Steinberg Cubase Le 4 Manual

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The MIDI editors
Using cut, copy and paste
You can use the standard Cut, Copy and Paste options on 
the Edit menu to move or copy events in the controller dis-
play:
1.Select the events you want to cut or copy.
2.Select Cut or Copy from the Edit menu.
3.If you want to paste the events into another MIDI part, 
open that part in another Key Editor window.
4.Position the project cursor where you want to paste 
the events.
5.Select Paste from the Edit menu.
The events on the clipboard are added, starting at the project cursor po-
sition, maintaining their relative distances. If a pasted event ends up at 
the same position as an existing event of the same type, the old event is 
replaced. 
Deleting events in the controller display
You delete events by clicking on them with the Eraser tool 
or by selecting them and pressing [Backspace]. Please 
note:
Deleting a controller event makes the last event before 
this valid up until the next event. It does not “zero” any 
controller changes.
You can delete notes by deleting their velocity bars in 
the controller display.
Please be aware that if there is more than one note on the same position, 
there may still only be one velocity bar visible – make sure you delete only 
the desired notes!
Adding and editing Poly Pressure events
Poly Pressure events are special, in that they “belong to” a 
specific note number (key). That is, each Poly Pressure 
event has two editable values: the note number and the 
amount of pressure. Therefore, when Poly Pressure is se-
lected on the event type pop-up menu, there are two value 
fields to the left of the controller display, one for the note 
number and one for the amount:
To add a new Poly Pressure event, proceed as follows:
1.Select Poly Pressure on the event type pop-up menu.
2.Set the note number by clicking on the keyboard dis-
play.
The selected note number is displayed in the upper value field to the left 
of the controller display. Note that this only works for the topmost lane. If 
you have selected “Poly Pressure” for several controller lanes, you have 
to type in the desired note number directly in the lower value field to the 
left of each lane. 
3.Use the Pencil tool to add a new event, just as when 
adding regular controller events.
To view and edit existing Poly Pressure events, proceed 
as follows:
1.Select Poly Pressure on the event type pop-up menu.
2.Click on the arrow button next to the note number field 
to the left of the controller lane.
A pop-up menu appears, listing all note numbers for which there already 
are Poly Pressure events.
3.Select a note number from the pop-up menu.
The Poly Pressure events for the selected note number are shown in the 
controller lane.
4.Use the Pencil tool to edit the events as usual.
Press [Alt]/[Option] to edit existing events without adding any new ones.
Poly Pressure events can also be added and edited in 
the List Editor.
!Remember that a non-note event doesn’t have a 
length – it’s “valid” until the next event (see “The 
controller display” on page 169.
!When the Auto Select Controllers button is activated 
in the Key Editor toolbar, selecting controller events 
will also select the corresponding notes. Moving 
events (either using cut/copy/paste or drag & drop) 
in the note display will also move the corresponding 
controller events and vice versa. See also “Selecting 
controllers within the note range” on page 174. 
						

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The MIDI editors
The Drum Editor – Overview
The toolbar and info line
These are much the same as the toolbar and info line in 
the Key Editor (see “The Key Editor – Overview” on page 
168), with the following differences:
The Drum Editor has no Pencil tool – instead there is a 
Drumstick tool (for entering and removing notes) and a 
Line tool with various line and curve modes (for drawing 
several notes in one go or editing controller events).
There are no Scissors and Glue Tube tools in the Drum 
Editor.
As in the Key Editor, the mouse pointer display in the 
toolbar shows the pitch and position of the pointer, but the 
pitch is shown as a drum sound name rather than a note 
number.
The Use Global Quantize button allows you to select 
which value should be used when Snap is activated – the 
global quantize value on the toolbar or the individual quan-
tize values for the drum sounds.
Instead of a Length Quantize pop-up, there is an Insert 
Length pop-up menu.
It is used in much the same way, as described on the following pages.
The drum sound list
A drum sound list for GM Drum Map.
The purpose of the Drum Editor is to edit MIDI tracks where 
each note (pitch) plays a separate sound, as is typically the 
case with a MIDI drum kit. The drum sound list to the left 
lists all drum sounds by name (according to the selected 
drum map or name list – see below), and lets you adjust 
and manipulate the drum sound setup in various ways.
Note:
The number of columns in the list depends on whether a 
drum map is selected for the track or not.
See “Working with drum maps” on page 185.
ToolbarRuler
Note 
display
Controller 
display
Drum sound list
Drum Maps 
						

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The MIDI editors
You can reorder the columns by dragging the column 
headings, and resize them by dragging the dividers be-
tween the column headings.
The note display
The note display of the Drum Editor displays notes as dia-
mond symbols. The vertical position of the notes corre-
sponds to the drum sound list to the left, while the horizontal 
position corresponds to the note’s position in time, just as in 
the Key Editor. Note however, that the diamond symbols 
don’t indicate the length of the notes. This makes sense, 
since drum sounds most often are “one-shot” samples that 
play to their end regardless of the note lengths.
Drum map and name pop-up menus
Below the drum sound list you will find two pop-up menus, 
used for selecting a drum map for the edited track or (if no 
drum map is selected) a list of drum sound names. For an 
explanation of drum maps, see “Working with drum maps” 
on page 185.
Controller display
The controller display in the Drum Editor is exactly the 
same as in the Key Editor. You can add or remove control-
ler lanes via the Quick menu, and create and edit events 
as described in the section “Editing in the controller dis-
play” on page 177.
Drum Editor operations
The basic handling (zooming, playback, auditioning, etc.) 
is the same as in the Key Editor (see “Key Editor opera-
tions” on page 170). The following sections describe the 
procedures and features specific to the Drum Editor.
Creating and editing notes
The standard way of entering notes in the Drum Editor is 
to click with the Drumstick tool.
When you move the pointer in the note display, its bar position and 
drum sound is indicated in the toolbar, making it easy to find the right 
sound and position.
The position of the created note depends on the following 
factors:
If Snap is deactivated on the toolbar, the note will ap-
pear exactly where you clicked.
In this mode, notes can be positioned freely.
If Snap is activated and Use Global Quantize is deacti-
vated on the toolbar, the note will snap to positions ac-
cording to the quantize value set for the sound in the drum 
sound list.
You can set up different quantize values for different drum sounds. You 
may for example want hi-hat notes snap to sixteenth notes, but snare and 
bass drum snap to eighth notes.
If both Snap and Use Global Quantize are activated, the 
note will snap to positions according to the Quantize set-
ting on the toolbar (next to the Use Global Quantize but-
ton).
The length of the inserted note is determined by the Insert 
Length setting on the toolbar. However, if this is set to 
“Drum-Map Link”, the note will get the length of the quan-
tize value for the drum sound.
ÖYou can quickly audition the drum sounds by clicking 
in the leftmost column in the drum sound list.
This plays the corresponding note. 
						

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The MIDI editors
ÖClicking 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 assign key commands to the insert velo-
city options. See “Setting velocity values” on page 172.
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 “Se-
lecting notes” on page 173).
Use the left and right arrow keys on the computer key-
board 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 acti-
vated in the Preferences (Editing page), all notes currently 
“touched” by the project cursor are automatically selected.
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 “Moving and transposing no-
tes” on page 174. 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 is deactivated, the notes will snap to positions 
according to the quantize values for the drum sounds. If 
the moved/copied notes have different quantize values, 
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).ÖYou can also adjust the position of notes by quantizing 
(see “The Quantizing functions” on page 155).
Again, which quantize value is used depends on whether Global Quan-
tize 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 “Muting notes” on page 175).
Furthermore, if a drum map is selected (see “Selecting a 
drum map for a track” on page 187), 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 se-
lected one.
Muted drum sounds
Deleting notes
To delete notes, click on them with the Drumstick 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, see “Editing on 
the info line” on page 176.
!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
Working with drum maps
Background
A drum kit in a MIDI instrument is most often a set of dif-
ferent drum sounds with each sound placed on a separate 
key (i.e. the different sounds are assigned to different MIDI 
note numbers). One key plays a bass drum sound, another 
a snare and so on.
Unfortunately, different MIDI instruments often use differ-
ent key assignments. 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 instru-
ments in the same “drum kit”), Cubase LE features so-
called drum maps. A drum map is 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 set 
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.
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 in-
formation on how to load, create and select other drum maps, see 
“Managing drum maps” on page 187.
Now, take a look at the drum sound list (you may have to 
drag the divider between the list and the note display to 
the right to see all columns). The columns show the set-
tings 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.
Instrument The name of the drum sound.
Quantize This value is used when entering and editing notes as de-
scribed in the sections “Creating and editing notes” on 
page 183 and “Moving, duplicating or repeating notes” 
on page 184.
Mute Allows you to mute a drum sound, excluding it from play-
back. See “Muting notes and drum sounds” on page 184. 
						

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The MIDI editors
ÖAll settings in a drum map (except the Pitch) can be 
changed directly in the drum sound list or in the Drum 
Map Setup dialog (see “The Drum Map Setup dialog” on 
page 187).
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 mentioned 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.
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 (input 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 program 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 trans-
formed to a C1 note, because that is the pitch of the Bass 
Drum sound. If you record the note, it will be recorded as a 
C1 note.
O-notes (output 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 instrument will be a B0 note.
Usage
So, what’s the point of all this? Again, the purposes are 
different for I-notes and O-notes:
ÖChanging 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 keyboard so that they can be easily played together, move sounds 
so that the most important 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.
ÖThe 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 instrument (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 in-
strument for drum sounds.
I-note This is the “input note” for the drum sound. When this 
MIDI note is sent into Cubase LE, (i.e. played by you), the 
note will be mapped to the corresponding drum sound 
(and automatically transposed according to the Pitch set-
ting for the sound).
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. 
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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The MIDI editors
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 chan-
nel setting for the track.
In other words, the MIDI channel setting you make in the Track list or In-
spector 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 an-
other drum map – you don’t need to make any channel or 
output changes for the actual track.
ÖTo select the same MIDI channel for all sounds in a 
drum map, click the Channel column, press [Ctrl]/[Com-
mand] 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 out-
puts for different 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 func-
tionality 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 “Using drum name lists” on page 188).
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:
The Drum Map setup 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.
ÖThe settings for the drum sounds are exactly the same 
as in the Drum Editor (see “Drum map settings” on page 
185).
As in the Drum Editor, you can click the leftmost column to audition a 
drum sound. Note: if you audition a sound in the Drum Map Setup dialog, 
and the sound is set to MIDI output “Default”, the output selected on the 
Output pop-up menu in the lower left corner will be used. When audi-
tioning a Default output sound in the Drum Editor, the MIDI output se-
lected for the track will be used, as described in section “The channel 
and output settings” on page 187.
!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
Open the Functions pop-up menu in the top left corner to 
open a list of available functionalities:
ÖDrum maps are saved with the project files. If you have 
created or modified a drum map, you should use the Save 
function to store it as a separate XML 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 template – see “Save as 
Template” on page 238.
Using drum name lists
Even if no drum map is selected for the edited MIDI track, 
you can still use the Drum Editor if needed. As previously 
mentioned, the drum sound list will then only have four col-
umns: Audition, Pitch, Instrument (drum sound name) and 
Quantize. There will be no I-note and O-note functionality.
In this mode, the names shown in the Instrument column 
depend on the selection on the Names pop-up menu, just 
below the Map pop-up in the Drum Editor.
The options on this pop-up menu are the currently loaded 
drum maps plus a “GM Default” item which is always avail-
able. This means you can use the drum sound names in any 
loaded drum map without using I-notes and O-notes, if you 
want to.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 rename it 
by clicking and typing in the list.
New Copy Adds a copy of the currently selected drum map. This is 
probably the quickest way to create a new drum map: se-
lect the map that is similar to what you want, create a 
copy, change the desired drum sound settings and re-
name 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 Cubase LE DVD you will find a number of 
drum maps for different MIDI instruments – use this func-
tion 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”.
Init Display 
NotesAllows you to reset the Display Notes entry to the original 
setting, i. e. the Pitch entry.
Close Closes the dialog. 
						

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The MIDI editors
The List Editor – Overview
The toolbar
The toolbar contains several items that are the same as in 
the Key Editor (edit solo, snap, quantize settings, etc.). 
These are described earlier in this chapter. The following 
toolbar items are unique to the List Editor:
The Insert pop-up menu is used when creating new 
events.
This is where you determine what type of event to add (see “Inserting 
events” on page 190).
The Mask pop-up menu and Filter view (Show Filter 
View button) allow you to hide events from view, based on 
their type and other properties.
See “Filtering” on page 191.
The Value View button can be used for hiding and 
showing the Value display (see below).
The List Editor has no info line (numerical editing is avail-
able in the list instead).
ÖIf you see an empty or incomplete list of items although 
the items are visible in the Key Editor, check if you have ac-
tivated any filters (see “Filtering” on page 191).
The list
This lists all events in the selected MIDI part(s), in the or-
der (from top to bottom) in which they are played back. 
You can edit the event properties by using regular value 
editing, see “Editing in the list” on page 190.
The event display
This shows the events graphically. The vertical position of 
an event in the display corresponds to its entry in the list 
(i.e. to the playback order), while the horizontal position cor-
responds to its actual position in the project. This is where 
you add new parts or events, drag to move them, etc.
The value display
This display shows the “value” of each event, allowing for 
easy viewing and graphical editing. Typically, the value 
shown is the “Data 2” or “Value 2” property (amounts to 
MIDI controller events, velocity for notes, etc.). You can 
show or hide this display by clicking the “Show List Value 
View” button on the toolbar.
Event displayEvent list 
Value 
display
RulerToolbar
Filter view 
						

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The MIDI editors
List Editor operations
Customizing the view
You can click and drag the divider between the list and 
the event display to make one area wider and the other 
narrower. Furthermore, the list can be customized in the 
following ways:
You can change the order of the columns by dragging 
the column headings.
You can resize columns by dragging the dividers be-
tween the column headings.
Setting the display format
Just like in the Project window, you set the display format 
(bars+beats, seconds, etc.) by right-clicking in the ruler 
and selecting an option from the pop-up menu. This set-
ting affects both the ruler and all start, end and length val-
ues shown in the list.
Zooming
You can change the horizontal magnification in the event 
display by using the zoom slider below the display or the 
Zoom tool (the magnification glass).
Inserting events
To add a new event to the edited part, proceed as follows:
1.Use the Insert pop-up menu on the toolbar to select 
the event type.
2.Select the Pencil tool and click in the event display at 
the desired position (relative to the ruler).
If you are creating note events, you can click and drag to set the length of 
the note.
The new event appears in the list and in the display. Its 
properties will be set to default values, but can be ad-
justed in the list.Notes will get the insert velocity value set in the insert 
velocity field on the toolbar. See “Setting velocity values” 
on page 172.
Editing in the list
The list allows you to perform detailed numerical editing of 
the events’ properties. The columns have the following 
functionality:
You can edit several events at once. If several events 
are selected and you edit a value for one event, the other 
selected events’ values will be changed as well.
Normally, any initial value differences between the events will be main-
tained – i.e. the values will change by the same amount. If you press [Ctrl]/
[Command] when you edit, however, all events will get the same value.
Column Description
L Locate column. An arrow in this column indicates the 
event that starts closest before the project cursor posi-
tion. If you click in this column for an event, the project 
cursor is moved to the start of that event. Double-clicking 
moves the cursor position and starts/stops playback – 
useful for auditioning when editing in the list.
Type The event type. This cannot be changed.
Start The start position of the event, shown in the format se-
lected for the ruler. Changing this is the same as moving 
the event. Note that moving the event past any other 
event in the list will re-sort the list (the list always shows 
the events in the order they are played back).
End This is only used for note events, allowing you to view and 
edit the end position of a note (thereby resizing it).
Length This is only used for note events. It shows the length of 
the note – changing this resizes the note and automati-
cally changes the End value as well.
Data  1 This is the “data 1” or “value 1” property of the event. The 
content of this depends on the event type – for notes, 
this is the pitch, for example. Where applicable, the val-
ues are shown in the most relevant form. For instance, the 
Data 1 value for notes is shown as a note number in the 
format selected in the Preferences (Event Display–MIDI 
page). See also the table in the section “Editing in the va-
lue display” on page 192.
Data  2 This is the “data 2” or “value 2” property of the event. The 
content of this depends on the event type – for notes, 
this is the velocity value, for example. See the table in the 
section “Editing in the value display” on page 192.
Channel The MIDI channel of the event. Note that this setting is 
normally overridden by the channel setting for the track. 
To make a MIDI event play back on “its own” channel, set 
its track to channel “Any” in the Project window.
Comment This column is used for some event types only, providing 
an additional comment about the event.