Plug-in Reference

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MIDI effects
5. Select “Velocity” on the Controllers pop-up menu.
This pop-up menu determines what is shown in the lower controller dis-
play.
6. Adjust the velocity of the notes by dragging the veloc-
ity bars in the controller display.
7. To make notes shorter, select “Gate” on the Controllers
pop-up menu and lower the bars in the controller display.
When a bar is set to its maximum value (fully up), the corresponding note
will be the full length of the step (as set with the Quantize parameter).
8. To make notes longer, you can tie two notes together.
This is done by inserting two notes and clicking the Tie
button below the second note.
When the Tie button is lit for a note, it won’t retrigger – instead the pre-
vious note will be lengthened. Also, the tied (second) note will automati-
cally get the same pitch as the first note. You can add more notes and tie
them in the same way, creating longer notes.
9. If you now start playback in Cubase, the pattern will
play as well, sending out MIDI notes on the track’s MIDI
output and channel (or, if you have activated the Step De-
signer as a send effect, on the MIDI output and channel
selected for the send in the Inspector).
Adding controller curves
The Controllers pop-up menu has two more items: two
controller types.
• You can select which two controller types (filter cutoff,
resonance, volume, etc.) should be available on the pop-
up menu by clicking the Setup button and selecting con-
trollers from the lists that appears.
This selection is global to all patterns.
• To insert controller information in a pattern, select the
desired controller from the pop-up menu and click in the
controller display to draw events.
The MIDI controller events will be sent out during playback along with the
notes.
Ö If you drag a controller event bar all the way down, no
controller value will be sent out on that step.
Other pattern functions
The following functions make it easier to edit, manipulate
and manage patterns:
Automating pattern changes
You can create up to 200 different patterns in each Step
Designer – just select a new pattern and add notes and
controllers as described above.
Typically, you want the pattern selection to change during
the project. You can accomplish this by automating the Pat-
tern selector, either in real time by activating the Write auto-
mation and switching patterns during playback or by
drawing in the automation subtrack for the Step Designer’s
MIDI track. Note that you can also press a key on your MIDI
keyboard to change patterns. For this, you have to set up
the Step Designer as an insert effect for a record enabled
MIDI track. Press C1 to select pattern 1, C#1 to select pat-
tern 2, D1 to select pattern 3, D#1 to select pattern 4 and
so on. If you want, you can record these pattern changes as
note events on a MIDI track. Proceed as follows:
1. Select the desired MIDI track or create a new one and
activate the Step Designer as an insert effect.
2. Set up several patterns as described above.
Function Description
Shift Oct These buttons allow you to shift the entire pattern up or
down in octave steps.
Shift Time Moves the pattern one step to the left or right.
Reverse Reverses the pattern, so that it plays backwards.
Copy/Paste Allows you to copy the current pattern and paste it in an-
other pattern location (in the same Step Designer or an-
other).
Reset Clears the pattern, removing all notes and setting con-
troller values to default.
Random Generates a completely random pattern – useful for ex-
perimenting.
Swing The Swing parameter allows you to offset every second
step, creating a swing or shuffle feel. The value is a per-
centage – the higher you set this, the farther to the right
every even step is moved.
Presets Handling of Presets is described in the chapter “MIDI re-
altime settings” in the Operation manual. Note that a
stored Preset contains all 200 patterns in the Step De-
signer.