I’m not sure of how many of you use it, but I love the Score Editor and I’m using for every new project within Cubase 6. But since I started using it, there are many things that would heavily benefit the workflow, in my opinion, and I will post the most important things I’ve seen or would like to see in Score Editor. Please, give any feedback on these and correct me if I’m wrong on my points:
• When ´legato´ is selected in Expression Maps, there should be a way of settings a slur to activate the legato articulation. I understand that it’s not always that a slur means legato, but it is in most cases and would be very useful to have a linked slur; an option like ´insert legato slur´ would be great, preferably with settings to define the amount of overlapping of the inside notes and, maybe, shortening the last note of the slur to disconnect from the next note.
• Selecting slurs is very difficult, and in some busy scores is almost impossible without using layers.
• Hairpins could be very improved. I would like to be able to:
a) resize a hairpin vertically, making it ´fatter´ or ´thinner´;
b) set different visual and playback points, you always have to decide between score readability and playability because of dynamic markings and hairpin collisions; it could be done using modifiers maybe (i.e. shift+drag for playback points and alt+drag for display); be able to set playback points to display points and vice versa; set crescendo/decrescendo curves (exp., linear, etc.);
c) Overture 4 has two excellent hairpin features that Cubase could use: create a hairpin with built-in initial and final dynamic and optionally displaying them, and setting inner points for the crescendo/decrescendo curves, this way replacing preset curves.
• There could be another Expression Map feature that I would love to see: sort of an ´unlinked´ command that you could insert anywhere in the score and that would send a keyswitch or a CC. Why? Let’s consider one case: I use Kirk Hunter Concert Strings II and in the same patch I can have 4 different section sizes, selectable by keyswitches. The way Expression Maps is implemented now, I would have to create 4 times all the articulations I already have created to be able to switch section sizes from the Expression Map, which is too much work and makes the articulation/dynamics lane unusable with so many rows; there would be many other occasions where such a feature would be useful.
• You should be able to copy/paste articulations inside Expression Map Setup, that would be a huge time saver for large expression maps.
• I believe articulation and dynamics lane should be separated and each one be individually resizable.
• I’d love to have articulation/dynamics lane inside score editor. I understand having controller lanes would be harder because of score spacing, but articulation/dynamics are directly related with scores.
• Better control of display in Edit Mode; I’d like to scroll left/right independent of the cursor position like in other editors, and see only one staff line when only one track is selected, even if there’s space left behind.
I hope I was clear in my observations and suggestions. Again, any feedback is highly appreciated.