I've been wanting to do a Cubase
tutorial on scoring percussion parts for
some time because I discovered a lot of
things in writing in Cubase that I think
would help some others
I've been scoring when I call it a
symphony it's in four movements it's
about thirty minutes long and I'm
starting to wrap it up and I've learned
some things about doing things with
percussion and kit drums in particular
when you want the don'ts to appear on
the page the way it's been intended is a
difficult thing to do sometimes if
you're not completely aware of what's
going on in the program I'm gonna do a
video that may help with that who would
like to score our percussion and kits in
Cubase and you can't do it in Cubase you
don't need another notation program
Cubase 9.5 0.3 the pro version does it
all for you so now I have this score
it's not the right size will change the
page setup we'll go up to the file menu
and when you want to score something for
a certain size paper you have to pick
the size of the paper first
this one is scored for a tabloid which
is 11 by 17 which I like to print for
scores but for this tutorial will revert
to us letter and then we'll have the
program do its magic it has an auto
layout function which is really quite
incredible and will line everything up
and space it perfectly on the page you
can make adjustments get it's doing it
for us and it's nice and clean as you
can see it does it really really well
however if you look at the bottom of the
page you will notice that the percussion
part is not too great and we have these
notes down here which actually occur on
the keyboard in those regions for these
percussion notes and for the kit drums
the bass drum is way down the cymbals
are midway up and the other percussions
even further up the keyboard well there
is other things below see threeway
Bulow's even that are gonna appear on
the page like this one right here that's
very low and we want it to be legible so
let's move along and see where there's a
good part here yeah you can see this is
kind of
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it's illegible for any anyone they would
not be able to read that and know what's
going on so we want to change it so that
it's legible
and what we need to do is to make sure
that your percussion parts most of your
percussion parts are on channel 10 the
reason why I say they should be on
channel 10 is not because you're unable
to do it on other channels you are
however if you do not have a drum map
specific to your module or your sound
card or whatever it is you're using
you're gonna use the general MIDI map
general MIDI started in the 80s and all
the manufacturers decided that channel
10 is for percussion so you will need to
select that now you can see that we have
node values here these are node values
that would appear in the editor and the
next thing is to check how clean your
parts are nee these are not on the beat
these are way off it's always a good
idea to clean your parts and so we set
the quantize to I usually do sixteenth
it's just easier unless you have to go
in there and it will move things where
they should be the most of this stuff is
really off you could select a huge swath
of these things if the rhythms not too
complicated in quantize and you will see
they'll all move you can also clean up
the lengths a bit you can do option T
and that will whatever your length value
is here and we'll turn those notes into
those lengths just like that but there's
another way that you can do this in the
program also and that is through the
score editor itself now that we have
channel 10 selected for the percussion
we've gone through and cleaned up some
of the part a little bit we can get to
that later
this next thing you want to do is pick
the general MIDI drum map and you select
that it's turned the parts from key
editor into a drum map editor and we
have our bass drum here now this may
cause problems if you have drum rolls
over the board
one beat you can access that in the list
editor and find those notes and then you
can lengthen them that can be changed
even though they're visually in the key
editor they look like just diamonds you
can change the lengths in the list
editor but for now these notes aren't
our percussion notes so the next thing
we want to do is open our score and see
what we have
what's important is now that you've
selected a drum map over here you're now
able to use the score drum map selection
in the option staff options of the score
part settings and that's good because if
you did not select this GM map you would
not have this option this would not be
illuminated this would be faded out like
this now that you have that selected
also I recommend selecting no
accidentals because percussion
instruments do not need accidentals and
hit apply it even looks worse than it
did before because these notes are
really occurring on the keyboard the
basis for this is treble clef if you
were to do a single line drum staff that
would work well for a snare drum or
triangle or one symbol but for a whole
kit or a lot of percussion parts it's
not going to work that great I use just
a regular staff this way you're able to
move things around so they're visually
better so now the next thing we're gonna
do is clean this up and the way to do
that is to open up your drum map so we
go here and we hit drum app setup open
that up now you're gonna notice that it
has a lot of the instruments listed
you're gonna need these two things out
so you can see what's going on I know
it's kind of messy but we do need all of
these things we're gonna be using them
all now that you've linked your GM map
over here with the part and you're
utilizing the strum score setting which
is right here what I need you to do is
go up here and click on acoustic
feedback in your score page now when you
click on an instrument put some large
just a little bit you click on it it's
gonna show up in the drum app you see
that and let's see what note that is
this here well that's the bass drum now
look where that shows up it's just a 0 C
-2 is all the way at the bottom my bass
drum should be up here but
because Yamaha and general MIDI went
their separate ways that bass drum isn't
gonna occur up here it's gonna go where
Yamaha wants it which is right there so
let's just change this to bass drum so I
know where it is this is where the fun
part comes in the display where it's
showing that note is where that note is
occurring on the staff but we want to
change that note we want to move it up I
want it up to c3 so it's more legible
and this is the magic part so you click
on this you use the roller portion and
your mouse and you roll that note up and
look at that it's not a thing of beauty
you're rolling it up to where you want
it to display and I like it right there
at see the ride is here I want that to
be higher up because I like the cymbals
to be higher so they're not confusing c5
we're gonna put that there so we have
lots of room on the page the snare I
want that to be a all the snares are
gonna be on a and then I have other
things to that a pedal I think that's
good on E
pedal hi-hat you can see where that is
and of course we have another drum
another snare that I'm gonna move this
to Gio it's not even identified here but
we're gonna move that up to a a three so
let's get a ways to go and then you just
move it out you of course you could type
it in but I think it's more fun to do it
this way there you have it now you're
looking at this part and you're seeing
my goodness it's still a mess and you're
right
so we need to select a couple of things
and this is what I was referring to as
cleaning up your parts now these parts
are not clean and see they're very messy
and my rhythm wasn't very exact Cubase
has a really neat function in that you
can have the computer decide exactly
what it should be displayed and what you
do is you Auto quantize that will
automatically quantize all the note
values to line up at specific beat
regions makes it a lot easier to read
okay we'll hit apply and that made it
look worse but here's the reason why
because we have such a high quantization
value of 64th notes instead of 64th
notes let's do the quantize as 32nd
notes
apply and then it cleans it up quite a
bit now the other way you can clean this
up is by going to our Auto layout and
optimize all and I have let's see have a
maximum of four bars and that will clean
it up also and so now we have a more
clean part so now the other thing that
we can look at are the note heads I
think for drummers they would probably
like to see note heads coincide with
instruments that they have to play I
think in some ways it's easier I have a
friend of the drummer though who's like
okay what is this I can't read it
I'll just keep it simple so what we're
gonna try to do that we're going to try
to keep it simple let's go here to this
section now we have some we have some
hi-hat going and we have some open and
closed hi-hat I want to move the hi-hat
up to G and that's a closed hi-hat I'm
gonna move it up to the G for because I
think it looks better there and then I
want to move to open hi-hat to G sharp
and I will tell you why that is a second
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we want we want the open hi-hat to be G
sharp because it'll still be on the G
line but you'll be able to select it
let's say I want to do this I want to
select equal pitch same octave it will
now select all the open ones it will not
select the closed
I had only the open ones because its G
sharp now it's not showing the
accidental but it's still relying on
that accidental and the beauty of that
is now that I've selected just that
pitch which is G sharp and there's no
other G sharp here I can change the note
head so it more reflects what I want
that drum to do and so what you do is
you go down you select properties this
is the properties window and with the
properties window you can select the
note head and so I will select a note
head that looks more open and that will
be this one and then hit apply and
magically you have an open hi-hat
now the other high hats I want them to
look a little different also so we'll
select one of them and then we'll select
all of them using your control key and
we will select equal pitch same octave
and I'm going to select for that in the
properties the note head is gonna be
this one plus sign so now the drummer
knows that he's playing the hi-hat there
that's an open hi-hat so now when we
hear it there are other things that you
can do
I think selecting note heads in general
to normal note heads for the bass drum
will give some more emphasis and
visually so that the drummer could say
okay that's that the final thing is
voicings of these things you have the
stems you can do them high or you can do
them low and it has to do with the voice
that you choose here now what I would
like to do is the bass drum I'm gonna
change the voice to two and it's gonna
move it down it will move that down
which makes it even more easily read you
still have to mark you know splash
cymbals and so on and you can do that
with the text function here which is
other and you can say you know this is a
symbol because they need to see that and
if you have a splash somewhere along the
way like there will be a splash symbol
here and there or this is a bell we're
gonna put a text in that so that the the
drummer knows what that is and it will
help them to see what's going on and
that's a splash let's put a splash there
that's real important they know what
that is so we're still marking what's
going on in the part now there are other
things that we can do to the part but
for now I think that's a pretty good
tutorial to go from what was really a
mess to something that's fairly legible
in Cubase is not that difficult just as
a few things you need to to do is number
one make sure you're in channel 10
because you see how the output channel
here is automatically in GM as ten
number to try to clean your parts but if
not
you can go to the score editor and in
main staff you can auto quantize that
will clean your part for you and then
make sure to link the drum map to the
part and then you can select the score
and drum map no accidentals even though
you use accidentals you will not see
them but they will occur that should
help you in the display you can move
these note heads up and down I hope that
helps you out good luck