I am working a large piece with voice, dialogue, etc. (a ‘musical’). I have been using Cubase to mock up the various music bits. Surprisingly, I have found the latest scoring functions to be not half bad at all. Unfortunately, it still has some serious shortcomings in terms of adding lyrics, dialogue, stage directions and so on… the stuff that has to be in an engraved score for this type of music.
Ideally, I would love it if Cubase had features for all that stuff, but until such a day, I’m wondering if anyone here has experience in using Cubase for this sort of thing and how you handle this.
I have been looking at an open source program called ‘LilyPond’ which produces marvelous looking output, but would be a terror to input large projects into. Fortunately, it does import MusicXML. So I am thinking of trying to export from Cubase as MusicXML into LilyPond and then add the other lyrics, stage directions, etc. in Lilypond.
I am currently transcribing some songs for a music book and have found a number of annoying bugs and limitations in the addition of lyrics and directions. For example, I type in a simple direction and find that it has been duplicated elsewhere in the score, but the words are linked so I am stuck with two directions and they are not in the right position. I have also, had some problems with impossible key signatures and note tails crossing staves which I can’t hide or flip! It has been a bit frustrating.
Anyway, I abandoned the ‘clunky’ lyrics function and am now exporting each page of music in the File>Export>Scores… option at high resolution, then importing into a regular DTP (Microsoft Publisher) to finish the job. Another gripe is that so far, and this could be my failure, I haven’t been able to successfully set up a key or macro to effect the export, so I have to go to each page and go through the keystrokes manually. The output quality however is excellent.
If you want to go beyond scoring songs and short ensemble pieces then I’d not advise you to use Cubase’s Score. Some might have used it but you have to know the program and it’s foibles inside out and have an elephantine memory as to how to do everything if you don’t do it every day for hours.
It’s admirable how much some people do get done.
If it really matters that you use it then combing the manual with a fine tooth comb is a must.
I don’t own Sibelius which I believe is ideal for this sort of thing. The songs I am transcribing are already Cubase projects, so up to a point it’s a matter of adapting existing MIDI data to look right and condense into something a reasonable pianist can play (with a vocal line over). The tunes are all on a jazz tip and thankfully, much of the time the chord symbol system makes a reasonable stab too.
I have learned quite a lot of the peculiarities - that’s ok, it’s only when things are wrong not weird that it’s a problem for me.
Not wishing to hijack Suntower’s thread much further, but when a key signature shows 5 naturals and 5 sharps all at once, something ain’t right! When I write ‘Allegro’ on page one, I don’t want to see it halfway down page four as well!
I’m assuming I have to export my Cubase work into some -other- program @ some point to get the finished score, parts. The trick is—which one to use. I am trying -very- hard to work with Cubase Score for the same reason I try to mix (as much as possible) ITB… integration. I want the freedom to move everything from a few bars to whole -scenes- around. I just can’t commit to ‘completing’ the work in a DAW and then working from there in a dedicated Notation program. I gotta be able to move back and forth as part of the writing process. For example, I just got scheduled for a reading of a section by a local orchestra. GREAT! But do I have parts that are readable by humans? Absolutely not! So I’m going to scramble to generate -something-. But the truth is that what they’ll be playing is not even -close- to the final version of that bit… I’m just desperate to hear how it ‘really’ sounds so I’ll get them parts at this stage of disarray… that will never be used again.
I kinda like the idea of exporting into a DTP, but again, that implies that one -completes- the score before doing so.
In my dream world, Cubase/Nuendo would have the features of a screen writing program. ie. If a character is singing a lyric or speaking, I could click on them and immediately jump to other bars or scenes where they were on stage -and- generate reports for each ‘character’. It would also have the ability to add free-form pages of just text (staging and dialogue) as ‘objects’ and be able to move all these around as true ‘scenes’ like in a movie. Maybe that’s too much to ask, but I often think of this like a screenplay that includes music and wish Cubase (or any other DAW) allowed for that kind of music/visual workflow.
I’m assuming I have to export my Cubase work into some -other- program @ some point to get the finished score, parts. The trick is—which one to use. I am trying -very- hard to work with Cubase Score for the same reason I try to mix (as much as possible) ITB… integration. I want the freedom to move everything from a few bars to whole -scenes- around. I just can’t commit to ‘completing’ the work in a DAW and then working from there in a dedicated Notation program. I gotta be able to move back and forth as part of the writing process. For example, I just got scheduled for a reading of a section by a local orchestra. GREAT! But do I have parts that are readable by humans? Absolutely not! So I’m going to scramble to generate -something-. But the truth is that what they’ll be playing is not even -close- to the final version of that bit… I’m just desperate to hear how it ‘really’ sounds so I’ll get them parts at this stage of disarray… that will never be used again.
I kinda like the idea of exporting into a DTP, but again, that implies that one -completes- the score before doing so.
In my dream world, Cubase/Nuendo would have the features of a screen writing program. ie. You could organise a piece in terms of ‘scenes’ and ‘acts’. If a character is singing a lyric or speaking, I could click on them and immediately jump to other bars or scenes where they were on stage and generate reports for each ‘character’—with their parts. It would also have the ability to add free-form pages of just text (staging and dialogue) as ‘objects’ and be able to move all these around as true ‘scenes’ like in a movie. And like the ‘Video’ track, you could have a ‘Staging’ track above the music where you could put in notes @ various points. Maybe that’s too much to ask, but I often think of this like a screenplay that includes music and wish Cubase (or any other DAW) allowed for that kind of music/visual workflow.
Yes I understand completely that you need to be able to rock and roll back and forth between creating the music and scoring it to be played. My problem is way simpler, it’s essentially a digest of an album I completed a couple of years ago.
Regarding moving to DTP, I am hopeful that I won’t have to resize each page, so if I am forced to go back to score in Cubase and make changes, it will be easy to insert and match. I don’t want to lay all the lyrics into position and then have to move them to fit musical updates
As I am preparing a book, I need to have everything lined up exactly and paginated with contents, preface and all that jazz, so I reasoned that I have to move to DTP at some point, there is no way I can get to print ready within Cubase as the program stands. On the other hand, I don’t spend a lot of time in the score page on a regular basis, so although a more fully featured set up such as you describe would be fantastic, it would be only occasionally a bonus to me and would I suspect be ignored by a large percentage of Cubase users.
To be able to score at all effectively within Cubase is of course, very neat. It must have been a huge effort to get this far…it’s tantalisingly close to brilliant.
I wish you the very best with your ‘Musical’ endeavours - let us know how you get on.