Steinberg Cubase SL - 2.0 User Manual

Score Layout and Printing

Manual by Ludvig Carlson, Anders Nordmark, Roger Wiklander
Quality Control: C. Bachmann, H. Bischoff, S. Pfeifer, C. Schomburg

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not rep­resent a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software
described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied
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All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

7 How the Score Editor

works

8 In this chapter you will learn:
8 Welcome!
9 How the Score Editor

operates

10 MIDI notes vs. score notes
11 Display quantize
16 Entering notes by hand vs.

recording notes

17 The basics

18 In this chapter you will learn:
18 Preparations
18 Opening the Score Editor
19 The project cursor
20 Page Mode
22 Changing the Zoom factor
23 The active staff
24 Making page setup settings
24 Designing your work space
29 About dialogs in the Score

Editor

29 Setting key, clef and time

signature

36 Working with transposing

instruments

37 Working order
38 Force update

39 Transcribing MIDI

recordings

40 In this chapter you will learn:
40 About transcription
40 Getting the parts ready
41 Strategies: Preparing parts

for score printout

42 Staff settings

51 Situations which require

additional techniques

53 Inserting display quantize

changes

54 Strategies: Adding display

quantize changes

55 The Explode function
57 Using “Scores Notes To

MIDI”

59 Entering and editing

notes using the

mouse

60 In this chapter you will learn:
60 Staff settings
63 Note values and positions
66 Adding and editing notes
70 Selecting notes
72 Deleting notes
73 Moving notes
76 Duplicating notes
76 Moving using the bar

handles

77 Cut, copy and paste
78 Editing pitches of individual

notes

80 Changing the length of

notes

82 Splitting a note in two
82 Working with the Display

Quantize tool

83 Split (piano) staves
85 Strategies: Multiple staves
86 Inserting and editing clefs,

keys or time signatures

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4 Table of Contents

89 Staff settings

90 In this chapter you will learn:
90 Staff settings
91 Making settings
92 Working with staff presets
93 Staff names
93 Key and clef
94 Display quantize and inter-

pretation flags

95 Display transpose
96 The Options tab
98 The Polyphonic and Tabla-

ture tabs

99 Polyphonic voicing

100 In this chapter you will learn:
100 Background: Polyphonic

voicing

103 Setting up the voices
107 Strategies: How many

voices do I need?

108 Entering notes into voices
109 Checking which voice a

note belongs to

109 Moving notes between

voices

112 Handling rests
113 Voices and display quantize
115 Creating crossed voicings
117 Automatic polyphonic

voicing – Merge All Staves

118 Converting voices to tracks

– Extract Voices

119 Additional note and

rest formatting

124 Stem length
125 Accidentals and enharmonic

shift

127 Changing the note head

shape

128 Other note details
131 Copying settings between

notes

132 Handling beaming
142 About tied notes
145 Graphic moving of notes
146 Cue notes
148 Grace notes
150 Tuplets

155 Working with symbols

156 In this chapter you will learn:
156 Background: The different

layers

159 The symbol palettes
165 Important! – Symbols,

staves and voices

166 Adding symbols to the

score

179 Selecting symbols
182 Moving and duplicating

symbols

189 Changing length and shape
190 Double clicking symbols
191 Deleting symbols
191 Copy and paste
192 Alignment
193 Symbol details

201 Working with chords

202 Chord symbols

120 In this chapter you will learn:
120 Background: Note stems
121 Setting stem direction

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Table of Contents 5

209 Working with text

210 In this chapter you will learn:
210 Adding and editing text

symbols

215 Different Types of text
222 Text functions

272 Setting up a staff for drum

scoring

273 Entering and editing notes
273 Using “Single Line Drum

Staff”

275 Creating tablature

229 Working with layouts

230 In this chapter you will learn:
230 Background: Layouts
231 Creating a layout
232 The Layout List
233 Using layouts – an example
234 Marker Track to Form

235 Designing your score –

additional techniques

236 In this chapter you will learn:
236 Layout settings
239 Staff size
240 Hiding/showing items
242 Coloring notes
243 Multiple rests
245 Adding and editing bar lines
246 Creating upbeats
249 Setting the number of bars

across the page

251 Moving bar lines
253 Dragging staves
256 Adding brackets and braces
257 Auto Layout
261 Clean Up Layout
262 Breaking bar lines

276 In this chapter you will learn:
276 Automatic creation
279 Manual creation
280 Tablature number

appearance

281 Editing
282 Note head shape

283 The score and MIDI

playback

284 In this chapter you will learn:
284 The MIDI Meaning function
286 Dynamic crescendo

symbols

289 Printing and exporting

pages

290 Printing
290 Exporting pages as image

files

293 Troubleshooting

294 In this chapter you will learn:
294 How to use this chapter
294 Adding and editing notes
297 Symbols and layout

265 Scoring for drums

266 In this chapter you will learn:
266 Background: Drum maps in

the Score Editor

269 Setting up the drum map

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6 Table of Contents

299 Tips and Tricks

300 In this chapter you will learn:

305 Index

1

How the Score Editor works

In this chapter you will learn:

• How the Score Editor and MIDI data relate.

• What display quantize is and how it works.

Welcome!

Welcome to scoring in Cubase SX! The Score Editor has been cre­ated to allow you to get any possible piece of music displayed as a
score, complete with all the necessary symbols and formatting. It al­lows you to extract parts out of a full orchestra score, to add lyrics and
comments, create lead sheets, score for drums, create tablature, etc.
In other words: just about any type of notation you could ever desire!

There are a few basic principles to how the Score Editor works, which
you just have to understand to make full use of it. So please bear with
us during this chapter, we’ll try to be as concise as possible.

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1 – 8 How the Score Editor works

How the Score Editor operates

The Score Editor basically does the following:

• Reads the MIDI notes in the MIDI parts.

• Looks at the settings you have made.

• Decides how the MIDI notes should be displayed according to the settings.

MIDI data

Score Editor Score display

Score settings

The Score Editor takes MIDI data and settings as input and produces a score as
output.

The Score Editor does all this in real time. If you change some of the
MIDI data (for example by moving or shortening a note) this is immedi­ately reflected in the score. If you change some of the settings (for ex­ample the time signature or key signature) this is also immediately
apparent.

You should not think of the Score Editor as a drawing program, but
rather as an “interpreter” of MIDI data.

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How the Score Editor works 1 – 9

MIDI notes vs. score notes

MIDI tracks in Cubase SX hold MIDI notes and other MIDI data. As
you may know, a MIDI note in Cubase SX is only defined by its posi­tion, length, pitch and velocity. This is not nearly enough information to
decide how the note should be displayed in a score. The program
needs to know more: What type of instrument are we talking about,
Drums? Piano? What key is the piece in? What is the basic rhythm?
How should the notes be grouped under beams? etc. You provide
this information by making settings and working with the tools avail­able in the Score Editor.

An example of the MIDI/score relationship

When Cubase SX stores a MIDI note’s position it makes the measure­ment in an absolute value, called ticks. There are 480 ticks to a quar­ter note. Have a look at the example below.

A quarter note at the end of a 4/4 measure.

The note is on the fourth beat of the measure. Now, let’s say you
change the time signature to 3/4. This shortens the length of a “mea­sure” to only three quarter notes – 1440 ticks. Suddenly our quarter
note is in the next measure:

The same note in 3/4.

Why? Since by changing the time signature you are not changing the
MIDI data in the track/part (that would ruin your recording!), the note
is still at the same absolute position. It’s just that now each “measure”
is shorter, which effectively moves the note in the score.

What we are trying to get across here is that Score Editor is an “inter­preter” of the MIDI data. It follows rules that you set up by making set­tings in dialogs, on menus, etc. And this interpretation is “dynamic”, or
in other words, it is constantly updated whenever the data (the MIDI
notes) or the rules (the score settings) change.

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1 – 10 How the Score Editor works

Display quantize

Let’s say you used the project window to record a figure with some
staccato eighth notes. When you open the Score Editor it displays it
like this:

This doesn’t look anything like what you intended. Let’s start with the
timing – obviously, you were off at a couple of places (the third, fourth
and last note all seem to be a 32nd note late). You can solve this by
quantizing the figure, but this would make the passage sound too
“stiff”, and not fit in the musical context. To resolve this problem the
Score Editor employs something called “display quantize”.

Display quantize is a setting which is used to tell the program two
things:

•

How precise the Score Editor should be when displaying the note
positions.

•

The smallest note values (lengths) you want displayed in the score.

In the example above, the display quantize value seems to be set to
32nd notes (or a smaller note value). When reading the following
chapters you will find out how to set the display quantize value yourself.

Let’s say we change the display quantize value to sixteenth notes in
the example:

With display quantize set to sixteenth notes.

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How the Score Editor works 1 – 11

OK, now the timing looks right, but the notes still don’t look like what
you intended. Maybe you can understand that from a computer’s point
of view, you did play sixteenth notes, which is why there is a lot of
pauses. But that’s not how you meant it. You still want the track to
play back short notes, because it is a staccato part, but you want
something else “displayed”. Try setting the display quantize value to
eighth notes instead:

With display quantize set to eighth notes.

Now we have eighth notes, as we wanted. All we have to do now is to
add staccato articulation which can be done with one simple mouse
click using the Pencil tool (you will find out about this in “Working with

symbols”).

How did this work? By setting the display quantize value to eighth
notes you give the program two instructions, that would sound some­thing like this in English: “Please, display all notes as if they were on
exact eighth note positions, regardless of their actual positions” and
“Please, don’t display any notes smaller than eighth notes, regardless
of how short they are”. Please note that we used the word display,
which leads us to one of the most important messages of this chapter:

❐

Setting a display quantize value does not alter the MIDI notes of your re­cording in any way, as regular quantizing does. It only affects how the
notes are displayed in the Score Editor (and nowhere else)!

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1 – 12 How the Score Editor works

Choose your display quantize values with care

As explained above, the display quantize value for notes puts a restric­tion on the “smallest” note value that can be displayed. Let’s for a sec­ond look what happens if we set it to quarter notes:

With display quantize set to quarter notes.

Oops, this doesn’t look too good. Well of course it doesn’t! We have
now instructed the program that the “smallest” note that occurs in the
piece is a quarter note. We have explicitly told it that there are no eighth
notes, no sixteenths, etc. So when the program draws the score on
screen (and on paper) it quantizes the display of all our eighth notes to
quarter note positions, which makes it look like above. But again, please
note that when you hit Play, the passage will still play as it originally did.
The display quantize setting only affects the score image of the record­ing. One last important note:

❐

Even if you enter notes using the mouse and input perfect note values, it
is very important that you have your display quantize settings right!
These values are not just used for MIDI recordings! If you for example set
the display quantize value for notes to quarter notes and start clicking in
eighth notes, you will get eighth notes in the track (as MIDI data), but still
only quarter notes in the display!

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How the Score Editor works 1 – 13

Using Rests display quantize

Above we used display quantize for notes. There is a similar setting
called “Rests” display quantize which is used to set the smallest rest
to be displayed. Often, this setting is very effective:

What if the original note example looked like this:

As you see, the first note is moved and appears one sixteenth note
later. If we change the display quantize value for notes to eighth notes,
the score will be displayed like this:

With Notes display quantize set to eighth notes.

Unfortunately, this moves the first note to the same position as the
second, since sixteenth note positions aren’t allowed. We can solve
this by inserting extra display quantize values within the bar with the
Display Quantize tool (“Q”), but there is a much easier way: Change
the display quantize value for notes back to sixteenths, but set the dis­play quantize value for
to display any rests smaller than eighth notes,

sary

. The result looks like this:

rests

to eighth notes! This tells the program not

except when neces-

With Notes display quantize set to sixteenth notes, but Rests display quantize set to
eighth notes.

How did this work? Well, you instructed the program not to display
any rests smaller than eighth notes, except when “necessary”. Since
the first note appeared on the second sixteenth note position, it was
necessary to put a sixteenth rest at the beginning of the figure. All
other rests, however, can be hidden by displaying the notes as eighth
notes, and were therefore not “necessary”.

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1 – 14 How the Score Editor works

This leads us to the following general guidelines:

• Set the Notes display quantize value according to the “smallest note po­sition” you want to be shown in the score.

For example, if you have notes on odd sixteenth note positions, the Notes display quan­tize value should be set to sixteenth notes.

• Set the Rests display quantize value according to the smallest note value
(length) you want to be displayed for a single note, positioned on a beat.

A common setting would be to have Notes display quantize set to 16
(sixteenth notes) and Rests display quantize set to 4 (quarter notes).

Handling exceptions

Unfortunately, the guidelines above won’t work perfectly in every situa­tion. You may for example have a mix of straight notes and tuplets of dif­ferent types, or you may wish to display equally long notes with different
note values depending on the context. There are several methods you
can try:

Automatic display quantize

If your score contains both straight notes and triplets, you can use au­tomatic display quantize. When this is activated, Cubase SX tries to
“understand” whether the notes should be display quantized to
straight notes or triplets. See page 45.

Using the Display Quantize tool

With the “Q” tool, you can insert new display quantize values any­where in the score. Inserted display quantize values affect the staff
from the insertion point onwards. See page 53.

Permanent alteration of MIDI data

As a last resort, you can resize, quantize or move the actual note
events. However, this would result in the music not playing back like it
originally did. Often it is possible to get the score to look like what you
want without altering any MIDI data.

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How the Score Editor works 1 – 15

Summary

This closes our discussion on the basic concept of display quantizing.
There are a number of other special situations which require more ad­vanced techniques, which you will find out about in the next chapters.
You will also read about other settings which work along the same
lines as display quantize but each with its own application. These are
called “interpretation flags”.

Entering notes by hand vs. recording notes

Sometimes you will enter and edit notes by hand (or rather using the
mouse and computer keyboard) and at other times you will record them
from a MIDI keyboard. Most of the time, you will do a combination of
both. In “Transcribing MIDI recordings” you will find out how to make a
recorded score as legible as possible without performing any perma­nent changes to the MIDI data. “Entering and editing notes using the

mouse” shows you how to enter and edit notes using the mouse. In real

life, even if you have recorded the piece perfectly, you will often have to
do some permanent editing to your recording before printing. Which
leads to this conclusion:

❐

You will have to read both chapters in order to understand how to pro­duce legible scores!

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1 – 16 How the Score Editor works

2

The basics

In this chapter you will learn:

• How to open the Score Editor.

• How to set up the page size and margins.

• How to switch between Page Mode and Edit Mode.

• How to hide and show the symbol palettes, the toolbar and extended toolbar.

• How to set up the ruler.

• How to set a zoom factor.

Preparations

1.

In the project window, create a MIDI track for each instrument.

Please note that you can prepare a piano (split) staff from a single track, there’s no
need to create one track for the bass clef and one for the treble clef.

2.

If you like, name each track after the instrument.

This name can later be used in the score if you like.

3.

Record into the tracks or create empty parts on all tracks.

You can make very long parts that cover the entire piece, or you can start out with
shorter parts to begin with. If you choose the latter option, you can always go back
later and add new parts or copy existing parts.

Opening the Score Editor

Editing one or several parts

To open one or several parts in the Score Editor, select the parts (on
the same or different tracks) and select “Open Score Editor” from the
MIDI menu or “Open Selection” from the Scores menu. The default
key command for this is [Ctrl]/[Command]-[R].

•

You can also select the Score Editor as your default editor, allowing
you to open it by double clicking parts.

This is done with the Default Edit Action pop-up menu in the Preferences dialog (event
Display – MIDI page).

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2 – 18 The basics

Editing whole tracks

When you are preparing a score for printing, you probably want to
open the whole MIDI tracks in the Score Editor. To do this, select the
track(s) in the track list and make sure no parts are selected – then
open the Score Editor as usual.

About editing parts on different tracks

If you have selected parts on two or more tracks (or several whole
tracks – no parts) and open the Score Editor, you will get one staff for
each track (although you can split a staff in two, e.g. when scoring for
piano). Think of the project windows as an overview of your entire
score and the tracks as representing one instrument each.

Editing predefined combinations of tracks

On page 232 you will find out how to open the Score Editor with a
certain combination of tracks that you edited before.

The project cursor

The project cursor appears as a vertical line across the staff. When
you open the Score Editor, the view is automatically scrolled so that
the project cursor is visible in the window. This means you don’t al­ways see the beginning of the edited part when you first open the
Score Editor.

•

Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and [Shift] and click anywhere in the score
to move the project cursor there.

This is handy if the project cursor pointer isn’t visible.

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The basics 2 – 19

Page Mode

When you are preparing a score for printout, you should set the Score
Editor to Page Mode. This is done by selecting Page Mode from the
Scores menu (if the menu item is called “Edit Mode”, you are already
in Page Mode).

Selecting Page Mode.

When you do this, the window switches to show you one page at a
time, as it will appear on printout.

Page Mode vs. Edit Mode

All you can do in Edit Mode, you can also do in Page Mode. But Page
Mode offers lots of additional features that are not available in Edit
Mode, typically because they are directly related to how the score is
displayed and printed.

❐

This section of the manual assumes you are in Page Mode. It will be men­tioned explicitly if something in this text specifically relates to Edit Mode.

Using the scroll bars in Page Mode

In Page Mode, the scroll bars are used to scroll the image of the page
inside the window.

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2 – 20 The basics

Moving between pages in Page Mode

If your score takes up more than one page, you can skip between the
pages in two ways:

•

By using the page number indicator in the lower right corner.

The number can be adjusted using the standard value editing techniques.

The Page Number indicator – adjust it to move to another page.

•

By assigning key commands to the functions “Move to Next Page”
and “Move to Previous Page” in the Key Commands dialog in the
Scores category.

Also, if Autoscroll is activated on the toolbar, the score display will fol­low the project cursor position. This way you can scroll the score by
using fast forward or rewind.

Playing back and recording

You can play back and record MIDI in the Score Editor using the stan­dard transport commands, just like in the other MIDI editors. See the
Operation Manual for details.

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The basics 2 – 21

Changing the Zoom factor

There are two general ways to change the zoom in Page Mode: by
setting a zoom factor on the zoom pop-up menu or by using the Zoom
tool (magnifying glass).

Using the zoom pop-up menu

Above the vertical scrollbar to the right you will find a pop-up allowing
you to set the zoom factor.

The zoom pop-up.

By zooming in you will be able to make detailed adjustments to sym­bols etc. By zooming out you will get a better overview.

• If you select “Fit Page”, the zoom factor will be adjusted according to

the window size so the whole page is visible.

• If you select “Fit Width”, the zoom factor will be adjusted according to

the window width so the full width of the page is visible.

This pop-up menu can also be opened by right-clicking (Win) or
[Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) in the ruler.

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2 – 22 The basics

Using the Zoom tool

The Zoom tool in the Score Editor works much like in the project
window:

• Click once with the Zoom tool to zoom in one step.

• Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and click once with the Zoom tool to zoom

out one step.

• Drag a rectangle with the Zoom tool to set a custom zoom factor.

The section encompassed by the rectangle is zoomed to fill the window.

The active staff

One thing to note when you are working with multiple staves is the
“active” staff. Only one staff at a time can be active, and is indicated
by a black rectangle to the left of the clef symbol.

This staff is active.

Later on you will find out how to make settings that apply specifically
to the active staff.

• To make a staff active, click anywhere in it.

By default, you can also use the up and down arrow keys on the computer keyboard to
step between staves.

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The basics 2 – 23

Making page setup settings

Before you start preparing the score for printout, you have to make
some page settings for your project. You don’t have to do this as the
first thing you do, but it’s a good working habit, because it affects how
the score is displayed on screen, too.

1. Select Page Setup from the File menu.

The Page Setup dialog appears. This is the regular operation system Page Setup dia­log, described in detail in your system’s documentation. The only things that Cubase SX
adds to this are the margin settings.

2. Select the preferred printer, paper size, orientation, etc.

3. If you need to, change the margins by setting the left, right, top and

bottom settings.

• To make the settings permanent, save the project.

If you want new projects to always start with certain page setup settings, you can make
project templates with these or create a default project. See the Operation Manual.

Designing your work space

Some of the areas in the window can be hidden or displayed. Exactly
which areas you wish to see depends on what kind of work you are
doing, and how big a monitor you have.

Info line

Extended toolbar

Display filter bar

Ruler

These areas can be hidden or displayed.

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2 – 24 The basics

The info line

The info line displays information about the currently selected note. It
can be hidden/displayed by clicking the Show Info button on the tool­bar, or by using the key command for “Show/Hide Infoview” (in the Key
Commands dialog–Editors category; by default [Ctrl]/[Command]-[I]).

The extended toolbar

The extended toolbar can be displayed/hidden by clicking the Show
Tool Strip button on the main toolbar.

The display filter bar

This area contains checkboxes for determining which indicators, han­dles and other non-printed elements should be shown in the score. You
hide and show the filter bar by clicking the “Show Filter View” button on
the toolbar.

The ruler

In the Score Editor there are no meter/time position rulers as in the
other editors. Instead, there are horizontal and vertical “graphic rulers”
in Page Mode. These help you to position symbols and graphical ob­jects in the scores.

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The basics 2 – 25

• To set which units should be used on the rulers, open the Zoom pop-

up menu above the vertical scrollbar to the right, and select one of the
options.

Choose between points, inches or centimeters. You can also bring up this pop-up
menu by right-clicking (Win) or [Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) in the ruler.

• To hide the rulers, select “Off” from the pop-up menu.

The Position Info window

To help you further when positioning objects in the scores, Page
Mode has a special Position Info window, in which you can view and
adjust object positions numerically, in the unit selected for the rulers.
To display the Position Info window, click in the ruler.

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2 – 26 The basics

The symbol palettes

The symbol palettes, which are used to add symbols to the score, can
be displayed by selecting an option in the “Symbol Palettes” submenu
from the Scores menu.

You can move symbol palettes around on the screen by clicking and
dragging their title bars. Right-clicking (Win) or [Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) in
a symbol palette brings up a pop-up menu with the following options:

• Select “Toggle” to switch between a vertical or a horizontal palette.

• Selecting one of the symbol palettes on the pop-up menu brings up that pal­ette, replacing the current.

• If you hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] and select a palette from the pop-up
menu, the selected palette will open in a new window (without replacing the
existing one).

To close a symbol palette, click its close button as usual.

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The basics 2 – 27

Showing and hiding “invisible” elements

Some of the elements in the score will not be printed, but rather serve
as indicators for layout changes, handles, etc. These elements can be
hidden or shown in any combination by using the display filter bar.

• If the filter bar isn’t shown, click the Show Filter View button on the

toolbar.

The checkboxes on the filter bar determine whether an element
should be visible (checkbox ticked) or not. The following options are
available:

Option Description

Bar Handles Displays the bar handles, used for copying bars (see page 185).

Hidden Notes Displays any notes you might have hidden (see page 240).

Hide Displays markers in the score for each hidden element (notes ex-

cepted). See page 240.

Quantize Displays markers in the score where you have made display quan-

tize “exceptions” (see page 53).

Layout tool Displays markers in the score where you have made adjustments

with the Graphic Move tool (see page 145).

Grouping Displays markers in the score where you have made beam group-

ings (see page 132).

Cutflag Displays markers in the score where you have inserted cutflag

events (see page 143).

Split Rests Displays markers in the score wherever you have split multiple rests

(see page 243).

Stems/Beams Displays markers in the score where you have made any stem or

beam adjustments (see page 121 and page 140).

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2 – 28 The basics

About dialogs in the Score Editor

There are two basic types of dialogs available in the Score Editor:

• Non-modal dialogs can remain open while you continue working in the score.

In a non-modal dialog, you click the Apply button to apply the settings in the dialog to
the selected objects in the score. This means you can select different elements in the
score and change their settings, without having to close the dialog in between.
The dialog is closed by clicking the standard close button in the window title bar. The
Staff Settings dialog is an example for a non-modal dialog.

• Regular dialogs have an OK button instead of an Apply button.

Clicking OK applies the settings you’ve made and closes the dialog. You cannot con­tinue working in the score (or select other objects) until you close the dialog.

• If the option “Apply closes Property Windows” is activated in the Prefer­ences (Scores page), clicking the Apply button in a non-modal dialog
closes the dialog.

In other words, this makes a non-modal dialog work a bit more like a regular dialog.

Setting key, clef and time signature

When preparing for entering notes into a score, you will probably
want to start out by setting the desired key, clef and time signature for
the staff. The text below assumes you are working on one track only. If
you have multiple staves, you either make this setting independently
for each staff or for all staves at once. See page 42 for details.

Normally, all these symbols appear at the beginning of each staff.
However, you can control this by using the Real Book option (see

page 237) and by hiding (see page 240).

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The basics 2 – 29

Setting the initial time signature

From within the score

1. Double click on the time signature symbol at the beginning of the staff.

A dialog opens.

The time signature dialog with a 4/4 signature.

2. If the piece is in 4/4 or 2/2, you can select common time/cut time di-

rectly by clicking one of the two symbols on the right.

This will set the time signature to 4/4 or 2/2, respectively, but also give you a common/
cut time symbol on the staff.

3. If the piece is in any other time, set the numerator and denominator

above and below the line, respectively.

The numerator can consist of several numbers for composite time signatures. How­ever, if the piece is in a simple time signature you only need to fill in the first number
above the line. The more advanced options are described below.

• The “Pickup Bar” option is described on page 246.

4. Click OK or press [Return].

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All tracks share the time signature! In other words, when you set the time
signature, you do this for all tracks in the project.

If you need to enter half a bar somewhere (for example) you have to make
a time signature change (for example from 4/4 to 2/4 and back again).
On page 86 you will find out how to input time signature changes.

CUBASE SX

2 – 30 The basics