User manual

727
How the Score Editor works
Display Quantize
Let’s say we change the Display Quantize value to sixteenth notes in the example:
With Display Quantize set to sixteenth notes
OK, now the timing looks right, but the notes still do not look like what you intended.
Maybe you can understand that from a computer’s point of view, you did play sixteenth
notes, which is why there are a lot of pauses. But that’s not how you meant it. You still
want the track to play back short notes, because it is a staccato part, but you want
something else “displayed”. Try setting the Display Quantize value to eighth notes
instead:
With Display Quantize set to eighth notes
Now we have eighth notes, as we wanted. All we have to do now is to add staccato
articulation which can be done with one simple mouse click using the Draw tool (see
the chapter
“Working with symbols” on page 811) or using musical articulations (see
“Expression maps (Cubase only)” on page 555).
How did this work? By setting the Display Quantize value to eighth notes, you give the
program two instructions that would sound something like this in English: “Display all
notes as if they were on exact eighth note positions, regardless of their actual
positions” and “Don’t display any notes smaller than eighth notes, regardless of how
short they are”. Please note that we used the word “display”, which leads us to one of
the most important messages of this chapter:
Choose your Display Quantize values with care
As explained above, the Display Quantize value for notes puts a restriction on the
smallest note value that can be displayed. Let’s see what happens if we set it to
quarter notes:
With Display Quantize set to quarter notes
Oops, this doesn’t look too good. Well of course it doesn’t! We have now instructed
the program that the “smallest” note that occurs in the piece is a quarter note. We
have explicitly told it that there are no eighth notes, no sixteenths, etc. So when the
program draws the score on screen (and on paper) it quantizes the display of all our
eighth notes to quarter note positions, which makes it look like above. But again,
please note that when you hit Play, the passage still plays as it originally did. The
Display Quantize setting only affects the score image of the recording.
!
Setting a Display Quantize value does not alter the MIDI notes of your recording in
any way, as regular quantizing does. It only affects how the notes are displayed in the
Score Editor (and nowhere else)!
!
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 get eighth notes in the track (as
MIDI data), but still only quarter notes in the display!