Using the Chord Track to Match Note Events to a Musical Scale

Cubase Elements Help
Product
Cubase Elements
Version
13.0
ft:locale
en-US
Document type
Webhelp
ft:openMode
fluidtopics

You can select a musical scale that is defined by chords or scales on the chord track and match note events to it.

Prerequisite

You have added a chord track with chord events to your project.

Procedure

  1. Open a MIDI part in the Key Editor.
  2. Open the Scale Assistant section of the Inspector, and activate Use Chord Track.
  3. Open the Chord Track Mode pop-up menu, and do one of the following:

    • To match note events to the scale events on the chord track, select Scales.

    • To match note events to the chord events on the chord track, select Chords.

    • To match note events to both scale and chord events on the chord track, select Chords & Scales.

  4. Activate Show Scale Note Guides.

    This changes the background of the event display according to the selected scale, so that pitches that do not belong to the scale are shown with a darker background.

  5. On the Key Editor toolbar, set Event Colors to Scale/Chords.

    This changes the colors of the note events in the event display according to whether or not the pitches match the selected musical scale.

    Note

    To view the color scheme of the selected color mode, open the Event Colors pop-up menu, and select Setup.

  6. Optional: On the Key Editor toolbar, open the Select Pitch Visibility Options pop-up menu , and select Show Pitches from Scale Assistant.

    This filters the note display and the piano keyboard display so that they show only the pitches that match the selected musical scale.

Result

The coloring of the event display background and the note events serves as a visual guide for editing note pitches.

Note

As you might have added different scale/chord events at specific time positions, the scale indications in the event display background and on the note events change along the timeline.

After Completing This Task

If you need more assistance with matching note events to the nearest pitches of the selected musical scale, you can click Quantize Pitches to quantize pitches of existing MIDI notes, activate Snap Pitch Editing to snap the note pitches of MIDI notes while editing or activate Snap Live Input to map the note pitches of incoming MIDI.