Steinberg crew hello,
A new approach to the Score Editor, Expression Maps and Instrument/MIDI Tracks has to be taken… At the current status the Score Editor and the Expression Maps are just a good idea but practically quite useless. Totally against the slogan “Creativity First”
Too much tech work, or time for reading the manual always destroy the Musical Creativity!
About the Expression Maps:
The things can be very simple and time saving, just like in Overture 5.5 by Sonic Scores…
There is (I call it) Direct Mapping which gives you three ways of Expression and Articulation mapping:
- You can create your mapping on fly while working on project (I prefer this one because saves time)
At the end you can save them as User Presets. - You can create the User Presets separately like in Cubase’s Expression Maps.
- Something that can’t be made in Cubase… You can change the settings for certain expression, or articulation
/This is very useful if you are using instruments from different libraries sharing one staff, for example 2 Flutes - 1 from
Orchestral Tools - Berlin Woodwinds and 1 from Spitfire Audio - Symphonic Woodwinds playing the same expression flz.. in
intervals, in 2 voices. On the score sheet they have to share single flz. text (both instruments
can be routed to different midi channels in order to use different libraries in single Kontakt instance), but the articulations and expressions
of these libraries are set to different keyswitches, but on the score the expression text has to be valid for both, you can make the text to
affect only voice 1 and to add hidden text to affect voice 1 on different keyswitch./
The Expression Maps feature in Cubase has to be re-designed to make all these 3 was possible.
About the Score Editor:
It also needs serious improvement /Re-designed Tool Panels, nicer looking score sheet and notes, option to switch from dependent to independent mode from the Key Editor in order to have properly looking scores and natural/humanized playback. To include all possible symbols and texts/
To look similar to Logic Pro X Score Editor, Dorico - Write Mode, Overture or Finale
About the Instrument/MIDI Tracks:
They also have to be re-designed to provide multiple MIDI Channels routing, at least up to 16. The idea for single track per instrument
should be deeply embraced. For example to use all possible expansions of Orchestral Tools - Berlin Strings, for Violins 1 in one Track.
It is possible, but very time consuming… Has to be as easy as in Overture 5.5… Exactly how they look on the real Orchestral score
For now the easiest way to use different articulations, expressions, effects in Cubase is to place them on different MIDI Tracks. But these MIDI Tracks
in the Score Editor will appear in separate staves, which is not fine.
I hope Steinberg will do these changes to help the composers who prefer to work more with notation instead of midi mockup, and make their life easier!
We don’t need Engraving tools in Cubase, just to have properly and nice looking scores, which can be then transferred to a Notation app for Engraving.
Greetings