Hi guys … I’m new to Cubase world … and i’m getting my cubase 7 in a few days … and i’m interested in buying the East west symphonic choirs … but first i want to know if there is anyway i can play the choirs from East west on Arabic scales ( quarter tone supporting ) in cubase … if not that’s gonna be problem for me … because one of the reasons i’m moving to cubase is the ability of playing quarter tones … so what do you guys think ??
Thanks in advanced and help will be greatly appreciated …
Tuning depends on the individual instrument, and not Cubase itself. You can use the Cubase’s Micro-Tuner for some instruments, but it doesn’t work on EWQL choirs.
However, you could try the MIDI transformer insert to automatically sharpen or flatten every instance of a particular note by a specific amount via pitch bend. For example, if you wanted to play e-flat on the keyboard and have it sound a quarter tone flat instead, you could get MIDI transformer to sharpen automatically every e-flat by a quarter tone.
In Symphonic Choirs you will then need to set up the pitch bend sensitivity to get the amount of pitchbend you want.
Some of the other EWQL instruments have various tuning alternatives, but not Symphonic Choir.
UPDATE
I’ve been trying this out using one insert to tune one specific note, and another to reset the pitch for the other notes and it seems to work for me, but only with one melodic line per track. You can put this into a track preset for each tuning so you only have to do this once.
Well … Thank you very very much for your helpful replay …
So about this MIDI transformer … how can i get it … Is it a cubase built-in plug in or something like that ?
If not … How can i get it work …
Maybe before you buy the EWQL library check out whether and how it supports micro-tunings within its own interface.
NI Kontakt libraries support scala files which permit you to create microtonal modes without limit;
Cubase supports sending micro-tuning commands through the Note Expression and the micro-tuner midi plugin, but this only works with libraries that have this function implemented.
The problem with using pitch bend with certain instruments is that the pitch bend may be reset to zero before the micro-tuned note’s release portion has finished.
Maybe someone else can reply if they have experience doing this with EWQL libraries specifically.
As I know, Native Kontakt(if you mean EWQL library for kontakt) not able to recieve tunning commands from Micro Tuner in midi insert. If you want to use EWQL choirs with Play engine, there is no microtuning ability in Play.
For more Kontakt polyphonic microtuning you can use 3rd party scripts, for example 12equalboresme.com
Yes, indeed, NI Kontakt does not respond to microtuning messages from Cubase, in fact, there’s a bug where Kontakt stops playing back when Cubase sends it a such a message. I mentioned Kontakt as an alternative to EWQL PLay.
VSTs made by Steinberg do respond correctly, as do certain others.
(note, the 12equalboresme software is Windows only.)
Yes, program is Windows only.
But I am succesfully use script, made by this program, on my mac, it is just a text, which need to copy to Kontakt’s script window.
No. I mean ready script. One script can contain, for example, 10 different scala files, you can select them by keyswitch or by control change. Inside each scale you can change root key (also, by pressing keyswitch or control change) - it is impossible to make by just open scala file in kontakt, without such script. And, it possible to use no-12 tones per octave. For example, I use 14 tones per octave. Unfortunately, Steinberg’s Halion not able more than 12 divisions…
The only currently available EWQL libraries (for their current Play 4 player) that allow micro-tuning are those which contain Asian instruments that require it (Silk and Ra). The Play libraries each have their own interface, so certain features are specific to indvidual libraries.
The workaround I described is passable when used with Symphonic Choirs provided that each melodic line is on its own channel.