Cubase Pro 14 Score Editor issues

Cubase
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Just installed Pro 14. Some remarks (for now) about the score editor. But first of all I applaud the progress!

  1. I tried it out with a new piece that I’m writing - for violin and piano. At a given point the violins plays triplets of eights, which were notated correctly. One bar later the piano answers with the same kind of triplets, but in staccato (half length in the key editor). Those were written as 16th, 8th, 16th, although in the key editor the timing was perfectly input as triplets… I wonder what provoques this. I tried to find out what to do to correct this and did more things than I can remember. At a give point the triplets appeared in the score, but then the notes in the key editor had 1.5 times the length of triplet of eights, overlapping partly - where I wanted to have them in staccato… Confusing, for now.
  2. The tempo is 160BPM. But typically I have often a tiny slowing down at the end of a phrase. I don’t need those ‘interpretive’ tempo changes to be written in the score. So I wonder if there is kind of a ‘Display quantizing’ for that as well.
  3. In the piano part, apparently there is no natation below G#0. ??
  4. I notice, when playing octaves in the left hand, that some notes were written in the upper staff. I wonder if I can move them to the lower.
  5. I think it would be a good idea to have transport buttons in the Score Editor and a way to place the cursor at a certain point to start playing the music.
  6. It is a good idea to be able to write a correct key signature in the score, also with flats. But I really would like to pay money for it, it this correct key signature would also be reflected in the Key Editor. Is so confusing always having to ‘translate’ sharps toward the correct flats…
2 Likes
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Thanks for your feedback Dirk.

Regarding 1, it might help to see a little project file to be able to comment in detail. We try to make it look sensible by default, but that won’t always be correct. That’s why we’ve added the Display Quantize tools, in the left part of the note input toolbar. Let us know how that works for you.

  1. We’ve got a fixed threshold for changes in tempo that we hide. We may expose a bit more control over that in future. For now, you can select individual tempo steps and change their score visibility in the info line.

  2. We’ll need to see the project for that I think.

  3. Yes, you can move them, or just cross them into the other staff. Score menu, Cross Staff submenu.

  4. Select an item in the score, press “L”, which is the default shortcut for the Locate key command.

  5. Well yes, the key editor doesn’t really deal with note spelling properly right now. We’ll certainly consider how that can be improved in future, but I can’t make any promises in that regard.

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9 bars for Stefan.cpr (670.6 KB)
Dear Stefan,

Thank you very much for your thorough response to my comment.
I’ve attached the requested project. It’s only 9 bars – just a sketch of the first phrase of a composition, which I want to orchestrate later for symphony orchestra. What I write here for piano and violin doesn’t need to be ‘playable’ – it will eventually be performed by multiple instruments. Still, it can perfectly serve as an example I.M.O.
(After sendign this, I noticed an error in the tempo markings. The last one should be 160 - apparently, I didn’t change it back from the accendital 120 - explained further on at point 2.

For quite some time, I’ve been using only Vienna Symphonic Library instruments. Some of the anomalies might be related to this. Oh, and I’ve extended the high tessitura in the Synchron Player for the Duality Strings 1st violins by one tone, up to E6. The articulation setting is Regular > Short Nts > Detache Marcato > Agile.

Also good to know: I’m working on Windows 10.

In the meantime, I’ve encountered a few additional issues I’d like to communicate to you here. But first, I should mention that I sometimes struggle with things that may be basic for you. When I’m working, I often forget the names Cubase uses for some items, so I frequently forget where to find them – for example, “where can I find the info line”? :smiling_face: Even simple as that!

Concerning your reply:

1.and 3: See the project file. Oh yes, the Display Quantize tools are a very good idea I.M.O., and seem to work quite well. But it is still a bit early for me to have a conclusive opinion on their effectiveness.

2: I can’t find the exact place I need to go, the info line, indeed… Also odd: when I click on a tempo marking, like ‘142,’ it changes to ‘120.’ And after a while, this phenomenon stopped happening again, so it’s still confusing for me.

4: In bar 8, I moved the three notes from the top staff to the bottom staff. I indeed found the command in the Score > Cross Staff menu. I noticed the S was underscored, which suggests there’s a key command for it, but I didn’t find it. Is there any? Either way, the notes did move to the lower staff, but they didn’t merge with what was already there; they kept their separate stems. This is not what I had in mind.

5: Works fine. Integrating markers, and having direct access to them from the score editor, could be a future improvement (or can we already place them?).

6: It’s becoming increasingly feasible to write music directly in the score. In the Key Editor, this is messy, especially with those frequent incorrect note names. But if writing in the score gets just a bit easier, I wouldn’t mind the Key Editor errors as much since I would only use it for placing articulations, dynamics, bends, small timing variations, etc. To make score writing flow smoothly, I think it would help if, as in Dorico, we could select note values with keys and also could position notes on the staff from the keyboard. But having the note values accessible would be the most important.

Now, for three additional issues:

7: A real issue. Since I work with VSL sounds, I rely heavily on articulations. Right now, all of them appear in the score as notes (outside the tessitura of the instrument). I think it would be helpful if the Score Editor could read, from the Synchron Player, the tessitura of the instruments used (or, if this isn’t possible, allow the user to enter it manually). Once determined, it should be easy to hide any notes outside the entered range in the score, I guess.

8: The use of accidentals isn’t always logical, especially when there are strong modulations. For example, I have two sharps in the key signature, but in bar three, the F is naturalized, and later in the bar, D# is noted instead of Eb. I know I can adjust this, but a bit more built-in logic would be appreciated. However, this is more of a far-reaching comment and not at the top of my wishlist. :smiling_face:

9: I also find it necessary to be able to add octave signs. For example, in bars 6 and 7, this is really needed for the violin and in bar 9 for the piano.

OK, I’m afraid this is quite an extensive list. But I want to emphasize again, that I am very enthusiastic about the evolution that you have made to the score editor. I was quite frustrated to compose in Cubase, and that’s why I bought Dorico. But then again I miss a number of refinements of Cubase in Dorico. But now I really have good hope that I will gradually find everything I need in Cubase. Only a few details to improve, and we are there… :smiling_face:

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Could it have anything to do with this setting?

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yes, thanks! This filter will also help answer point 7.

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Also, this appears to fix the triplet issue. It’s some unexpected interaction between filtered out low pitches and the quantization algorithm, so I’ll take a look at that.

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Indeed it does! Thx, Johnny!

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Issues 3. and 7. are indeed non-issues. :smiling_face:

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I can see indeed that the triplets in the piano are written correctly now.
But thanks for your efforts, Paul!

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Hi there,

Is the old good score editor still there? Or the Dorico code replaced it?

Sorry, I didn’t dig into the specs of C14. And I really liked the old score editor

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The Dorico code has replaced it.

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Hello Paul,
If you can, please have a look at bar 8. It’s where I crossed a few notes to the lower staff, which resulted in some of them having separate stems. I’m guessing that, whenever wider than one octave, the score editor will no longer place notes at the same stem. But it is fairly common practice in pianoscores to have pitch intervals up to a ninth, sometimes even a (small) decim written on one stem - and even more with a harp stroke. Anyway, this is how I would want this here. Is there a way?

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Do you mean like this?

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There are two similar-sounding commands: Cross to staff below and Move to staff below. I think you used ‘Cross to staff’, but ‘Move to staff’ is probably what you want.

If you are doing a lot of recording for piano (and then score tidy-up) then I really recommend adding key commands for the following key commands. It makes it really quick to move things between voices and staves:

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Thx for your reply, Paul. Indeed, this is the fragment that I referred to.
BTW, I created the key command, but I wonder: it seems more logic to me to use Alt+Shift+B instead of Alt+Shift+M, because in the menu the B character has an underscore. When I would always add the underschored character to the Alt+Shift, I just have to look which character is underscored in the menu, whenever I forget a key command - unless it often happens that the same letter was underscored in different menu commands. But then, I don’t need to create key commands for every menu command, I guess… What do you think? Is there another reason to use the M-character?

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Is there a possibility to place octave marks?

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Just to clarify, menu items that contain an underlined character are not key commands. That’s a feature of the operating system called “Mnemonics”, and works by pressing the Alt key, followed by the letter (not at the same time).
Key commands however work by combinations of keys held together. It should be fine to use a combination that appears taken by a Mnenomic already, do try it.

Paul suggested N/M, because that’s close to how the equivalent key command is defined by default in Dorico.

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Not yet I’m afraid. We’re planning to add support for ottava lines in one of the upcoming patch releases.

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The only reason I used M and N in my own key commands was that they are the same ones used in Dorico.

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Hello Paul

Thanks for your reply.

That’s a good reason indeed!. :smiling_face:

BTW, I experienced some more anomalies in the score editor. Would you like me to communicate about them? And if yes, rather by e-mail or on the forum?

Cheers

Dirk De Paepe

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Please continue to report your findings on the forum.