Steinberg Cubase 8 Manual

							Designing your score: additional techniques
Breaking bar lines
1301
Coordinates
Removes all manual spacing of note symbols and slurs.
Breaking bar lines
Sometimes you may not want a bar line to stretch all the way across a grand staff. 
If this is the case, you have the possibility to “break it”.
Manually
You can break the bar lines in one grand staff or in several grand staves and 
re-connect them.
Breaking bar lines in one grand staff
PROCEDURE
1. Select the Erase tool.
2. Click on a bar line connecting the two staves.
Before and after splitting the bar lines between two staves.
All bar lines between these two staves (except the first and last) are broken. To break 
the first or last bar line in a grand staff, you need to click directly on these.
Breaking bar lines in several grand staves
If you hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click on a bar line as described above, the 
corresponding bar lines are broken in all following grand staves. 
						

							Designing your score: additional techniques
Breaking bar lines
1302
Re-connecting broken bar lines
If you have broken the bar lines, you can use the Glue tool to connect them again.
PROCEDURE
1. Select the Glue tool.
2. Click on one of the bar lines in the staff above the broken bar lines.
All bar lines between these staves in this grand staff are connected.
To re-connect bar lines in several grand staves, hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click 
with the Glue tool.
The bar lines between the corresponding staves are connected in all following grand 
staves.
Automatically
If you have added brackets for some staves on the Layout page of the Score 
Settings dialog, you can have bar lines broken between each bracketed “section”, 
giving a clearer indication of which staves belong together:
PROCEDURE
1. Open the Score Settings dialog from the Score menu and, on the Project 
page, select the “Notation Style” subpage.
2. In the Bar Lines section, locate and activate the “Break Bar Lines with 
Brackets” option.
The option Break Last Brackets determines whether the breaking of bar lines should 
also apply to the bar line at the end of each row.
RELATED LINKS
Adding brackets and braces on page 1296 
						

							1303
Scoring for drums
About this chapter
In this chapter you will learn:
• How to set up the drum map.
• How to set up a staff for drum notes.
• How to enter and edit drum notes.
• How to use a single line drum staff.
Background: Drum maps in the Score Editor
When scoring for drums, you can assign a unique note head to each pitch. There is 
even the possibility to set up different note heads for different note values!
However, to be able to fully use this function, you need to understand a bit about 
drum maps, and the use of these in the Score Editor.
About drum maps
Cubase handles drum editing by means of drum maps. In the Score Editor, the drum 
map displays different note heads for different pitches.
You access the drum map by selecting “Drum Map Setup” from the MIDI menu. 
						

							Scoring for drums
Setting up the drum map
1304
RELATED LINKS
MIDI Editors on page 686
Use Score Drum Map on/off
For the drum map settings to be used in the score, you need to activate the “Use 
Score Drum Map” option in the Score Settings dialog on the Staff page (Options 
tab).
Setting up the drum map
To set up the drum map, proceed as follows:
PROCEDURE
1. Open the Score Editor for the drums track.
This should be a MIDI track to which you have assigned a drum map.
2. Open the Score Settings dialog and select the Staff page.
3. Select the Options tab and activate the “Use Score Drum Map” option.
4. On the MIDI menu, select “Drum Map Setup”.
The Drum Map Setup dialog appears. 
						

							Scoring for drums
Setting up the drum map
1305
5. Make settings for the sounds/MIDI notes you need.
IMPORTANT
Please note that many different drum maps can be created for a project. Which one 
you get depends on which drum map is assigned to the edited track. These drum 
maps are totally independent of one another, i.
 e. each pitch can have different 
settings in different drum maps.
Score related options
Pitch
This corresponds to the I-note of the sound in the drum map, and cannot be 
edited here.
Instrument
The name of the drum sound in the map.
Display Note
The display pitch, i. e. the pitch at which the note is shown in the score. For 
example, you typically want all three hi-hat sounds to be shown on the same 
system line in the score (but with different symbols). Therefore, you set these 
to the same display pitch.
Head Symbol
Clicking in this column opens a window in which you can select a note head 
symbol for the sound. If “Use Head Pairs” is activated in the dialog, you can 
select a note head pair instead.
Voice
This allows you to make all notes with this pitch belong to a certain voice, so 
that they get a common rest handling and stem direction, for example.
Initializing the display pitches
If you select “Init Display Notes” from the Functions pop-up menu in the top left 
corner of the Drum Map Setup dialog, all display pitch values are reset, so that 
actual pitch and display pitch are the same for each sound/note.
Using note head pairs
Not only can you have different drum sounds displayed with different note heads, 
you can also display different note heads for different note values:
PROCEDURE
1. Activate the “Use Head Pairs” checkbox.
The “Head Symbol” column now shows two head symbols for each drum sound. 
						

							Scoring for drums
Setting up the drum map
1306
All head symbols are arranged in pairs – by default an “empty” head and a “filled” 
head. Just as with regular notes, the “empty” note heads are used with half notes and 
larger note values, and the “filled” heads are used with quarter notes and smaller note 
values.
2. To select a head pair for a drum sound/note, click in the Head symbol column 
to open the pop-up menu and choose the new head pair.
Customizing note head pairs
If you do not like the default pairs of note heads, you can edit these:
PROCEDURE
1. On the Functions pop-up menu, select “Edit head pairs”.
2. To change a symbol in a pair, click on it and select a new symbol from the 
pop-up menu.
3. When you are done, click Exit to close the dialog.
Editing the drum map in the score
If you activate the “Edit in Scores” option in the Drum Map Setup dialog, you can 
change the settings for the score drum map directly in the score:
• Transposing a note changes the display pitch of its drum sound – the actual 
note is not transposed.
• Double-clicking a note allows you to make note head settings for that drum 
sound. 
						

							Scoring for drums
Setting up a staff for drum scoring
1307
• Using the “Move to Voice” function changes the voice assignment of the drum 
sound.
NOTE
This requires that you leave the Drum Map Setup dialog open – closing the dialog 
automatically deactivates this option, allowing you to perform normal editing.
Setting up a staff for drum scoring
PROCEDURE
1. Open the Score Settings dialog on the Staff page and select the Options tab.
2. Make sure that “Use Score Drum Map” is activated.
3. If you want a single line drum staff, activate the corresponding option.
4. If you want flat beams, activate the corresponding option.
5. If you want all stems to end at the same position, activate Fixed Stems and set 
a length for up/down stems.
You may also want to use polyphonic voices to handle rest and stem separately.
However, you can still activate the “Fixed Stems” option if you like.
RELATED LINKS
Using “Single Line Drum Staff” on page 1308
Polyphonic voicing on page 1320
Handling beaming on page 1188
Entering and editing notes
This is like entering notes on a normal note system. However, Notes are edited 
using their display pitch when the drum map is used. This means that when you 
move a note vertically, you move it to another display pitch. What actual pitch it gets 
depends on which pitch uses the display pitch you now “dropped it on”.
NOTE
If the drum map contains two notes with the same pitch (for example open and 
closed hi-hat), you can get the second note by holding [Ctrl]/[Command]. 
						

							Scoring for drums
Using “Single Line Drum Staff”
1308
Using “Single Line Drum Staff”
When this option is activated on the Options tab of the Staff page in the Score 
Settings dialog, there is only one line in the system. Furthermore, notes can only 
appear below the line, on the line and above the line.
To decide which notes go where, proceed as follows:
PROCEDURE
1. Open the Score Settings dialog on the Staff page and select the Options tab.
2. Activate “Use Score Drum Map” and “Single Line Drum Staff”.
3. Set up the two pitch values to decide which pitches go on the line.
Notes below this range automatically wind up below the line and notes above wind 
up above the line.
IMPORTANT
When you enter and edit the pitch of notes on a single line drum staff, the best way 
is to drag the note up or down while watching the Mouse Note Position display in the 
status line. 
						

							1309
Creating tablature
About this chapter
In this chapter you will learn:
• How to create tablature, automatically and manually.
• How to control the appearance of the tablature notes.
• How to edit tablature.
Cubase is able to produce score in tablature format. This can be done automatically, 
by “converting” recorded MIDI information. You can also create a tablature staff 
from scratch and enter the notes “by hand”.
IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT
Even though we use the term 
						

							Creating tablature
Creating tablature automatically
1310
3. Activate “Tablature Mode”.
4. Select one of the predefined instruments from the pop-up menu.
• If you are not using one of the predefined instruments, set the open tuning of 
each string using the value fields.
You can create tablature for up to 12 strings. To disable a string, set it to Off, 
the lowest value.
5. If you want to use a capodaster, e. g. on the forth fret, enter the corresponding 
value in the Capo field.
The tablature changes accordingly.
6. Make the desired settings for “No Stems/Rests” and “MIDI Channel 1–6”.
No Stems/Rests gives you a score where the notes have no stems and where all the 
rests are hidden. The “MIDI Channel 1–6” feature is described below.
7. Click Apply.
The tablature appears. You get as many note lines as you have activated strings. All 
the notes now have a fret number instead of their regular note heads.
Before and after activating tablature mode.
8. Edit the score, if needed.
You can make Display Quantize settings, add symbols, etc. as usual. However, 
editing the actual notes is a bit different from regular note editing, see below.
Using “MIDI Channel 1–6”
This feature makes notes automatically appear on the correct string according to 
their MIDI channel value.