User manual

681
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”.
Creating tablature automatically
This assumes you have a regular score on screen already.
We also suggest you perform basic editing like quantizing
to make the score as legible as possible as regular notes
before converting into tablature.
1. Make sure that the notes in the score are inside the
range of the instrument.
Notes with a pitch lower than the open tuning of the lowest string cannot
be converted.
2. Open the Score Settings dialog on the Staff page and
select the Tablature tab.
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 de
-
scribed 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. How-
ever, 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 cor-
rect string according to their MIDI channel value.
Normally, the program automatically decides on which
string to display a note, by looking at the pitch and then
putting the note at the lowest possible string. You can
then either manually move a note to the correct string, or
use the “MIDI Channel 1–6” option to let the program
move the notes automatically.
!
Even though we use the term “converting” in this
chapter, please note that tablature is a mode. You
can switch between regular notation and tablature at
any time.