Cubase vst-Modules by - HTML preview

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Alternative ways of using Style Tracks

• In a live performance situation, you may use Style Tracks to trigger Parts just as some musicians/DJs trigger samples.
In this case you might stick to setting the Tracks to Normal (no transposition at all) and Transpose 1 (transposition without scale correction) and the Parts will behave very much like samples. Your variations might not be restricted to backing tracks, you might record for example an entire intro or break that can be triggered from a note on the keyboard.

• Style Tracks can be used to create a library of for example drum beats and fills (an example of such a style is included on the disks that come in the package) or bass lines. When you want to try out an idea, you call up your drum library Style from disk and skip through the different beats and parts until you find one that suits your idea. This can then easily be triggered automatically from a Chord Track.

• You can also use Style Tracks for live triggering of entire songs.
You might for example do a mixdown of your backing tracks, set the channel to Any and add solos etc on separate Tracks. In the Style Track editor, set all Tracks to Mode Normal. In this way you can use the Mute function to bring in and take out parts (like the solo) on top of the backing Track.

• To create semi-random drum parts, create a drum Arrangement with hi-hat on one Track, bass drum on another and so on. Make up a number of variations, each a little bit different from the other.

When you then play back this Arrangement as a Style, use Random Mix, and Style Tracks will pick different drums from different Variations.

• Why not use Styles to trigger samples and sampled loops together with your MIDI parts? The key muting function allows you to quickly try out different combinations of loops. Also, if your variations are set up the right way, Random Mix will create combinations of loops and for example bass riffs, that you might never have tried yourself.

• If you have a Style Track active, and you set up the Input Transformer to map the incoming notes to a scale, the incoming notes will be mapped to the scale currently selected “by Style Tracks”.

The effect is that your playing (passing thru the computer or recorded onto a Track) will be restricted to the current tonality, in other words, you can’t play any wrong notes!

• And last, a short tip on chord recognition. If you have selected a scale macro like Nearly All, which makes the program switch between almost any scale, minor and major, it might possibly happen that after a chord change, the program seems to be "stuck" in a scale that doesn’t fit.

To then reset the program to a specific scale, briefly play a chord with as many tensions as possible in the desired key.
For example, to reset to C major, you might press all white keys within an octave.