Introduction to MIDI Sequencing with Cubase SX

What You're Going To Do

This page will demonstrate the mechanics of creating a MIDI sequence for a typical pop song. You will start off by creating some simple building blocks and then use them to gradually build up the complete sequence.

At first, you'll create repetitive patterns (normally 1 or 2 bars long) for the various instruments. These short patterns are copied, bar by bar, to create longer sections such as the verse, chorus and intro. As you do this, of course you have to modify the patterns slightly to reflect the chord changes.

How Long Will It Take?

Creating a sequence is very labour intensive and time-consuming. An experienced Cubase user might spend around 10 hours creating this sequence. You should expect to spend more time as you will also be learning your way around Cubase's complex user interface.

What Equipment Do You Need?

To work through this workshop, you'll need a PC or Macintosh computer running Cubase SX, connected to a music keyboard via a Midi interface. Any inexpensive home musical keyboard should be suitable, provided it carries the "General Midi" logo. A wide range of suitable products are available from manufacturers such as Yamaha, Casio and Roland.

Section 1 shows how to connect the keyboard to the computer.

A "General Midi" keyboard has a set of standard voices which you'll use for this sequence.

Note. You will not be using any digital audio or VST voices in this workshop.

What Song Are You Going To Sequence

The song you're going to sequence is called Your Eyes. We've chosen this song because you won't have heard it before (and so you won't have any preconceptions about it). We recommend that you print out the sheet music for the song as it makes life a lot easier.

The song-writers have presented you with a very rough form of the song. All you have are the melody and chords for the verse and chorus, plus the chords for the introduction. As you create the sequence, you will have to compose and choose instrumentation for all the different parts in the final sequence.

Plan Of Attack

If you examine the song carefully, you can see it breaks down into the following sections:

Immediately, you should see that there are a number of repeated sections which will allow you to cut and paste the same instrumental backings:

Looking carefully at the Intro, you can see that it has the same chord sequence as the Chorus. Perhaps you'll be able to use a modified version of the Chorus for the Intro?

Putting all this together gives a general strategy for creating the sequence:

  1. Create the basic parts for the first verse
  2. Create the basic parts for the chorus
  3. Add extra instrumentation.
  4. Cut and paste repeats for the verse and chorus
  5. Edit the chorus to create the intro
  6. Further additions.

The number of repeats makes the job easier, but you have to take care to avoid the song becoming boring. This is achieved by adding extra instruments to the later repeats and (towards the end) having one voice cross-fade into another.

(Cross-Fade: Gradually lowering the volume of one voice to zero, whilst increasing the volume of another voice from zero. Both voices play exactly the same notes at the same time. This gives the effect of the sound seemlessly changing (morphing) from one voice to the other.

What About the Fade-Out at the End?

It is possible to create proper fade-outs, but it is generally hard work. A far easier method is to set Cubase to repeat the final chorus indefinitely and use a manual volume control to fade out onto the final mix. You should certainly follow this approach if you intend to take your sequence to a recording studio and use it as the basis for an audio recording. If that seems too crude for you, then you can build in a proper fade using "Expression" control changes as an extra step at the very end.

Creating The Sequence

For convenience, we've divided the course into a number of separate sections. We recommend that you print out each section and work from the printed version. That way you can put a tick next to each step as you finish it. It is very easy to miss a step when working from the computer screen

Sequencing the Song

Setting up:

Creating the Verse:

Creating the Chorus

Reviewing what we have so far

Adding more tracks

Building up a complete song

Finishing touches

By the time you've got this far, you should be pretty confident at using Cubase and should be well prepared for creating your own original sequences.

Happy Sequencing

With grateful thanks to Rory Bathrick for writing the lyric to "Your Eyes" and allowing it to be used in this example.

Bob Lang
January 2001
Cubase SX version January 2003