: Mixing
The middle EQ is a parametric EQ. That means that the 
frequency range of this EQ can be widened or shortened. 
To do this, click on the middle width or “Q” slider and drag 
right to widen the range and left to shorten it.
You can adjust the EQs level by raising or lowering the 
bass, middle, or treble gain slider. To do this, click and 
drag up or down on the desired slider.
To bypass the EQ, click the Bypass button.
You can reset any slider by [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking on 
it. You can also reset the EQ from the EQ Presets pop-up. 
Simply click in the EQ Presets field and select “Reset”.
Experiment with the EQs on all your tracks.
ÖA good tip when using EQ is that it’s usually better to 
take away EQ (lower the gain) than to add it.
Now let’s move on to effects.Audio effects
Let’s add some effects to our project. In Sequel, there are 
three types of effects that we can manipulate:
 Track Effects
 Global Effects

For details on each effect and its parameters, see the 
chapter “Effects reference” on page 99.
You can also add effects to instrument parts. This is 
described in detail in the section “The Event Effects tab 
(instrument tracks only)” on page 64.
Track effects
Track effects are commonly referred to as insert effects. 
This is because they are inserted into the signal flow.
1.Select the “Bass” track.
2.Make sure you have the Track Inspector Page se-
lected and click on the “Track Effects” tab.
3.Begin playback and loop (or “cycle”) a section of music 
so that you can hear everything.
The tutorial project has its locators and cycle already set for this. Feel free 
to change this if you like.
4.Let’s use the Compression fixed insert on the “Bass” 
track to smooth it out a little bit.
!Listen to, and see the changes we made to the EQ 
by loading the project “Mixing 5” found in the “Se-
quel Tutorial 3” folder.
!Load the project “Mixing 6” found in the “Sequel 
Tutorial 3” folder.
Track Effects tab 
						

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Tutorial 3: Mixing
5.Adjust the Threshold slider until the bass sounds 
smoother and there isn’t such a big difference between 
the notes that were played quieter versus the notes that 
were played a little louder.
6.Raise the “Channel Level” to compensate for the re-
duction in Gain that the compression has caused on the 
“Bass” track.
7.Next let’s add some flange to the “Synth” track to 
make it stand out a little bit more. Select the “Synth” track 
in the Arrange Zone.
8.Click on the first insert slot and choose “Flanger” from 
the Modulation submenu.9.Make changes to the effect manually, or select a pre-
set from the “Effect Preset” menu.
For details on each effect and its parameters, see the 
chapter “Effects reference” on page 99.
At the end of this section, you can load the next tutorial 
that will contain all of the changes we have made.
Global effects
Each project can have two send effects. These are referred 
to as Global Effects.
1.Make sure you have the Track Inspector Page selected 
and click on the “Global Effects” tab.
Reverb and StereoDelay are set as the default send effects. 
You can change them if you like, but remember you only 
have two slots that will be used for all tracks.
Let’s add some reverb to the drums:
2.Select the “Drums” track and make sure “Amount 1” is 
enabled. This will send the “Drums” to the “Reverb” effect 
which is in the Send 1 spot.
3.Move the “Amount 1” slider until you hear the desired 
amount of the “Reverb” effect.
For details on each effect and its parameters, see the 
chapter “Effects reference” on page 99.
!Load the project “Mixing 7” found in the “Sequel 
Tutorial 3” folder.
Effect Preset 
menu
Send effect 1 Send effect 2 Amount 1 enabled