The next track to add is some piano. Since we don't have access to a real piano, MIDI will have to do for now. Using a MIDI keyboard and a virtual instrument sampler, we can add a realistic MIDI piano. Assuming your MIDI interface is hooked up and your keyboard is attached with MIDI cables, all we need to know is what channel your keyboard is talking on. In this case, it's channel one, which is usual for keyboards. We simply tell Cubase to listen for input on channel one. As for the output, we tell Cubase to route the MIDI output into MachFive, a sampler by MOTU equipped with a great piano sound. Look at FIGURE 16-6 to see how we hooked the signal together inside the computer.

FIGURE 16-6

MIDI piano setup Screenshot used by permission of Steinberg Media Technologies.

A quick test of the keyboard and we have sound. We rewind the project and hit record to add some MIDI piano. After recording the piano chords, the MIDI tracks show up in our song. Instead of waves of sound, you see blocks of notes; this is how MIDI is represented in Cubase. We can go back later and change any individual note of the piano part as many times as we want. In this case, it's not necessary. FIGURE 16-7 shows what our project looks like now.

FIGURE 16-7

Piano, bass, and drums Screenshot used by permission of Steinberg Media Technologies.

MIDI Quantize

For MIDI tracks, no command is more powerful than the quantize command. Our piano part was played well but suffers from occasional rhythmic inconsistencies. Some parts are slightly early, others slightly late. This is not serious enough to warrant rerecording the entire part. It's also a bit of overkill to go through each note, one by one, and change when they occur (although you could easily do that with Cubase's MIDI editing). The quantize command allows you to nudge the notes back and forth in time automatically so they play in tempo better. This is the most important reason to set up the tempo before starting. If Cubase doesn't know how fast our song is, it can't apply the quantize effect properly.

To apply the quantize effect, all we do is highlight the MIDI part, pull down the MIDI menu, and select quantize. Poof! Instant rhythmic perfection.

Building

Repeating the steps, we add two more audio tracks of guitar, one vocal track, and another MIDI track of a string part. To clean things up, we remove the empty tracks to improve the look and feel of the program. FIGURE 16-8 shows what our song looks like now.

FIGURE 16-8

Full arrangement Screenshot used by permission of Steinberg Media Technologies.