User manual

488
How the Score Editor works
like above. But again, please note that when you hit Play,
the passage will still play as it originally did. The display
quantize setting only affects the score image of the re-
cording. One last important note:
Using Rests display quantize
Above we used display quantize for notes. There is a sim-
ilar setting called “Rests” display quantize 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 will be displayed like this:
With Notes display quantize set to eighth notes.
Unfortunately, this moves the first note to the same posi-
tion as the second, since sixteenth note positions aren’t
allowed. We can solve this by inserting extra display quan-
tize values within the bar with the Display Quantize tool
(see “Inserting display quantize changes” on page 509),
but there is a much easier way: Change the display quan-
tize value for notes back to sixteenths, but set the display
quantize value for rests to eighth notes! This tells the pro-
gram not to display any rests smaller than eighth notes,
except when necessary. The result looks like this:
With Notes display quantize set to sixteenth notes, but Rests display
quantize set to eighth notes.
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,
however, can be hidden by displaying the notes as eighth
notes, and were therefore not “necessary”.
This leads us to the following general guidelines:
Ö Set the Notes display quantize value according to the
“smallest note position” you want to be shown in the score.
For example, if you have notes on odd sixteenth note positions, the Notes
display quantize value should be set to sixteenth notes.
Ö Set the Rests display quantize value according to the
smallest note value (length) you want to be displayed for a
single note, positioned on a beat.
A common setting would be to have Notes display quan-
tize set to 16 (sixteenth notes) and Rests display quantize
set to 4 (quarter notes).
Handling exceptions
Unfortunately, the guidelines above won’t 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 de-
pending 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 automatic display quantize. When this is acti-
vated, Cubase tries to “understand” whether the notes
should be display quantized to straight notes or triplets.
See “If your music contains mixed straight notes and trip-
lets” on page 505.
Using the Display Quantize tool
With the “Q” tool, you can insert new display quantize val-
ues anywhere in the score. Inserted display quantize val-
ues affect the staff from the insertion point onwards. See
“Inserting display quantize changes” on page 509.
!
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 will get
eighth notes in the track (as MIDI data), but still only
quarter notes in the display!