after some years away I have a need to use the score editor now with Cubase 12 Pro. While there are bits and pieces of information scattered around on YT and various other sites (Groove3 etc.), it’s proving hard to find a decent tutorial on what I assume is a standard use case - recording keyboard MIDI (or any MIDI for that matter) and creating a decent score utilising its quantizing abilities properly etc.
I have spent a lot of time working through the manual (again), but it’s not contextualised and is in no way a user-oriented learning resource.
Anyway - if you know of one, paid or otherwise that would be relevant to the current version of Cubase, I would be very grateful. Groove3 has one for Cubase 7 Pro but surely the current version has come a long way since then (one would hope).
Not that much has really changed. While some capabilities will have improved since Cubase 7, there’s nothing in Cubase 7 that wouldn’t apply to the Score Editor in Cubase 12. I think the most difficult aspect of initially learning the Score Editor is mostly conceptual - how the various elements fit together. And that’s exactly the same now as then.
The Score Editor in Cubase was pretty mature many versions ago, just like the Key, Drum & List Editors. So any changes will be pretty incremental. The Score Editor does a decent job of creating basic scores, lead sheets & tablature. But if you do need fancier than what it provides (and you probably don’t), that’s why they created Dorico.
That’s great to hear and thank you. The Groove3 tutorial I mentioned appears to be comprehensive and so given your advice, I will proceed with it and hopefully get to where I need to get to.
My needs are not overly complex so I’m sure it will provide all the functionality I need. As you say, the concepts require some effort to grasp so it will be a fun journey, I’m sure!
Many thanks for such a quick response - much appreciated. Dave
I’ve just located the course I mentioned and it turns out it’s not the comprehensive tutorial on the score editor as I thought. It’s a general tutorial on editing in Cubase Pro 7 (which looks quite good in its own right). While Score Editor does feature, it’s not what I was hoping for. Shouldn’t do these things so late at night!
Could you give us an idea of how you’d use the Score Editor? I think the subject is so big, any specificity you could provide might spur someone into action – at least to say something, if not to make a vid.
Sure - my needs are pretty basic at this stage but no doubt it will evolve.
For now however, my daughter is studying singing and she has many songs which we perform together, me on piano. While accompanying, I adapt my playing to her style and am always varying from the music and we use rubato, embellishments and sometimes complex timing - eg. runs of 10 over 3 quavers etc. Note - I have some idea about the time warp tool, so that’s a start!
I’m hoping to record her singing while I accompany (recorded into MIDI) and to produce decent scores of my own - sometimes with embellishments, key changes etc. using Cubase 12 Pro, eventually producing some videos of the performances.
I use an RD-800 and have some decent recording gear, but the Cubase scoring is proving to be a very steep learning curve. I am an accurate player but not a machine (by any stretch) and am constantly frustrated by the way Cubase interprets my playing. If I could play some of the scores it has created I would be a genius!
So as said, quite basic in the scheme of things, but there are so many moving parts in this bohemoth of a system that I constantly find myself disappearing down rabbit holes as I try to learn.
However I will persist and may end up making a video of my findings one day!
Yeah, the Score Ed can be quite literal when it looks at MIDI timing data. There are two ways to get around this. The first (and least attractive) is to simply Quantize your MIDI. The major downside of this is that you loose all the timing nuance in the actual performance. But the Score Ed has another function Display Quantize that will ‘Quantize’ the visual representation of the Notes but not change the actual timing of the MIDI Notes you played.
In general folks tend to think of the Score Editor, Dorico, Finale etc. as music programs. But they are actually highly specialized graphics editors - arguably having more in common with Photoshop than a DAW.
I watched the Groove 3 video and all the info in it is fine, but it is very much a quick overview. Ignore the speculation at the start about the editor’s future. However I did learn something from it - an easier way to open the Score Settings than from the menus like I’ve been doing.
The forum has a bunch of folks who know the Score Editor very well. So you can just post screen captures & ask how to make whatever looks wrong look right.
But you did play it, that’s exactly what you played.
Thanks again Raino. You make a great analogy with Photoshop and it makes sense. Perhaps another approach is to record to MIDI, create an accurate tempo map, then duplicate the track and quantize the performance on the copy before going into score editor, making some localised edits/quantizing at the display (Photoshop) level.
Anyway - it is shaping up to be a fun journey and I appreciate your help. I do find it hard to believe there isn’t a decent comprehensive tutorial on the subject though - will keep searching!
Cheers - Dave
PS. Literal interpretations of my loose tempo playing are very scary indeed!
