• The current Style (including its variations).
• The chord input (via MIDI, or from a Chord Track).
The Style Track contains the definition of how the music should be played. There can only be one Style Track in each Arrange window. The Style Track differs from other Cubase VST Tracks in that it has no Parts. Instead it contains a number of Styles, listed on the Style pop-up menu.
A Style Track has some settings, so in a way it can be edited, by selecting Edit from the Edit menu or by pressing [Control]-[E] on the computer keyboard. See page 43 in this chapter.
The Inspector and Style TracksAs outlined above, the Inspector has a pretty special functionality for Style Tracks. It should rather be thought of as a panel for setting how the Style Track should "behave". It can, as all things in Cubase VST, be operated during playback, so that changes can happen as the music is playing. Some of the changes can even be recorded onto a Track in Cubase VST.
Styles are instructions on how to play a certain type of music, over a number of bars. For example, a style may contain a jazz bass line and a jazz piano riff, each over four bars. These lines can be modified on the fly, by the computer, to fit a certain chord or chord change.
Each Style comes in a number of Variations. When you have selected a Style you can pull down a Variation pop-up menu in the Inspector to see the variations for this style. There are a number of ways to select variations, using the mouse or via MIDI.
So, a Style is a predefined phrase of music using one or more instruments. To make it play the way you want it, you must input a chord. This can be done by playing a MIDI keyboard (playing the full chords or using a number of "one finger" techniques). It can also be done by defining the chords in advance, by entering them into a Chord Track.
Chord typesIn Listening mode (when you play the entire chord on the keyboard), Style Tracks recognizes all of the most common three, four and five note chords. Even more complex chords, that Style Tracks doesn’t already "know" about, it is still able to – at least partly – analyse and "understand".
Exactly what effect the chords you play have on the Style is individual for each Style and can be changed using a number of settings, in the Style Edit window.Play Modes
There are a number of ways to play the chords, described in full on page 39. Listening mode (where you play the full chords on the keyboard) has already been touched upon. There are also four different "one-finger" modes, described in full on page 63.
Inversions and chord recognitionIf you have Listening mode selected, you play the full chords on the keyboard. You must play more than two notes, or the program will not recognize your playing as a chord. Always include the fifth.
If there is any ambiguity as to what chord you are playing, the program selects the one it thinks is the closest. It looks at the lowest note and guesses that this is the root note. To for example get a C6 chord recognized as just that, make C the lowest note, not A, since the program would then interpret it as an Am7.
If the chords you play are only used to control Style Tracks, you should always use the simplest form of the chord. But if you have Thru turned on in the Style Track editor, your chord playing will also be thruput directly via MIDI. If this is the case, you may want to play more complex version of the chords (added octaves etc). Normally, the program handles this without problems.
Transposing up or downWhen moving from one chord to another, you may want the program to transpose upwards or downwards. This can be controlled by your playing, within reasonable limits.
• If you play the new chord in its simplest inversion with the root note as the lowest note, Style Tracks will transpose upwards (if possible). For example, to go from C “up” to Am, play this:
• If you play the new chord in any other inversion, the program will transpose downwards (if possible). For example, to go from C down to Am, you could play this:If you select a Style Track in the Arrange window and select “Edit” from the Edit menu or press [Control]-[E] on the computer keyboard, the Style Track Edit window appears. In the Edit window (described on page 43) you can make a number of settings that govern how you control Style Tracks and how the Styles play.
Chord TracksChord Tracks contain Chord information. You can either use Cubase VST's editing tools to enter the chords, or you can convert a MIDI recording to Chord information on a Chord Track. See page 56.
This completes the theory section. Now let’s take a look at how you actually use the Style Tracks!