In this section you will learn the following.
You've done enough of the backing tracks to be able to record the verse. Just in case you've forgotten, here it is again:
(The song actually starts on the second beat of the first bar. The funny shaped note on beat one is actually a rest, indicating one beat of silence)
By far the most convincing way of recording the verse is to play it on the keyboard. If you are a confident player, you can probably record it in one or two takes. However, if you're less confident you may prefer to record it in stages, building it up as you go along.
You will also quantize the recording as this allows the less confident player to produce a reasonable result in a reasonable time, but at the cost of a somewhat "robotic" result. A confident player who can accurately play the melody in just a few takes will produce a much more "human" result.
In traditional music notation, there there may be several equivalent ways of writing the same information; especially when using dots (to increase the length of a note by 50%) and ties (to link two notes together to make one longer note). Here are two alternative ways of representing the same few bars of music. (Look at the lyrics "in" and "-net"):
If you can't see why the two extracts are identical, then you need to read more on music notation!
The Score Editor will generally show music using the second form, rather than the first.
The Score Editor can often appear to behave very strangely; sometimes it seems to put in rests all over the place, sometimes it shows pairs of notes as chords instead of a single line of melody, and sometimes it's a complete nightmare to change the length of a note.
To understand the behaviour of the Score Editor, you need to be aware that there is a conflict between traditional music notation, and the way Cubase records and stores notes.
In traditional music notation, there is an implicit assumption that a note starts playing only when the previous note has finished. To find out when to play any particular note in a bar, you have to look at the previous notes and rests in the same bar and mentally add together their lengths. The next note in the bar will start playing when the current note finishes. Provided the tempo doesn't change, each bar should take the same amount of time to play.
However, this does not take into account the reality of playing music with expression. Some notes may be played early or late; the finger holding down the key may be lifted early, leaving a short silence between the end of one note and the beginning of the next; or a note may be held down longer so that it overlaps with the start of the next. Cubase faithfully records these variations and it is the job of the Score Editor to make sense of it all and display it sensibly.
In deciding whether any particular note should be displayed as a quaver, crotchet, minim, etc (eighth note, quarter note, half note, etc) the Score Editor uses the following information:
Hence, the particular representation of any note in the sequence depends upon the context in which it appears.
The following three examples show two notes: the first is approximately one beat long (a crotchet/quarter note), the second approximately half a beat long (a quaver/eighth note). The only difference between the examples is that the second note starts at a different time in each case, yet it is the representation of the first note which changes.
In the first example, the second note starts one beat after the first note and the Score Editor chooses to display the first note as a crotchet (quarter note):
In the second example, the first note is held down for a beat but the second note starts well into the second beat. Hence there is a period of silence between the end of the first note and the start of the next. The Score Editor displays the first note as a crotchet (quarter note) followed by a rest:
In the final example, the second note starts well before the first note has finished playing. The Score Editor now decides to display the first note as a quaver (eighth note), even though this is not a true representation of its actual length:
The implication of this is that to change the represented length of any particular note, it may actually be necessary to change the position of the following note!
Suppose a player makes a mistake recording the verse, and instead of playing:
Plays this instead:
(
Look at the words "me" and "in" in the second bar)
As far as the player is concerned, there is one mistake: the note for "in" was played a little too late. Playing this note a little late probably introduced to two further errors: the "me" note being half a beat too long and the "in" note being half a beat too short.
Hence fixing this simple mistake could mean repairing three separate errors:
The sequence will only sound right when all three problems have been sorted out.
The first step is to move the "in" note half a beat to the left. This can be fixed by setting the Quantize value to 8th notes (quavers) and then using the mouse to drag the note one position to the left. The Score Editor will now display this:
Although the note now starts at the right position, it's still too short. Meanwhile, the "me" note appears to have been shortened (but it hasn't really). These problems are best fixed inside the Key Editor, using the techniques shown in step 6.
In previous versions of Cubase, if you delete a rest in the Score Editor, then the remaining music in the part was shifted to the left. This was normally disastrous.
Fortunately, this dangerous behaviour has been removed from Cubase SX; if you try to delete a rest, then nothing happens (or the rest magically reappears after a while).
However, so what do you do if the Score Editor shows a rest that you don't want? Normally, one of the following corrections will fix this problem:
"Punch In and Out" are terms used in studio recording where a small section of some previously recorded material is replaced by a different recording. It is commonly used to correct mistakes. Punch In is the start of the recording and Punch Out is the end of the recording.
Simple Punch In and Out can be easily done by pressing the "record" button whilst the sequence is playing. Any notes played on the keyboard are recorded onto the currently active track.
Cubase also supports Automatic Punch In and Out. If the "Punch In" button (on the transport bar) is selected, then when playback reaches the Left locator position, recording is enabled. Similarly, if the "Punch Out" button is selected, it turns off recording when playback hits the Right locator position.
The Punch In and Punch Out buttons are shown on this diagram:
To use this feature, you must bracket the section to be replaced by the Left and Right locators, select the Punch In and Punch Out buttons, and start playback several bars earlier. As the music plays, you can hear the playback approaching the Punch In point so you know when to start playing. When playback reaches the Left locator, the "record" button on the transport bar lights up and recording is enabled. Anything you play now is recorded into the current track. When playback reaches the Right locator, the "record" light goes out and you can stop playing.
You can use Auto Punch In to build up a part in short sections like this:
In this way, you can build up a complete part in short takes. If you make a mistake, just delete the last take and try again.
To the left of the Punch In and Punch Out buttons on the transport bar, there are two recording mode fields.
For beginners, we recommend that these are set as follows:
As part of your own research into Cubase SX, you might like to investigate what these recording modes are for, and how they might be used by advanced Cubase SX users.
The melody for Verse 1 will be recorded on Track 1.
Follow these steps. Put a tick next to each one as you finish it:
Once again, you are going to create an empty part (this time on track 1) and record our melody into it.
Follow these steps. Put a tick next to each one as you finish it:
Now you have an empty part, you can start building it up until it holds the complete melody for the verse.
Follow these steps. Put a tick next to each one as you finish it:
You can fix individual notes by dragging them with the mouse or using
If you make a complete hash of it then delete the part and start again.
When you've got the first four bars correct, it's time to add the next four, using the auto punch in method.
Follow these steps. Put a tick next to each one as you finish it:
If you make a mess of it, delete the notes you've just recorded and try again. You don't have to delete the entire part!
By repeating the previous operations over and over again, you can record the complete melody.
Follow these steps. Put a tick next to each one as you finish it:
Whenever you play on the keyboard, there is a tendency for our music to sound to choppy and staccato. As with the Electric Piano part, you need to ensure that it sounds legato. Fortunately, Cubase provides a "Legato" tool for this very purpose.
In most songs, long notes generally stop at the end of the bar which contains them, and don't carry on into the next bar. Unfortunately, the "Legato" tool isn't aware of this and so it makes some notes too long.
You'll have to identify these problems and fix them manually. Do this by selecting the note and then setting the LENGTH field of the note (which appears at the top of the window) to an appropriate value according to this table:
| Desired Length | LENGTH setting |
|---|---|
| Half a beat | 0.0.2.0 |
| One beat | 0.1.0.0 |
| Two beats | 0.2.0.0 |
| Two and a half beats | 0.2.2.0 |
| Three beats | 0.3.0.0 |
| Four beats (one bar) | 1.0.0.0 |
Follow these steps. Put a tick next to each one as you finish it:
If you've done a lot of editing, then it is possible that the end of some notes may overlap the start of the next. The following step will correct this:
The Legato operation will have made the last notes of each of the following bars too long:
Each of these should be corrected as follows:
It's probably a good idea to adjust the velocity of the part in relation to the other tracks being played.
Follow these steps. Put a tick next to each one as you finish it:
Well done! You have now successfully created a version of the verse melody.
It's probably worth noting at this point that the highly quantized, legatified (?) and velocitized (??) result bears little relation to beautifully phrased music played sympathetically by a virtuoso. Welcome to sequencing!
Seriously, if you want to record beautiful phrasing, then you have to be able to play beautifully. Cubase will record whatever you play, but the more you fiddle with it, the more mechanical the final result. Part of the skill of sequencing is knowing when to edit and when to leave well alone.
You're ready to proceed to the next section.