Some Score Editor bugs and feedback

I have updated to the 14.0.20 this morning - great work, and my thanks to the team!

I wanted to point out a few small issues some of which are bugs (which existed in the prior version) and a few suggestions as well.

I. Bugs

  1. Caret Grid consistently breaks
    One of the nice things borrowed from Dorico is the Caret Grid which allows you to see note values based on your selected grid resolution, and advance the caret left/right according to this value. However, in Cubase, while it appears to recreate this Dorico experience on the surface, there’s some issues. To initiate it, you enter the step editor, which by default will show a caret with a 1/4 grid, like so:

Ok cool, let’s say we want to see a grid based on 1/8 notes - so you can do this by going up to the Q setting (which in my case is linked to grid) and switch that to 1/8. It will then change as expected:

But this is where the functionality ends and becomes buggy. From now on, that grid value will persist on all tracks until you close the project. If you select 1/16, 1/4, it doesn’t matter – you’re stuck on this grid permanently.

Second related bug would be that the left/right arrow advancing ought to be based on this grid value. When you select a higher grid resolution than 1/4, like 1/16, no matter what left/right arrows still advance by a 1/4. This is not the behavior in Dorico nor in the key editor (in step input, the bar moves by the grid always). The expected behavior from Dorico looks like this, where I can quickly change the caret grid and move by the grid all from the keyboard:

dorico caret grid example

  1. Transport > “Start From Selection Start” does not work from a selected note. If you select the exact same note in the key editor, it will start from there. However when selecting that note in the score editor, even with this setting turned on it will always start from the beginning of the entire event. I’m aware there is a “play from selection” option from a separate key command, but I like to use this mode with my transport from the spacebar, and expecting consistency between key & score editor.

  2. Up/Down arrows to “nudge” or move notes up and down. Just as it works in the key editor, where you can move notes up and down chromatically with the arrows. I can’t get this key command to work in the score editor to be consistent in both editors.

II. Feature Requests

  1. Key Commands for rhythmic note values - please allow us to create key commands to access this row of note values.
    Screenshot 2025-03-13 at 12.44.21 PM
    Very helpful while in step input or simply editing notes (key editor changes step input note value based on grid, but as far as I can tell there is no way to change this in the score editor via keyboard). But this would be beautiful for editing music, with any note selected to be able to change its rhythm from my keypad.

  2. “Fill View” to behave more like “Galley View” in Dorico (no system breaks) - Galley view is fantastic because it’s basically more like a primary timeline arrangement view, where music is always displayed in time from left to right. The longer the music, it simply just becomes longer horizontally. In Cubase, “Fill View” is the so-called equivalent but it isn’t, actually. When music gets too long for the zoom level, it still treats it basically like a printed page of music, breaking the system and continuing on in a top-down vertical fashion, so basically a glorified wider page view, which to me defeats the purpose:

  3. Explode & Reduce - please bring us these fantastically useful tools (I understand they existed in some way with the previous score editor?). Explode is especially helpful moving from a piano sketch to an orchestration.

  4. Display track names instead of instrument names - just a simple menu preference will do. A lot of us working with synths and non-traditional hybrid instrument libraries like Arkhis etc would rather see the name of the track than a random guess or “treble staff.”

  5. Menu preference for different editors based on lower zone vs. window:


    Rather than one default editor for both lower zone and opening in a window, I wish we could select to have one or the other. Example: lower-zone could always be key editor, and double-click to open a window could always open the score editor. For my workflow moving between both editors frequently, it would be nice to set a preference which one opens by default and how.

  6. Rests selectable and treated as part of the music - I know this is probably a lot easier said than done, especially since it is not possible in the key editor either, and rests are not treated like an event in the world of midi sequencing. I get that. One beautiful thing about working in Dorico is how rests can be selected along with notes and duplicated with ‘R’. Compositionally speaking, rests are part of the music, although I know midi doesn’t care about that. I am not sure how it could be implemented but I think having some ability to select and manipulate rests, even if it requires a modifier key or something. To illustrate a real-world scenario, you have a note and wish to repeat it. There’s a big difference between the following, musically:
    selecting rests

I think that is all I can think of for now - and I’m sure that’s a lot. Would just love to get the essential editing and input experience closer to Dorico. Thank you!

3 Likes

Thanks for the detailed and considered feedback. I’ll leave @StefanFuhrmann to comment on some of the note input and grid issues.

  • Transport > Start from Selection: I’ve logged this

  • up/down arrows: more generally, keyboard handling for cursor keys is a pain point that is non-trivial to address. Cubase doesn’t have mode-specific key commands in the same that Dorico does, which makes it harder for us to allow the user to override things. This is one of the areas where we try to strike a balance between consistency with the key editor and consistency with Dorico where raw cursor keys are for navigation (up/down = next note vertically in chord), however we haven’t implemented this yet. You can however press alt-up/down (on Windows) to nudge up/down

  • key commands for note input durations: logged

  • galley view: we’ve talked about whether galley view would work better in the Lower Zone, so that’s something we may consider in the future. In the main Score Editor window, using Galley View would mean that a lot of useful vertical space wouldn’t be used. We’ll think about that

  • Explode/reduce: on our list

  • Display track names: on the list – we know this is very important for lots of users

  • Selectable rests: this is likely to be difficult because in Cubase the notes don’t actually exist

1 Like

Thank you so much Paul!

Re: up/down arrows to adjust pitch – I’m actually probably a Heretic over in the Dorico forums but because I come first from a DAW world and Cubase, before I got into notation and Dorico, one of the first things I did was change the Dorico pitch up/down key command to match that of Cubase in the key editor (i.e., regular up/down arrows), and reversed alt-up/down to be selection, since I select notes on other staves with far less frequency than I re-pitch notes. I’ve read all the reasoning for Dorico’s design of consistency, but for me as a hybrid DAW<>Notation user going back and forth numerous times a day, I have found consistency between apps helps me a lot more when switching.

Long way of saying I’d almost prefer the score editor to behave more closely to the key editor with basic editing tasks and key commands (where feasible and sensible), such as up/down pitching etc, rather than being exactly a 1:1 to Dorico. Or at least somehow a menu preference or option to change this. Since I’m back and forth between key editor and score editor frequently, it helps to not have to remember different shortcuts which effectively do the same thing.

Re: selectable rests – yeah, I am not sure how that would work either. Obviously if you look at Dorico’s key editor for a passage, you won’t see rests as a midi event, just as in Cubase, but rather, the lack of an event. I’m sure it’s a lot more involved to implement, but I would love if it were possible one day!

One last thing I forgot - the “green playhead” which shows up in the score editor, I wish it was possible to move it to control the transport - especially if you have the score editor open in a window on a second screen, you have to go back to the main window to move the playhead. Would be nice to be able to somehow access or control where the playhead starts right in the window.

Cheers!

Alt-shift-click …?

I fixed this, but looks like it didn’t make it into the release notes

1 Like

Oh, brilliant, and it works the same in the key editor too (you can probably tell by now how much I love that haha) – you’ve made my day, thanks!

Hi
I noticed that importing Dorico file into cubase 14 pro it does not give the message if you want to create a new project like importing a midi file. Dorico file import automatically requires you to select a folder and a new project is created. Is it possible in next maintenance release we could have a similar message/option?
Currently, I create an empty file, then import Dorico file only to find another project is created and then I have to delete the original empty file.

Cheers,
JDTune

I’ve made a note of this. On Windows you can drag and drop a Dorico/Musicxml file onto the hub window, which I use all the time as a fast way of importing projects. I think you can do File > Import directly from the hub window too so you don’t need to create an empty project first.

1 Like

Oh great! Thank you so much! :laughing:
In the meantime, I’ll give your suggestions a try.

cheers
JDTune