The updated Chord Pad window incorporates the Chord Assistant, including its handy Circle of Fifths display, in a panel on the right.
The revamped Chord Pad offers even better support for songwriters than before.
Cubase’s Chord Pad facility has always made experimenting with different chords easy for anyone, regardless of their version of Cubase (it’s included in the Pro, Artist and Elements editions) or their level of keyboard competence — you can create (or load) a palette of suitable chords, which can be as simple or as complex as you like, pick a key, and then all you need to experiment with different chord sequences is a single finger. Thus, it can be a very powerful aid to songwriting... and Cubase 13 brought some interesting refinements that are aimed squarely at this use‑case scenario.
Strike The Right Chord
As shown in the first screenshot (above), the Chord Pads can be accessed in the Project window’s Lower Zone. At its simplest, you can use the pads, each of which is associated with a MIDI note, to trigger a full chord on the currently active MIDI/virtual instrument track. However, you can now specify a larger number of pads (configured in the Chord Pad Remote Setting dialogue box, accessed using the MIDI connector icon located top right). You can also opt for a grid‑based layout (in the Chord Pads Display Setting dialogue, accessed very top right), which may be helpful if you are using a drum‑pad‑style device to trigger your chords.
The top bar menu system has been reorganised to provide better access to options for transposing or re‑voicing chords on selected pads. There are also improved pattern performance options (very neat, but a topic for more detailed consideration another day...) and options to configure both how chord triggers are quantised and how note overlaps are handled.
Steinberg have added a bunch of new Chord Pad presets that are well worth exploring but it’s easy to build your own selections, and we will look at one songwriter‑friendly route for doing this in a moment. Before we do, I want to offer you a quick reminder about the Adaptive Voicing (AV) feature. In essence, if this is active when you trigger chord changes, then Cubase will attempt to make those changes smoother by using the smallest shifts in pitch required to move between chords — much like a competent piano or guitar player might do. This can be activated on a per‑pad basis using the AV buttons in the toolbar. But sometimes you’ll want more specific control over the voicing used on a specific pad (for example, by setting the notes used with your MIDI keyboard), and in that case you can deactivate the AV system for that pad altogether and, as an extra ‘failsafe’, use the Lock button to ensure your chosen voicing doesn’t get altered.
You can now create larger sets of Chord Pads and the Chord Assistant’s List display makes it easy to add more harmonically complex chords to your selection.
Test Your Theory
From a songwriting perspective, the new ability to open the Chord Assistant directly in the Chord Pad system is very useful. This can be toggled on/off using the ‘right panel’ button, located at the top right of the window. There are three display options available here: Chord Editor, List and Circle of Fifths. They all have their uses, but for creating an initial chord selection from scratch, I think the Circle of Fifths display is particularly useful.
To start with a blank set of pads, use the Select All button on the left of the lower row of toolbar items, and then hit the Delete button. You can then select the root note of the key you wish to use from the drop‑down box at the top left of the toolbar, and choose between major or minor keys in the Chord Assistant. The Circle of Fifths display will automatically adjust to place your root‑note chord at the centre of its display.
The arrangement of the chords gives you a clear indication of which chords are most likely to work well together in your chosen key.
The beauty of this display is twofold. First, even if your music theory knowledge is a work in progress, the arrangement of the chords gives you a clear indication of which chords are most likely to work well together in your chosen key. The seven basic triad chords in the selected key are shown in the upper quadrant of the display, and are also indicated with Roman numerals that show the position of their respective root notes in the scale (three major, three minor and the ‘harmonically challenging’ diminished VII chord). As you move further away from this upper quadrant, all the chords shown stray progressively further ‘out of key’. As a result, they might be more difficult to place in a chord sequence with your ‘in key’ chords — but, equally, the occasional unexpected chord choice can often be really helpful in giving a sequence a unique, engaging feel. The ease with which this sort of experimentation can be explored is one of the real advantages of the Chord Pad system.
Second, you can now assign a chord to a Chord Pad simply by dragging from the Circle of Fifths display to an empty Chord Pad. And with the Circle of Fifths display to guide your choices, you can simply repeat this process until you’ve built a set of chords to explore.
Colourful Chord Changes
As shown in the second screenshot, I’ve done this for all the basic chords in the C major scale, starting at Chord Pad C0. For simplicity in triggering, I’ve confined the triggers to the white notes. But having expanded the number of Chord Pads (as mentioned earlier) to span two octaves, I’ve then added a second instance of each chord, with adjustments that give me access to something beyond the basic triads. If I want to add some more harmonically interesting chords in my sequence, it’s now just as easy as triggering the basic triads.
The two sideways arrow buttons in the toolbar (Less Tensions and More Tensions) can be used to create these extended chords. But if you switch from the Circle of Fifths display to the Chord Editor display in the Chord Assistant panel, then you get even more control over these extended chord options. Usefully, the chords automatically audition themselves as you make selections.
From a ‘songwriting assistant’ perspective, there are a couple of other really useful additions to the pads display. First, in the Chord Pad Display Settings dialogue, you can add either Roman Numerals or Nashville Number System labels to the pads, either as the primary or secondary label. Chord sequences are often abbreviated to these number sequences (for example, the classic I, V, iv, IV that’s been used in a gazillion hit songs) because it provides a concise summary of the chord sequence that would work, whatever the key. It can be super‑useful to see these labels on the pads themselves as you explore your own chord sequence ideas.
The other addition, which I reckon is a really clever one, is the interactive colour coding of the Chord Pads. When you trigger a pad, Cubase applies a little bit of music theory in the background and instantly colour codes (at the bottom strip of the pad) the more obvious ‘next chord’ destinations for you. A shade of green indicates the most obvious destinations, while yellow, orange or red suggest chords that will create a progressively more dramatic change. This process happens in real time as you play, so as you search for some chord sequence ideas, you’ll find that your ‘virtual assistant’ has always got your back with a suitable idea or two as to where to go next! Whatever your level of music or harmony knowledge, and whether you wish to use it to follow the suggested wisdom or deliberately choose not to, I think this is genuinely useful.
Did I Play That?
From this point on, it’s all about having fun and letting the creative process happen, and with these enhancements to the Chord Pad feature set it’s even easier to experiment with chord sequences than ever. You needn’t worry about your keyboard chops or struggle to draw on a partial knowledge of music theory — it can be a really liberating experience. And when you are happy with your chord sequence, hit the record button, trigger your one‑finger chords, and the full triggered chords, however complex, will be present and correct in the resulting MIDI clip.
Once you’ve created a useful Chord Pad configuration, don’t forget to save it as a preset. And if you decide the key needs adjustment when you try to sing a topline over your chords, you can simply change the root note from the drop‑down mentioned earlier — the Chord Pads will just transpose to suit (note that you can defeat this automatic change, if required).
Over multiple releases, the Chord Pad system has gradually evolved into a really powerful feature in Cubase, but the ‘songwriting assistant’ workflow that I’ve described above is just one way it can be used — so I’ll return to explore other applications for the Chord Pads in a future workshop or two. Until then, let your one‑fingered chord sequence writing run free and generate some new song ideas.