STEINBERG

EXCHANGING FILES BETWEEN PLATFORMS

Ever since the release of Cubase Windows, there has been renewed interest in transferring data across the various platforms supported by Steinberg. Since standard disks on the ST have a similar format to that used for MS-DOS disks, exporting your work from Cubase 3.0 to Cubase Windows presents no problem. It is a simple matter of saving your ST file onto a MS-DOS formatted disk then inserting it into the IBM machine and loading the file into Cubase Windows. The same procedure applies for transfer in the other direction. However, it's not so straightforward on an Apple Macintosh, since a Mac computer will not normally recognise either ST or MS-DOS formatted disks. There are two ways of reading an ST or MS-DOS disk on a Mac; you can either convert the file into a Mac format, using Apple File Exchange, and then load it into Cubase Mac — for more information regarding this technique, make sure you read the July '91 back issue of Sound On Sound, page 106 — or you can use a program called AccessPC, which simply installs as a system extension. This enables your Mac computer to read ST or MS-DOS disks directly from the floppy drive, provided you define a file type for each DOS extension, otherwise the Mac will not be able to recognise the file. This can be done from within the program when setting up, from the Type Menu. Both of these programs are System 6 and System 7 compatible.

FONT SIZING IN CUBASE

When entering lyrics on your score, it is possible to fine-tune the size of the text to values other then the four pre-defined font sizes (10, 12, 18, 24) presented during input. Although the system is using a bitmap image to represent the standard font sizes, here is how to change it. All lyrics added to the score can be edited directly from the List editor, since they have their own coordinate and text events. The coordinate event represents the location of the lyrics on the score, while the text event stores the font, size and characters in the lyrics. By editing the number in the fourth column (VAL2) for the text event, we can change the size of the lyrics. To see the result immediately, open the Score and List editors simultaneously while holding the <Alternate> key. This technique can be used for manipulating any Lyrics or Text inserted on the score and will also print as shown on the screen, but for best results use values in the range of 4-86.