Chord Analysis

Cubase analyzes and creates chords according to specific principles.

• MIDI chords are expected to be played in their most basic inversion. If not, an extra bass note is added. For example, the notes CEG are interpreted as C major, but GCE is interpreted as C major with a G bass note.

  If you do not want any interpretation of the inversion, that is, no added bass notes, hold down Ctrl/Cmd while selecting Make Chord Symbols.

• All selected notes on all staves are taken into consideration. Whenever there is any change on any staff, the notes are reinterpreted and a new chord symbol is added. Therefore, avoid having the melody track in the Score Editor when you use Make Chord Symbols, otherwise you might get more chords than you expect, possibly with strange tensions.

• The Quantize value is used. At the most, there is a new chord at each quantize position.

• There must be at least three notes at a certain position for the program to interpret it as a chord. Combinations of notes that do not make any sense to the program will not produce any chords.

• The same set of notes can be interpreted differently depending on context. Therefore, some editing may be required. If you record the track solely to create chords automatically, play the chord as simple as possible, in the correct inversion, without added octaves, etc.