Unfortunately, here on Mac, Cubase VST can no longer run since the Mac “Classic” days (OS.9. something), and I no longer have a Mac in working order that can run that OS (and, yes, there are times when I’d love to take a trip down that Memory Lane 
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Haven’t quite understood exactly what you mean there, but when I’ve done reversals in Atari Cubase, I’ve got the equivalent of a mirror image in the key editor (ie a true retrograde, and what I wanted).
I’m probably corrected there and if I’m reading you right the true retrograde you got in the key editor on the Atari, taking that your note lengths weren’t all the same and weren’t all on the beats, would therefore not read as reverse in the Score editor, say?
The way I work ideal reverse woul be to have the notes (ADGB to BGDA) reverse in the Score editor but the actual notation rhythm stay as is. ie: still look the same.
However, like you, if I wanted the rhythm reversed then I’d probably need a few options as to where it lines up.
i.e. what we are referring to as “note reversal”, right? (like #2 in my first Score screenshot) If so, there’s nothing in Cubase that can currently achieve that… would need some sort of source/destination array function.
Yes. just had a little poke around and it seems it’s maybe made up from the Logical Editor “mirror” type. (my error before referring to it as Transformer) But it’s not quite a mirror as Cubase first mirrors it and then moves the first note to the 1st beat of the bar if it isn’t already at that position.
Hah! It doesn’t work like Logical Ed’s “mirror” which mirrors upwards or downwards around a given note.
Mirrors like a mirror on the ceiling rather than a mirror on the wall.
I did a picture that hopefully will explain what I want reverse to do illustrate the problem with the current method:
is this possible in cubase 6.5?
Not at the moment I’m afraid 
Great pic!!! We need every possible option with the reverse option. I think there should be 3 or 4 options… 
Dream on eh??
That looks quite odd to me. Even if Cubase gets it wrong that looks the wrong kind of wrong. I’m thinking here “Lilies. Don’t over gilt.”
We know it needs looking at already. Keep it simple.
See, mostly 1% of most users would only want to see example two about 0.5% of the time. I mean you could almost write it faster with a modicum of musical knowledge. And even then you wouldn’t necessarily want an exact mirror image. Very, very rarely.
I’m doubting that the first example is what Cubase actually does. The two long notes of the chord just don’t look like the way Cubase gets it wrong.
And in the second example the music would not start on a beat. It’s mirrored and may all stay together chordally but the timing would more than likely be out which, I think, is what previous posters mainly complain about.
Please explain and I’ll happily discuss.
I’ve had a thought about this.
Does the reversal depend on what quantise setting is in place?
I’ve got to look at it and it may still be wrong but I’ll have a go tomorrow.
Conman:
“I’m doubting that the first example is what Cubase actually does. The two long notes of the chord just don’t look like the way Cubase gets it wrong.”
to explain the image: I used the snipping tool to screen capture the image directly from the Cubase arrange window - the first row is a pattern, and then that pattern reversed using cubase reverse. The second row in a pattern, and then that same pattern that I used the mirrow function in photoshop to reverse.
so the first version is what cubase actually does - and herin lies the problem with the cubase reverse function.
you can clearly see frommy image that the way cubase currently reverses a pattern is quite simple. it takes the endpoint of the last note and uses that as the start point of the reversed pattern (which moves events to the left in my case. Then it takes each note and uses it’s end point as the point to mirror each individual note around (keeping it’s length) - I personally don’t find this approach very useful as it messes up long notes and relies on accurate quantization of endpoints to get anything remotely musical out of it.
I’d rather have the option of doing what I have simulated in row two of my image.
and conman - trust me, I have more than a modicum of musical knowledge and indeed I could just play it in, but I defy you to play in 30 seconds of music fatser than I can click midi/reverse! duh!
I brought this up in another thread a while ago. It has always bothered me that Cubase’s ‘reverse’ doesn’t work in a manner that I thought it should (i.e, the way that you want it to work, TobyShark). That, to me, is the way it should reverse, in the way that a retrograde would be. The current Cubase method has never made much sense to me, and nor has it to any of the students I have showed it to in over 10 years of teaching Music Technology. Yes, you can make it work in a more ‘logical’ manner by fixing all the notes to a fixed length, and then applying reverse, and then re-lengthening the notes, but that is a major PITA, IMO.
Even if Steinberg will not say it’s wrong, they should (IMO) introduce an “optical reverse” function or similar, which will do what most people want it to - completely reverse the notes that have been played. I think we’re all big enough to be able to quantize note lengths/ends beforehand should we wish to do so.
That way of looking at it might be alright so long as what you have in mind is a straighforward song. But there are kinds of music where an exact (mirror-type) retrograde does make sense (irrespective of how it aligns with any nominal pulse). For those who want that, it’s frustrating that Cubase no longer does it. And, of course, it wasn’t ever “wrong” just because the resultant timing wasn’t what everyone wanted.
The “mirror” type reversal used to be in Cubase, and there are clearly people who would like to have it back - IMHO, it’s a shame it wasn’t kept as an option when the current method was introduced (would that have been too much trouble, I wonder?).
IIRC, Chris B said it was changed because people said they didn’t like it the way it was. Perhaps SB didn’t bother to find out whether there were people who actually did like it the way it was(?) - just removed the old way when they created the new one. Now there are people who say they don’t like it the way it is.
Complaints about the way it once worked were enough to cause a new method to be put into Cubase. Perhaps, by the same token, complaints about the way it works now can be also enough to cause the old method to be brought back as an option?
I’m with Chase on this. Yes, with the “mirror” reverse the timing may be out (depending on whether you’d quantized your note endings/lengths), but the current implementation doesn’t work correctly in far more situations than the mirror one did. I don’t think it should ever have been removed, there should have just been two options for reverse instead.
Conman - I couldn’t reply on the other thread (locked, quel surprise), but I don’t agree with your point about “Cubase users are capable of playing a simple idea backwards”. I teach a wide variety of people, from complete beginners to people who produce music for household names, and not that many of them can accurately play a musical idea as a retrograde off the top of their head; furthermore they can’t do it as quickly as you can with a ‘proper’ reverse function. In addition, I would also posit that some of their works are not “simple”.
I would actually say there’s also a good case for putting the facility to do a proper inversion in Cubase, (it’s possible to get close with the Logical Editor, but not right in all cases), or to create a MIDI processing plugin standard that allows the functions menu to be extended, in the same way Sibelius has. I’ve always found it odd that Sibelius (which is obviously not a sequencer in the sense that Logic, Cubase et al are) gives such a powerful tool to the user; some of the plugins that you can use can save you hours of work, or help create musical possibilities that would take a long time to experiment with. Something that would give access to the Logical Editor’s ability to process MIDI parts, but completely open up access to that data could lead to a whole new world of possibilities.
I’ve never used the “get MIDI from Audio” function, but would that be helpful for people who want the “mirror”?
I.e., print the MIDI track to audio, process it to reverse, then extract the MIDI from the reversed audio.
Not many steps, but … does it get the desired effect (if it even works)?
^
A neat bit of lateral thinking, there.
I’ve never used it either. In order to make it clear when the notes start and end, I suppose you’d need to use a sound that rose quickly to its maximum amplitude at the start of the note and fell quickly to silence at the end of the note (similar to an electronic organ).
A couple of weaknesses: with Vari Audio, it would have to be confined to monophonic lines; also, IIRC, VariAudio doesn’t convert audio amplitude to velocity, so the velocities would be lost? And I wonder how precisely the note starts and ends would be detected, compared with an actual MIDI reversal.
Anyway, while I’m waiting for the old method to come back as an option in Cubase, I’ll stick with exporting the MIDI and doing a (mirror) reversal in an older version of Cubase. It’s not something I do very often. In the past, I’ve used Atari Cubase, but it was mentioned in a related thread that perhaps it might also be possible in Cubase VST, so next time I need it, I’ll see if that works.
Nice thinking Alexis. If you use retrologue or something similar with just 1 osc on Sine, no attack and release on the envelope then there should be a very small error margin using audio to midi this way. But velocity or any other controller would be lost.
but I don’t agree with your point about “Cubase users are capable of playing a simple idea backwards”.
I didn’t mean it to be read as a blanket solution, just one way to quickly do a reverse on a short piece which is what many do. I do understand that many don’t. I am with the thinking it needs a revamp it’s just I don’t think it’s a bug, just a lazy design. Shouting bug is a great way to rub the programmers up the wrong way. A bit of diplomacy is no bad thing.
Especially if the programmers are as defensive as some here.
It’s just, or was, a minor feature and I guess it was just left and lost in the crowd of features that need maintenance. There’s probably a couple more like this knocking around too.
My feeling is that if it’s redeveloped it needs more than two options as there are more than two ways to reverse things.
As I noticed in the logical Editor there is also reverse “reflection” where the notes flip up and down around a centre note. Some might call that their reverse option.
I know it’s a bit fashionable to jump on my head in certain quarters but it’s very stupid especially when I’m batting on their side. 
That way of looking at it might be alright so long as what you have in mind is a straighforward song. But there are kinds of music where an exact (mirror-type) retrograde does make sense (irrespective of how it aligns with any nominal pulse). For those who want that, it’s frustrating that Cubase no longer does it. And, of course, it wasn’t ever “wrong” just because the resultant timing wasn’t what everyone wanted.
I understand and appreciate all of that but I don’t want just ONE option (ie: yours or mine). There should be a few to cope with different techniques. I bet though that if there were four or five options someone would come up with another one.
I’mnot sure how this is resolved… rather just left…
can someone remove the resolved tag?
should come back to this really, as there are now two types of midi reverse in cubase 7.5!
wohoo
T
Holy Thread Resurrection, Batman!