Why does B show in the chord track when I have selected Cb?

I am in the key of Ebm and want to use Cb as a chord in the chord track. When selecting the chord from the chord assistant it shows as Cb but then when inserted it shows as B which is an enharmonic equivalent. I need Cb. How can I achieve this?

Hi,

You can change the enharmonic version of the Chord event in the Info line. Can’t you?

Hi Martin. There are 3 options in the enharmonic shift drop down, “auto” “#” and “b” and neither of those do anything. Also, Why can’t I change the project key to a flat key? They are all sharps :open_mouth:

Not for B though.

Hi,

Sorry I’m not at my DAW right now. Isn’t there a preferences the enharmonics shifting will follow the Chord Track’s scale by any chance?

I think you’re referring to the Follow Chord Track for enharmonics pref, This is for notes though, not chord symbols.

The Chord track scale has no bearing on note spelling display. Only chord symbols do this.

I suppose no being able to switch the enharmonic of a B is a bug, but I also presume that there’s a dependency in the code that prevents the enharmonic spelling. Maybe because B is the last note before the ‘ladder’ returns to C.

I don’t understand. So is it impossible to have the Cb chord in the chord track? all the other chords of Ebm work in the key. I can get Ebm, Fm Gb Ab Bb and Db but no Cb.

I’m sure I just typed it in

What does that mean?

Sometime back (5, 8 years-ish?) there was a bug where if you tried to select all the Chord Events & transpose them via the Info Line only some of the Chords would change. I don’t recall the details but it was dependent on the B to C ‘divide’ where Chords on the other side didn’t get changed. Once the pattern was identified Steinberg quickly fixed it. I wonder if this problem might be a residual of that older problem.

Sheesh, that seems a bit complicated. I just wanna Cb chord man :smiling_face_with_tear::… after all the versions and updates surely this must be possible… This is supposed to be a music production program and Cb is a normal triad not some fancy 8 note jazz chord… I can’t understand how this is not possible. If I can’t use Cb in the chord track It means I basically cant compose in Gb or Ebm in Cubase becuase if I have B it will change all my accidentals in the key editor :frowning: Is there any way around this? I could compose in D#m but really I can’t in this case. It has to be Ebm.

Just tried in Studio One and same issue there.

My guess is that keys are linked to explicit notes, and as there’s no specific flat or sharp (black note) to map to in this instance it just isn’t supported? Despite what you’re doing is musically correct, of course.

Cb , Fb, E# or B# - I doubt you can get to any of those to display in chord track, either.

You would expect Cubase to have this sorted though, particularly as the chord track and musicality is where a lot praise is heaped. Really, it could do with having a project key/scale that can be set to whatever you want and notes are mapped to display relative to that scale - it would save a lot of bother elsewhere.

I think the only function that comes close is the root key setting, which isn’t quite the same as it’s more a transposing tool, plus nowhere can you just enter Gb (etc) as a key to begin with.

Edit: Just tried Scaler 2 with Gb Major and that obeys the display rules, but cannot get Cubase to follow suit no matter what, Perhaps adding the flat equivalents to F# Major etc. would sort this issue?

You’re right, that’s it!

I guess they went with “no uncomfortable chord spellings.”

So not a bug that can be fixed.

Thought I would try to get Cubase to display a Cb chord in Score Editor’s non-chord-track chord symbols editor, no luck.

And in F# Major:

I wouldn’t expect this limitation to change, you just have to do the enharmonic in your head.

The thing that annoys me most is not actually that Cubase doesn’t have this sorted out ( indeed there are always technical issues and no DAW is perfect). It is because it is not made clear to the user that this is not available. almost as if it is being brushed under the rug. If there are such limitations, anyone would be annoyed by this. It should be stated in the manual what keys are available and which arent so we don’t go losing our time over it ang get back to composing.

Creativity first… but not in Gb or Ebm…

Look at the bright side! You want Cb, you’ll probably resolve that to Bb. Now you have a B, you can resolve that to E! Creativity Sparked! :grin: :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

You’d think it’d be relatively simple for them to just create an array of popular keys (C Maj, Gb Maj etc) and then each of the 11 notes in an octave are mapped to a display name appropriately.

That array can then be used across the DAWs so that B (in this instance) shows as Cb as long as the project is set to a “display” key.

For a while I thought the scale events on the Chord Track will do exactly that: tell Cubase in what scale we are at the moment so it presents the note names based on that scale.
Of course, this is not how it works.
Then I looked for a place in the program where I can let Cubase know in which scale we are to achieve the above… silly me.

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The thing is, when we use the Chord track, the key editor gets “enharmonics from Chord track” and the C D D# F problem was greatly improved. But since the chord track has been promoted to such great duty, I think it should allow for ANY enharmonic spelling, no matter how perverse it might seem at first.

for me the chord track has always worked almost always until now… I think this is the first time where I havent been able to get the enharmonics I needed in the key editor. It seems to be a problem with only a few chords and it would be great to know beforehand what the limitations are

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