Hello! I really like the new concept of the Score Editor in Cubase 14. What I’m still missing is that swing eighth notes cannot be displayed as normal eighth notes (old shuffle setting). Is there a way in Cubase 14.0.20 to achieve the right depiction?
Hi and welcome to the forum,
Have you tried to set the Display Quantize to the eighth notes?
Thanks for your immediate reply.
Yes! I’ve tried all the options of the display-quantization. The “old” shuffle-function is missing. It shows triplets on all notes.
The quantization algorithm has changed completely in the new score editor and so we need to reimplement the swing/shuffle method. We know that a number of users do miss it, and it’s on our list. Do you have a sample project that you could post here, or send to me via DM? It would be very useful for testing with ‘real world’ projects when we have time to look at this.
Notating swing or shuffle should be independent of “standard” auto visual quantize settings. People interpret “swing” as being everything from a slight shuffle (maybe 10% swing) through a full tied triplet feel (100% swing in Cubase Quantize terms). If you tried to “detect” this you’d have to cover that entire range which would likely result in falsely categorizing sections as “swung” that folks intended to be straight.
Besides - most music is either entirely one or the other anyway. For those of us who do switch feels on the fly, we need precision to do this precisely where we want to and not be beholden (solely) to the algorithm.
What you need here is a simply a written notation in the score “swung,” with a visual quantize algorithm that then kicks in and presumes that any notes after that written notation are indeed “Swung,” no matter how they were played in, and therefore displays any pair of duples as “straight” 8ths/16ths rather then tied triplets or dotted eighth sixteenths, etc. Big plus would be if the algorithm could nimbly detect and notate the occasional three note triplet (surrounded by swung duple notes) as a notated triplet.
If you try to auto detect a swung feel on the fly based on performance you will frustrate most users.
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Is it more useful to specify swing notation globally for the project or per-track? Are there common cases where you would want some tracks to be notated as swung but not others? The downside to per-track settings is that you might need to make the change on 20 separate tracks. (in addition to your request for being able to enable/disable swing at different points in the timeline)
Hi Paul,
of course, it depends.
For me, one swing notation per project would be sufficient.
I think that would also be the most common.
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I’d generally not have one track swung and another straight playing concurrently in a piece. So for me, a setting that impacts all tracks globally would be fine/desirable as the default.
As a film composer I do often switch from straight to swung in the same piece though, so being able to turn it on and off within a timeline is very important to me.
Thanks for asking!!!
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Same here
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For me it would make sense to switch on or off swing notation global for the selected score/layout. This should affect all selected track of the specific layout.
I can understand why most folks would have one swing set per project - that certainly makes sense for song composers - but again, for film composers, we often switch between swung and straight in a single cue and certainly hope we get an implementation that allows for that.
Honestly now that I think about it, the “swung” function could just be built into the existing quantize tool. Could simply be a checkbox that, when checked, invokes the swing visual quantize algorithm over the standard one.
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I’ve just finished a project in the new score editor that starts swing and then changes into regular rhythm so I would definitely favor being able to switch things mid project.
I tend to work from the midi side first so I set that section to use 1/8 Triplet quantisation to get it sounding right and then lived with the triplet notation although it looks quite messy!
For me the feature request isn’t really about quantisation in the score. It would be that when the notes are triplets in midi I can override that in the score, see it as 8ths and write something like ‘played/sung with a swing feel’. I wouldn’t need anything more complicated than that. I can’t see a situation whereby I would want different tracks using different notation.
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The workaround of philmac is an solution to clean up a triplet-overloaded score. The consequence: I have to do a lot of work to achieve a clean, readable score and you loose the “swing”-feel when you listen playback to the score. I often have to rearrange songs for different ensembles. This would lead in a lot of extra work.
My startingpoint for compositions or arrangements is Cubase (midi and audio) I want to make the score layout of all single voices or the complete score in Cubase, so I have the direct feedback of changes of the song - no matter if I made them in the midi- or score-editor - within the audio-playback. At the end of the process I can export the scores and the audio with the some result and hand it out to the musicians.
For this it would be very useful to bring the “shuffle” option back to Cubase 14 and the following versions.
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