I have a SWAM flute quartet in Cubase 15 Pro, Win 11. All the flutes are notated an octave higher than they are sounding. When I look in the score and key editor at the note pitch it is an A#3 but it is notated as A#4. I checked if some tracks were transposed but they are not. I have no idea what is going on. When I export to Dorico it is also notated an octave too high.
The original file was made 10 years ago and recently I took it up again. Changed the instruments to SWAM and did not touch anything else. I don’t think it has to do with SWAM since the pitches sound correct.
Anyone any suggestions?
If the instrument type is set wrong in the score instrument settings, it can have the wrong transposition. For instance, if it is set to a piccolo, it will show an octave too low. The octave transposition amount is baked into the instrument.
Can you post a screenshot showing the problem?
Don’t know if this is the case but I have encountered octave problems when using some vstis (notably swam and vhorns) for not playing/scoring in the right octave out of the box. And I do a lot of pre-production and arrangements for horns/brass, in dorico or in Nuendo, and have encountered it. The solution is, as always, knowing exactly what octaves are, in fact, sounding to a determined score, and adjust transposition (-12, +12) on the vsti itself.
Yes this can be the case too, most VSTi’s have you play the sounding pitches but others shift them by an octave or even multiple octaves, since some vendors prioritize making things easier for users with smaller MIDI controllers with fewer keys and try to shift the instrument range by the correct number of octaves that it fits into those smaller MIDI controllers.
Hello Michael,
Here is a screenshot. The midi info states that it is A#3, it sounds like A#3 but the notation is A#4.
Thanks in advance.
Go into the Score editor and then in the Score menu (in the menu bar) go into instrument settings and make sure that the “Instrument Type” is set correctly for those instruments.
Thanks Michael,
I did as you wrote and I found this weird situation as you can see in the screenshot; The instrument type in the General overview is set as Flute but when I opened the setting it is set as a Bass Flute! Now the weird octavation has gone. I had checked this setting before but had not opened the setting. This looks like a bug to me.
Thanks for your support. Happy everything is working normally now.
Now Steinberg has to solve the problem that the score editor does not refresh when I change something. Hopefully in the next update.
It is not a bug, it tries to determine the correct instrument from various clues like the track name but can get it wrong. The bass flute sounds an octave lower than written and Cubase assumes that your notes are the sounding pitch for the instrument. So with bass flute selected, the written notes would be one octave higher.
The refreshing on the other hand is a bit of a known issue that people are experiencing.
Thanks for your reply. My point is that the Instrument type in the General Window does not correspond with the setting in the Sub Window. Only after going into the Sub Window I could check what the real setting was. Or am I missing something?
Do you mean you were seeing the correct instrument type here, but it was wrong when you clicked on it?
Hi Michael,
Yes, that is what I mean. Is there a reason for it?
It shouldn’t be like that, it might be related to a problem we are discussing in another thread. I can reproduce it too.
