the new score editor is a complete mess
well, it’s not quite that bad. 
But I’m not really that happy at the moment either. But I think that the new editor has a very good basis thanks to Dorico. The Steinberg people just have to make sure that everything is well integrated into Cubase and that the missing functions are available again.
And yes, I also think that there is no need for too much automation (or eg. AI). In music notation, you need a lot of special features and it’s easier to offer these as manual settings.
best regards
to be honest, after recognizing that score automation is the basis for the new score editor, I was shocked.
This process is only a benefit for people who can use all the help they can get to create a somewhat ok looking score.
For a musician who arranges with notation it is a desaster, not beeing able to see the intended score, but an automatically generated approximation, a machine “thinks” is more appropriate. Scoring is a precise and also individual process, which could be exercised quite well with the old score editor. If there were people who asked for a quick and dirty solution, implement an automatic mode to please them, but please don´t erase all the nessecary functionality to get the work done on a more professional level.
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I am not an expert in scoring for professional prints. But I have decades of experience with the old Score Editor in creating (not composing) compact sheet music (think Jazz Standards and Top Rock Songs) for myself to play music/songs on the piano and for the specific part (role) for musicians in a band.
The new Score Editor is not far from being a good editor for this purpose.
But in my opinion it needs e.g. a manual hide function and fine moving of individual elements of the sheet music. Then I think I can work with it.
best regards
It is a much bigger benefit than you realize. A common film scoring workflow is for the composer to write the piece (often full orchestra plus synths) in Cubase and then the orchestrator takes that and brings it into a notation program to engrave it properly the live performance. The orchestrator has a very limited timespan to make the score mostly correct to bring it into a notation program for the final details. This new design is a huge aid for that particular workflow, which is very time consuming but has to be done very quickly and accurately.
Prior to this, QuickScribe in Digital Performer was one of the few games in town that automatically generated correct notation pretty well. I know some who do this work who actually had Digital Performer as a second DAW just for QuickScribe so that they could bring the MIDI data from the composer’s DAW into Digital Performer to use QuickScribe, and then bringing that QuickScribe into the notation software. This new feature in Cubase competes directly with QuickScribe and allows them to get good notation from one program instead of having to take the composer’s MIDI from Cubase into Digital Performer and then into a notation program after.
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Excellent points @mducharme
@r.u.sirius Some patience might be required, The wonderful old Score Editor was amazing for its ability to customize everything, and I loved it. I was initially freaked out about the change, but I can see how this can become totally useful.
There were some very clunky things about the old editor, and also stability issues. Cubase 13 is still a modern daw, and can still be used while awaiting som necessary improvements, but the Dorico team is very responsive, as one may see by having a read of topics in the Dorico category, so I am optimistic.
The problem is not whether Cubase 13 is “still a modern DAW.”
I’m just wondering why they would release it with a half-baked score editor instead of just letting it bake and sticking to the previously set release timelines.
DAWs are not Notation Software, so this rushed release of a Dorico-based Score Editor was not necessary at all.
Paying for an upgrade to use the previous version for months after release due to feature regressions with nondescript Soon™ timelines for rectification generally feels bad.
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Yes, that’s the point. I also don’t understand why they are releasing a new score editor with less functionality than the old one. The only thing that matters is whether the user can achieve their use cases with it and not whether it looks nicer.
They have the clear functional template of the old editor and only had to ensure that the new one fulfilled that as much as possible. They could have simply used the time until the next release. Using the Dorico code base is of course a smart way to go, especially if the developer of the old editor is retiring (or has to?).
But I do understand the pressures of the business and hope that perhaps in the next release or with updates the score editor will better suit my use case again.
enough ranting
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It’s because people saw developments like the Studio One 5 (and its pre-existing interchange with Notion 6) and wanted Cubase to move in a similar direction with Dorico.
So, they had endless requests for “integration” between the two, but the only way to do this was to retrofit the Dorico scoring engine onto Cubendo.
Unfortunately, it made the interchange unidirectional, which breaks workflow for anyone who brought notation data over FROM notation software.
The strategy makes sense. It’s just odd that they rushed it out of the door. This release had enough in it without this component rendering it unusable for some people.
Digital Performer cannot import these files, so QuickScribe is irrelevant to these scenarios. Only a few DAWs could (REAPER, Logic, Cubase and Studio One by way of Notion 6).
Thanks everyone for the feedback in this thread. I’m sorry to hear you’re not happy with our new Score Editor. I’d like to clarify a few things that were touched upon in earlier comments.
The new Score Editor does take a different direction than the previous one. We are trying to make it easy to have beautifully notated music available without much manual intervention. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback about that, particularly from users that haven’t used the Score Editor in previous versions.
Obviously, with this different approach, we can’t satisfy every use case that was previously possible. Instead, we would like each product we offer to play to their individual strengths. Precise manual engraving is possible with Dorico, on top of the automation which is shared with the Cubase Score Editor. No matter how much longer we would have spent on adding features or fine tuning tools, the Score Editor will not become Dorico, nor will it become a carbon copy of the previous Score Editor.
Having said that, there are a few things that we are looking at adding in future versions. There are plenty of other threads with the score-editor tag with details. If you could share specific examples of what you would love to do within the Cubase workflow, that would be interesting to hear. Your feedback will influence what the future of the Score Editor will look like. I hope there are some things that are already proving useful in this current release.
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here are some flaws I found within the first few minutes of testing the new score editor, in no particular order:
- right click functions completely erased, missing the toolbox, which I´m used to use all the time
- copying by ALT-drag and drop is no longer possible. This is a basic operation all over Cubase, please bring it back!
- zooming with mousewheel is not working anymore
- measure numbers at every measure disturb the view and clash with notes, cannot get rid of them, cannot move them
- swing/shuffle tempo not available
- moving systems vertically not possible
- cannot move bar lines anymore
- when moving notes with mouse I can only land on 8th note positions, no smaller note positions available
- using scissor tool on bar line results in the creation of a new time signature - why?
- scissor tool on bar line cuts last measure in line - why?
- editing number of measures only possible for the whole piece. Cutting at a measure is possible with a new entry in the menue, which is awkward, when the scissor tool is still here, but glueing doesn´t work anymore.
Could be so easy, like in Guitar Pro with a +/- sing at the right of every system - selecting the glue tool let the cursor become a big plus sign with no function - bug!
- sometimes the cursor becomes the plus sign by selecting any tool
- clicking on text (title, composer…) - nothing happens, have to go into the menues to edit
- acoustic feedback not available when moving notes - VERY BAD!
- note durations are not precisely displayed, automation creates random lengths far from the composer´s intention - VERY BAD!
- all in all working in the score editor is very sluggish, have to select tools multible times to get them working, notes stay randomly selected and get edited by accident
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I understand the new direction of the Score Editor in Cubase. I also think it’s right and good. Bugs that still exist at the moment will certainly be fixed in the future and one or two missing features will certainly be added.
This leads me to conclude that my way of working will probably change. For simple cases, the new score editor will suffice, but when things get more complicated, I’ll probably have to continue working with Dorico.
Here is where my question comes in:
For the reason mentioned above, will there be an opportunity for (longtime) Cubase users to purchase Dorico at a reduced price in the future? (Just as a reminder, we are all poor musicians and Christmas is coming soon! ;-))
I know you can’t answer the question, but maybe you can pass it on to the marketing department?
Best regards
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Hi r.u., thanks for the detailed list.
Several of the usability issues you mention (right click, Alt-click, zoom with mouse) have been talked about previously, and we certainly aim to improve those in an upcoming patch release where possible. The same goes for the last few items in the list, like the acoustic feedback, and the note duration handling which is being talked about in a separate thread.
What would you try to achieve with that?
That’s not intentional, I’ll look at disabling that in a future patch release. I think scissor, cut, and glue tool should only work on notation items that have a duration.
I presume you are talking about adjusting the number of measures per system here? We’ve got a few tools to influence the automatic algorithm in Layout Settings, and with the System Break menu entry, we’ve got a way to manually set that. If you find yourself using the manual System Breaks a lot, then please consider adjusting the Layout Settings first. If you could show a specific example where the Score Editor didn’t make a good automatic choice, that would make it easier to comment.
You also talk about scissor and glue tool in this context. They are not currently intended to influence system breaks directly.
I will do that.
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editing the number of bars per system, editing spaces between systems and moving bar lines is essential to achieve compact scores, i.e. trying to fit a part on two pages instead of 3 or 4, to avoid turning pages for the player.
The result is sometimes not the best looking, but the most practical one.
I used to work like this all the time, and my musicans were always thankful to have compact scores.
If the scissors and glue tools shall no longer work on editing the number of bars, I´d prefer a solution directly on the page, instead of hidden in a menue. As already mentioned, Guitar Pro does it pretty clever with a +/- sign on the right side of each line/system. Simple und just perfect!
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This is exactly what I need. Compact, readable, simple sheet music for musicians from a DAW, here Cubase, without using a more complex notation application. And for this I used the old editor with good results.
Readable and compact sheet music is, I think, important for many of us!
If the main goal is to create beautiful and printable sheet music, then you should use Dorico and not Cubase.
I’m open to this, but you definitely need a solution to easily create a suitable and sometimes manual note break. The actual line break solution is not too bad.
Moving bar lines was very useful in the old editor in places where the automatic system created something too compressed. You usually don’t want to change the number of bars per line because you want to keep a musically sensible number, eg. usually 4.
I also saw that it was too compressed in a measure in some places in the new editor. There I would want to move the bar line(s) a little bit.
best regards
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Just to clarify, when you say you want to move the barlines (as in the old Score Editor), you actually want to change the note spacing locally within a bar?
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yes, that always went along in the old editor when moving a barline, and totally made sense
yes, in principle you change the note spacing. But moving the bar line also creates really more space there.
Or, for example, if there is only a rest or only one note in a neighboring bar, you can make this bar very, very small and it will still be readable for a musician. It might not look nice, but that doesn’t matter.
I doubt that an automatic system will always recognize this perfectly. Besides, I always think it’s good when you can overwrite an automatic system manually. Why not allow that.
best regards
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