User manual

491
How the Score Editor works
Using Rests as Display Quantize setting
Above we used Display Quantize for notes. There is a sim-
ilar 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 will be displayed like this:
With Display Quantize: Notes set to eighth notes
Unfortunately, this moves the first note to the same posi-
tion 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 (see “Inserting Display Quantize changes” on page
508), 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 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 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
value should be set to sixteenth notes.
Ö 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 (quar-
ter notes).
Handling exceptions
Unfortunately, the guidelines above will 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 val-
ues 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. See “If your music
contains mixed straight notes and triplets” on page 527.
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.
See “Inserting Display Quantize changes” on page 508.
Permanent alteration of MIDI data
As a last resort, you can resize, quantize or move the ac-
tual 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, which you will
find out about in the next chapters. You will also read about
other settings which work along the same lines as Display
Quantize. These are called “interpretation options”.