Quick question, maybe I’m being really clumsy, or maybe the function doesn’t exist.
I played a piece on the piano with both hands. I would now like to revise the notation and print it out at the end. I have set a fixed split point in the notation options (“Trennpunkt” in the german version). But now there are notes in the right hand (melody) that lie below the dividing point and collide with the accompanying notes in the lower notation system. I have found out that you can move notes from the upper to the lower notation system. But then they don’t replace pauses, for example, but are like " alien objects". I also found out that you could work with the polyphony option. But for this I would have to split my single midi track into two midi tracks (right and left hand). That would be an option, but of course time-consuming. How do you do that? Am I missing an option? I’m still relatively new to Cubase 12 Pro. Thanks a lot!
No, that is the best way to do it and it’s not much effort. When set to Polophonic all the Notes on MIDI Channel 1 will be in the right hand and Channel 3 the left. If you change the setting I believe it will change all the Notes below the split point to be on Channel 3. This of course leaves the misplaced Notes still misplaced - so they need to be switched to the desired Channel. This is much easier to do using the Key Editor rather than the Score Editor. For example, select all the Notes you want to change from Ch 1 to Ch 2, and make the modification one time in the Info Line’s Channel field.
In case you are wondering why it is Channels 1 & 3 and not 1 & 2 - that’s to accommodate SATB part writing,. With these MIDI Channels for each voice.
- Soprano
- Alto
- Tenor
- Bass
EDIT:
No need for 2 Tracks. You can have multiple MIDI Channels on the same Track (in fact you’d want to do that or in the Score they’d be 2 entirely separate staves). Just make sure the Track’s Channel is set to Any and not a specific number.
In my template I keep it set to Polyphonic by default and generally record everything on Channel 1. Then afterwards I’ll Select the Notes I want to put in the lower stave and change them. This literally takes a minute or two to do manually as described above. And if you are doing this a bunch you can create a PLE Preset so all you need to do is select the Notes and hit a Key Command.
Hello Raino, thank you so much for your fast reply! This solved my issue and it’s indeed very elegant! I wasn’t aware that you can assign midi channels to a note in a track.
Just make sure the Track’s Channel is set to Any and not a specific number.
Why is that? I need to select a midi channel to control my keyboard and select a sound/patch. If I record, I like to use my midi keyboard so latency is lower than a virtual instrument.
I just tested it. If I use midi channel 7 on the track (project view) and then chose channel 1 and 3 for right and left hand, Cubase plays the notes… or am I missing something?
Does the track channel setting affect the midi channels in the track itself?
Is the midi channel in the track a kind of a Midi sub-channel? This is a little confusing for me. Thank you for your insights…
Sorry for the delay in responding - just got home from eclipse chasing.
How this works is a bit different between Cubase 12 & 13. Since you are on 12 I’ll explain that first and then note the new improvement.
When you record onto an Instrument or MIDI Track it always records whatever it sees at its MIDI Input. So if you had a Keyboard Controller setup to be split with the left half on Channel 1 and the right half on Channel 2, when you record a performance it will capture data for both Channels independent of the Track’s Channel Setting. The Track’s Channel Setting only impacts playback. If you have it set to Any then all the Channel 1 Notes will play on Channel 1 and the Channel 2 Notes will be on Channel 2. But if you were to change the Track’s Channel Setting to 2 then all of the Notes will playback on Channel 2, even the Notes recorded as Channel 1.
So Any retains each Note’s Channel value, but setting it to a specific number will convert all the MIDI data to that Channel on Playback.
With Cubase 13 the Channel Setting is also used as an Input filter to determine if the Track only receives one specific Channel or all of them when set to Any. Prior to 13 you had to use the Input Transformer to do this.
Hello Raino, thank you so much for your detailed answer… I am still not sure if I understand. I attached three screenshots. The first one shows my track with Midi Channel set to “9”. The second and third one show my editor with notes selected, one (right hand) is channel “1” (“Kanal” in german) and the second (left hand) one channel “3”. So what are these channels “1” and “3” in relation to channel “9”? I only have one external Midi Keyboard attached to my PC. If I use more than one instrument e.g. piano and drums, I need to change my Midi channel on the track to different settings - Piano on Midi channel 1 and drums on Midi channel 10, otherwise my external keyboard won’t know what instrument to play for which track…
In MIDI, every MIDI Event (i.e. Note On/Off, cc message, Program Change message, etc.) has a specific MIDI Channel assigned to that Event. For the two Notes you’ve selected those Channels are 1 and 3 which are shown on the Info Line.
During playback you have two options A) Use the MIDI Channels which are already assigned to the MIDI Event, or B) Use a different MIDI Channel by changing it while playing back.
To do A you would set the Track to Any. To do B you would set it to a specific MIDI Channel Number. So in your example all of the Notes on Channels 1 and 3 will be converted to Channel 9 for playback.
There is a MIDI Insert, MIDI Monitor which lets you see the MIDI Data in realtime. You might find playing with it helps sort out how this works.
Hello Raino, thank you very much, this makes a lot of sense and now I understand! Thank you!