The underlying problem is now fixed.
Hello Paul and Stefan
Demofile Paul.cpr (299.8 KB)
Here are some issues, that I’m still struggling with in the Score Editor. I have added an ultra short project file, as well as an image file, with a picture of the Key Editor, the Score Editor and a self-written score.
This is just one bar from a piece that I played, but of which I have afterwards ‘corrected/refined’ a lot of things in the key editor. After playing, without correction, the notation is yet a lot more complex, even after quantizing. This is mainly due to the following. When you also use the pedal, you automatically hold the keys that play the chords less precisely in length. After all, you stop the sound by releasing the pedal.
In my self-written score you can see how I would like it to look. There are some things in the score editor, that I have no idea how to realize them and of which I wonder if they are even possible. I will go over some of them.
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There are four beats and also 4 chords. But chords 2 to 4 are syncopated. This is why I write the first chord as a dotted eighth, after which I can simply write 2 and 3 as quarter notes and 4 again as a dotted eighth, followed by an eighth rest. The score editor groups them with a ‘simple’ logic, which however creates a very confusing image.
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In my score you see the melody at the top, with two more notes of the chords in the right hand. The left hand plays the octaves of the root of the chords, together with the fifths. You can see that the way the stems were placed on the notes does not follow any logic. In the 2nd chord of the left hand (octave plus fifth) you can even see that the notes are not on one stem. I tried the different Cross Staff functions, but this didn’t work. And there are also rests added, which I do not want to see at all and which do not follow the logic of the key editor. BTW, I cannot delete these rests either. And I’m totally confused why there are even rests at the very bottom.
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Finally, the pedal indications do not correspond to what I have programmed in the key editor.
I’m very curious about what I did wrong or how I can fix this.…
Dear Stefan, please read my respons to Paul. Thanks.
It looks like there are a couple of notes that would be cleaner in a different voice.
You’ve moved the first F in the left hand into voice 2, which has created the extra rests. If you move that back into voice 1 then it cleans up the left hand.
In the right hand, you’ve moved the last A to voice 1, but changing it back to voice 1 creates a cleaner result
You could also move the A and C on the second beat into voice 2 to get closer to the voices in your original:
You can also start and end beam groups but you will still get ties as we don’t currently have any options for syncopation. This is something we will look at for the future.
Wow, that’s a great improvement indeed, Paul. Thanks you so much for this reply.
Still, … you say that I have moved notes to another voice, but in fact I didn’t do that on purpose. I had already wondered why the votes were distributed so illogically. I worked by first playing on the keyboard and next by adjusting note lengths in the key editor. Maybe you assumed that I wrote in the key editor, but that’s not the case, although I would really like to be able to write fluently in the key editor. My normal workflow is play and write, mixed, where I find myself generally perform more writing than playing. That’s why this issue (writing in the score) interests me so much.
But I still have this question: how do I change notes to other voices and how can I, in a controlled way, start and end beam groups. If you could give me just a page # in the manual, where I can find this info, that would be sufficient to me and probably easier for you.
BTW, a syncopation option would be welcome indeed, but I find your last score example already looking very clear. It could even be yet more easy to immediately read the syncopes for a player.
My conclusion: if I would be able to create your score (with control of the voices), I would be very happy. Please help me to know how to do this.
Thanks again! 
I was able to tell that the notes had been manually moved to another voice as we have some internal diagnostic settings that tell us which notes have been explicitly assigned to a voice. We don’t have any way at the moment of communicating that to the user, unfortunately. One thing we will hopefully implement soon is Voice Colours which makes the voices much clearer, though this only gives you half of the picture, as there’s still no way to tell which notes have been explicitly moved to a different voice.
I think when you experimented with the cross staff settings then this sets an explicit voice in each note.
To change the voice for a note, just select it and press the ‘1…4’ buttons in the toolbar. In my setup I set these to Alt-1, Alt-2,… key commands, and also added key commands for Cross to Stave Above/Below and Move to Stave Above/Below. With these key commands I find tidying up piano music to be very quick.
The manual entry for beaming is here: Steinberg .
If this is a function you use a lot then assigning key commands could be very useful.
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I think you’re doing a fantastic job, Paul. I’m so glad that you are doing this in Cubase now, because finally it brings musical logic to the program.
I also bought Dorico, but there is again so much to learn, more than I expected, and with my years of experience in Cubase, it’s hard to start all over again.
IMPORTANT to me: I also hope you could introduce some other things from Dorico into the score editor, just to make writing in the score even easier. I’m thinking of the short cuts with numbers to choose note values and the way to advance to the next stop in the score for the next note. (I’m not native Englisch speaking, so sometimes I doubt if I use the right terminology - sorry for that.) Is this something that can be expected? Is the functionality going to evolve further?
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The key commands (shortcuts) will have to be specific to Cubase. Dorico offers more flexibility, because key commands can have a focus within a certain area of the program, and hence allow to reuse the same shortcuts in different key commands. For mostly technical reasons, we can’t use the same approach in Cubase.
We aim to make key commands work similar to the key editor, whenever possible. The next patch release will allow you to configure key commands for changing the input duration in the Score Editor though. We’ll consider adding further key commands over time, but that’s unlikely to mirror Dorico.
Thanks for your reply, Stefan.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s still good news. Personally I don’t mind that key commands would differ from Dorico. The main goal to me is that the note input would possibly go a lot easier/faster. Already when it would be possible for me to configure my own commands, that would be great. Looking forward to it!
Dear Paul and Stefan, I have run into a few more issues (anomalies?).
I’ve attached screenshots and a project file for reference. The issues already occur in the first three bars of a piano sketch I’m currently working on.
NOTE VALUES and GRACE NOTES vs. STACCATO
In the top voice of bar 1, the F appears four times. Let’s examine the first, third, and fourth F notes. In the Key Editor (KE), all three have an identical length of 0.0.1.84, yet in the Score Editor (SE), they are displayed as three different note values: a dotted eighth, a sixteenth, and an eighth note, respectively. My intention was to have all three notated identically, as they should sound the same: an eighth note played non-legato with the following note. (The third F should indeed be notated as two tied sixteenth notes due to the syncopation.)
When I try to extend the third F in the SE to an eighth note, its length changes to 0.0.2.0, which sounds noticeably different. Meanwhile, reducing the first F to an eighth note by unchecking the single rhythm dot in the Note Input Toolbar doesn’t work—the dot stubbornly remains.
Also in bar 1, the second note in the top voice appears as a grace note (F), where I intended a staccato sixteenth note following the dotted eighth F. This grace note notation seems illogical to me.
- I would play a grace note much shorter and closer to the following note.
- A grace note would naturally be played within a slur with the next note, whereas in the project file, you can see a gap between the two notes, consistent with how a staccato is performed.
If I increase the note’s length in the KE, it becomes a sixteenth note as intended. Subsequenty adding a staccato dot in the SE results in the correct notation but doesn’t match the intended sound, as the length in the KE remains unchanged at 0.0.1.0. This issue occurred with five grace notes across the three bars—all of which were meant to be staccato sixteenth notes (0.0.0.60) or non-legato (0.0.0.84). Only the natural D in bar 1 was correctly notated as a staccato sixteenth (length 0.0.0.60).
I also tried resolving the unwanted grace notes another way: in bar 3, the D# should be a staccato sixteenth but played within a slur with the preceding F. Selecting both notes and clicking the slur button in the Note Input Toolbar created a slur spanning from the F to the Db (one note too far), which negates the intended staccato for the D#.
Suggestion: When a staccato is added in the SE, it might be helpful if the KE automatically adjusts the note length to ensure it sounds like a staccato.
Returning to bar 1: the F chord has a KE length of 0.0.3.0, corresponding to a sixteenth note (on the first beat) tied to an eighth note (on the second beat). The notation was performed as a sixteenth note, coupled with a dotted eighth note (which would correspond to a KE length of 0.1.0.0). I wanted a sixteenth rest between the F chord and the following Eb chord. However, I had to reduce the length to 0.0.2.95 to achieve the desired notation. Strangely, at 0.0.2.97, four of the five notes suddenly appear as eighth notes in the SE, while the F2 has its own unique notation as an eighth note tied to a sixteenth (with the eighth also tied to a sixteenth in the first beat). Even if there’s a way to fix all of this, the process seems labor-intensive and impractical for larger projects.
In bar 3, the top E note and the five chord notes were set to 0.0.1.98 in the KE, intended to be eighth notes played detached from the following C (i.e., non-legato). However, the SE displays note values corresponding to an E of length 0.0.1.0 — much shorter. I cannot seem to align the notation with the intended sound. At this point, it seems I would need to create two separate project files—one for accurate notation and another for accurate playback. I hope this can be avoided.
ENHARMONY
In bar 2, beat 3, a B chord is displayed (in the chord track and as a chord symbol in the SE), but the notated notes form a Cb chord. While Cb makes sense given the preceding harmony, one might also opt for B considering what follows. If we choose B, the notation should adapt accordingly. Moreover, going with a Cb chord, the grace note is shown as G#, even though the key signature includes an Ab, and all other notes at this position are flats. This inconsistency is confusing and contrary to music theory.
A similar issue occurs in bar 3. Here, the D# grace note should be an Eb. I attempted to fix this but couldn’t. On page 12 of the manual, I read: “Note Input Toolbar – Contains note value buttons and enharmonic shift buttons”. Clicking the flat symbol in the toolbar changed the D# to Db rather than the enharmonic Eb. I couldn’t find a solution in the KE either. I recall the KE’s note names adapting to chord track settings in previous projects, if I’m not mistaken, but this no longer seems to work.
PEDALING
I’m unsure about the logic used for notating sustain pedal markings with “Ped.” versus brackets. I often use the sustain pedal for tonal color in addition to sustaining notes, often making precise pedaling essential. However, I don’t see a way to achieve the correct notation for this. In the KE you can also see that I often release the pedal to give non-legatos and staccatos the necessary space. For example, in bar 3, first beat, the pedal should give space to the second F3 to sound staccato. The notation in the SE does not indicate this correctly.
DYNAMIC MARKS
How can I place the FF in bar 1 between the staves? In bar 2 this happened automatically, by pointing the cursor correctly…
Paul + Stefan PF 20241127.cpr (344.1 KB)
Dear Stefan, please read my respons to Paul of today, November 27. Thanks.
Unfortunately I don’t have time currently to go through this in any detail, and some of these areas are not ones that I know a lot about, but a quick summary:
Grace notes
- we know that there are a number of problems with grace notes currently which is on our list to fix, including to give the user greater control over them and to make notes into grace notes or vice versa
- I agree that the grace notes here are unexpected as they aren’t close to the notes following them (AMS-1098)
Note durations
- In the next update, if you set note durations by clicking the duration buttons in the score editor toolbar or use the nudge commands in the score editor (not from the key editor) then the note duration will be set explicitly in the score
Chords
- Cubase’s chord model I think doesn’t support enharmonic shift. Enharmonic shift of chords has been requested by other users (AMS-1097)
Pedalling
- Currently the support for pedal lines in the Score Editor is basic, and derived from the MIDI CCs. This is something we may enhance in the future, but if you require very detailed control over pedal markings then Dorico has much more control.
Dynamics
- I’m not sure about this – Stefan may be able to say. It might depend on the current voice in note input.
Your answer is pretty perfect, Paul. Thanks for that!
My first intention was to report issues (potential problems) and I am reassured that they will be looked at in the future and possibly also addressed/improved. I know that Dorico already offers solutions for many of the things I reported, but Cubase is important to me because I also want to be able to deliver good-sounding projects - and I miss important things in that respect in Dorico - and also because I have already put so much energy into acquiring the Cubase Skills. At the moment my work would slow down considerably if I wanted to master Dorico completely and even then I still think I would need Cubase.
But I am really extremely enthusiastic about the evolution that has now started in Cubase with version 14. So I really have nothing but praise!
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Thank you for your kind words and constructive feedback
You’re very welcome.
Please remember that, when the time is right, the enharmonics will also be looked at, because at the moment they do not follow music theoretical logic and sometimes the error cannot be corrected even. It’s pretty important.
We share the same interest here, I’m sure.