Steinberg Cubase 8 Manual

							How the Score Editor works
Display Quantize
1091
This does not 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 is to 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).
Let’s say we change the Display Quantize value to sixteenth notes in the example:
With Display Quantize set to sixteenth notes
OK, now the timing looks right, but the notes still do not 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 are 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 h ave  eight h n ote s, as w e w an ted. Al l we h ave  to do n ow is to  add st accato  
articulation which can be done with one simple mouse click using the Draw tool or 
using musical articulations.
How did this work? By setting the Display Quantize value to eighth notes, you give 
the program two instructions that would sound something like this in English: 
“Display all notes as if they were on exact eighth note positions, regardless of their 
actual positions” and “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:
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
Setting a Display Quantize value does not alter the MIDI notes of your recording in 
any way, as regular quantizing does. It only affects how the notes are displayed in 
the Score Editor (and nowhere else)!
RELATED LINKS
Working with symbols on page 1206
Expression maps (Cubase Pro only) on page 778 
						

							How the Score Editor works
Display Quantize
1092
Choose your Display Quantize values with care
As explained above, the Display Quantize value for notes puts a restriction on the 
smallest note value that can be displayed. Let’s see 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 still plays as it originally did. The 
Display Quantize setting only affects the score image of the recording.
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
Even if you manually enter notes in the score using 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 get eighth notes in the 
track (as MIDI data), but still only quarter notes in the display!
Using Rests as Display Quantize setting
Above we used Display Quantize for notes. There is a similar Display Quantize 
setting called “Rests” which is used to set the smallest rest to be displayed. Often, 
this setting is very effective.
Let’s start with the following note example:
As you see, the first note appears one sixteenth note late. If we change the Display 
Quantize value for notes to eighth notes, the score is displayed like this:
With Display Quantize: Notes set to eighth notes
Unfortunately, this moves the first note to the same position as the second, since 
sixteenth note positions are not allowed. We can solve this by inserting extra Display 
Quantize values within the bar with the Display Quantize tool, but there is a much 
easier way: Change the Display Quantize value for notes back to sixteenths, but set 
the value for rests to eighth notes! This tells the program not to display any rests 
smaller than eighth notes, except when necessary. The result looks like this:
With Display Quantize: Notes set to sixteenth notes, but Rests set to eighth notes. 
						

							How the Score Editor works
Display Quantize
1093
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 can be hidden by displaying the notes as 
eighth notes, and were therefore not “necessary”.
This leads us to the following general guidelines:
• Set the Notes value according to the “smallest note position” you want to be 
shown in the score (e.
 g. if you have notes on odd sixteenth note positions, set 
the Notes to sixteenth notes).
• Set the Rests value according to the smallest note value (length) you want to 
be displayed for a single note, positioned on a beat.
Common Display Quantize settings would be to have Notes set to 16 
(sixteenth notes) and Rests set to 4 (quarter notes).
RELATED LINKS
Inserting Display Quantize changes on page 1122
Handling exceptions
Unfortunately, the guidelines above do not work perfectly in every situation. You may 
for example have a mix of straight notes and tuplets of different 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 Auto Quantize. 
When this is activated, Cubase tries to “understand” whether the notes should be 
display quantized to straight notes or triplets.
RELATED LINKS
If your music contains mixed straight notes and triplets on page 1157
Using the Display Quantize tool
With the “Q” tool, you can insert new Display Quantize values anywhere in the 
score. Inserted Display Quantize values affect the staff from the insertion point 
onwards.
RELATED LINKS
Inserting Display Quantize changes on page 1122 
						

							How the Score Editor works
Entering notes by hand vs. recording notes
1094
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 the way you want without altering any MIDI data.
Summary
This closes our discussion on the basic concept of display quantizing. There are a 
number of other special situations which require more advanced techniques 
described in the next chapters. The interpretation options which work along the 
same lines as Display Quantize are also explained.
Entering notes by hand vs. recording notes
Sometimes you enter and edit notes by hand (or rather using the mouse and/or the 
computer keyboard) and at other times you record them from a MIDI keyboard. Most 
of the time, you do a combination of both. In real life, even if you have recorded the 
piece perfectly, you often have to do some permanent editing to your recording 
before printing.
RELATED LINKS
Transcribing MIDI recordings on page 1119
Entering and editing notes on page 1127 
						

							1095
The basics
About this chapter
In this chapter you will learn:
• How to open the Score Editor.
• How to switch between Page Mode and Edit Mode.
• How to set up the page size and margins.
• How to hide and show the Symbols Inspector, the toolbar, and the extended 
toolbar.
• How to set up the ruler.
• How to set a zoom factor.
• How to make initial settings for clef, key, and time signature.
• How to transpose instruments.
• How to print and export your score.
Preparations
PROCEDURE
1. In the Project window, create a MIDI track for each instrument.
You can prepare a piano (split) staff from a single track, i. e. there is no need to create 
one track for the bass clef and one for the treble clef.
2. Name each track after the instrument.
This name can later be used in the score if you like.
3. Record on the tracks or create empty parts on all tracks.
You can make very long parts that cover the entire project, 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. 
						

							The basics
Opening the Score Editor
1096
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 
on 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).
Editing whole tracks
When preparing a score for printing, you probably want to open whole MIDI tracks 
in the Score Editor. To do this, select the track(s) in the track list and make sure no 
parts are selected – then open the Score Editor as described above.
Editing parts on different tracks
If you have selected parts on two or more tracks (or several entire tracks – no parts) 
and open the Score Editor, you get one staff for each track (although you can split 
a staff in two, e.
 g. when scoring for piano). Think of the Project window as an 
overview of your entire score and the tracks as representing one instrument each.
Editing predefined combinations of tracks
You can open the Score Editor for a certain combination of tracks that you edited 
before.
RELATED LINKS
Layout operations on page 1271
Displaying single voices or the complete score
When the Double-click on staff flips between full score/part option is activated in 
the Preferences dialog (Scores–Editing page), double-clicking on the blue 
rectangle to the left of a staff switches between display of either the whole score or 
the current voice. 
						

							The basics
The project cursor
1097
The project cursor
The project cursor appears as a vertical line across the staff. When you open the 
Score Editor, the view is automatically scrolled so that the project cursor is visible 
in the window. This means you do not always see the beginning of the edited part 
when you first open the Score Editor.
• Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and [Shift] and click anywhere in the score to move 
the project cursor there.
This is handy when the project cursor is not visible. This is not possible if 
Computer Keyboard Input mode is activated.
RELATED LINKS
Entering notes using the computer keyboard on page 1132
Playing back and recording
You can play back and record MIDI in the Score Editor using the standard transport 
commands, just like in the other MIDI editors.
RELATED LINKS
MIDI Editors on page 686
Page Mode
When you are preparing a score for printout, you should set the Score Editor to 
Page Mode. This is done by selecting Page Mode from the Scores menu. When 
Page Mode is activated, a checkmark appears next to this menu option.
In Page mode, the window switches to display one page at a time, as it appears on 
printout.
Page Mode vs. Edit Mode
When Page Mode is not activated, the Score Editor is in Edit Mode. All you can do 
in Edit Mode, you can also do in Page Mode. But Page Mode offers lots of additional 
features which are directly related to how the score is displayed and printed. 
						

							The basics
Page Mode
1098
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
This section of the manual assumes you are in Page Mode. It is mentioned explicitly 
if something in this text specifically relates to Edit Mode.
Changing the Background in Page Mode
In Page Mode, you can specify different background textures for the score by 
selecting an option from the Background Texture pop-up menu on the toolbar.
NOTE
The background texture only affects the display and is not used for printing.
Using the scrollbars in Page Mode
In Page Mode, the scrollbars are used to scroll the image of the page inside the 
window.
Moving between pages in Page Mode
If your score takes up more than one page, you use the page number indicator in 
the lower right corner to move to another page in your score. The number can be 
adjusted using the standard editing techniques.
The page number indicator – adjust it to move to another page.
Also, if Auto-Scroll is activated on the toolbar, the score display follows the project 
cursor position. This way you can scroll the score by using fast forward or rewind.
Editing individual parts in Page Mode
When you view a single part in Page Mode, the bars before and after the part is 
normally shown as empty measures in the Score Editor. This is to preserve the 
layout of the track, i.
 e. the spacing between staves and bar lines, number of bars 
per staff, etc.
If you want to view and print a single part, without any surrounding empty bars, 
activate the “Unlock Layout when editing single parts” option in the Preferences 
dialog (Scores–Editing page). Note, however, that if you adjust the layout when 
editing the part in this mode, this erases the layout for the whole track! 
						

							The basics
Changing the zoom factor
1099
Changing the zoom factor
There are two ways to change the zoom in Page Mode: by setting a zoom factor on 
the zoom pop-up menu or by using the Zoom tool (magnifying glass).
Using the Zoom pop-up menu
Above the vertical scrollbar to the right you can find a pop-up menu allowing you to 
set the zoom factor.
By zooming in you can make detailed adjustments to symbols, etc. By zooming out 
you get a better overview.
• If you select “Fit Page”, the zoom factor is adjusted according to the window 
size so that the whole page becomes visible.
• If you select “Fit Width”, the zoom factor is adjusted according to the window 
width so that the full width of the page becomes visible.
NOTE
This pop-up menu can also be opened by right-clicking in the ruler.
Using the Zoom tool
The Zoom tool in the Score Editor works much like in the Project window:
• Click once with the Zoom tool to zoom in one step.
• Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click once with the Zoom tool to zoom out one 
step.
• Drag a rectangle with the Zoom tool to set a custom zoom factor.
The section encompassed by the rectangle is zoomed to fill the window. 
						

							The basics
The active staff
1100
• Hold down a modifier key and right-click with the Zoom tool to open the Zoom 
context menu, and select the desired Zoom setting.
Using the Mouse wheel
You can also zoom by holding down [Ctrl]/[Command] and moving the mouse 
wheel. The mouse position is kept (if possible) when zooming in or out.
The active staff
One thing to note when you are working with multiple staves is the “active” staff. 
Only one staff at a time can be active, and it is indicated by a blue rectangle to the 
left of the clef symbol.
This staff is active.
NOTE
To make a staff active, click anywhere on it. By default, you can also use the up and 
down arrow keys on the computer keyboard to step between staves.
Making page setup settings
Before preparing the score for printout, you have to make some page settings for 
your project. This does not have to be the first thing you do, but it is a good working 
habit, because it also affects the on-screen display of the score.
PROCEDURE
1. On the File menu, select Page Setup.
The Page Setup dialog appears. This is the regular operation system Page Setup 
dialog, described in detail in your system’s documentation. The only things that 
Cubase adds to this are the margin settings.
2. Select the preferred printer, paper size, orientation, etc.