Another change to Expression Maps in Cubase 6 is that you can now assign colours to Sound Slots in the Map. This makes it possible to colour data in the Key editor by the different articulations, so that legato notes might appear red, pizzicato blue, and so on. This is visually very helpful, but one slight quirk is that while the notes themselves are coloured, the actual Articulation Events in the Controller lane don’t follow the same colour scheme and remain a single colour. This makes it harder at a glance to understand what colour represents a given articulation, and it would be great if the Articulation Controller lane could also follow the ‘Colour by Sound Slot’ instruction.
To complement the newly improved Expression Maps, Cubase 6 introduces what is quite simply a breakthrough new feature: Note Expression. Since the emergence of MIDI, now nearly 30 years ago, the role of making programmed music sound more expressive has fallen to MIDI controller messages. You might use MIDI controllers to add volume changes, for example, or to make adjustments to various instrument‑specific parameters, such as filtering, crossfading velocity layers, and so on, and then manipulate this type of data with something like Cubase’s Controller lanes.
For the most part, the use of MIDI controllers has worked quite well — except for one limitation. When you add MIDI controller data to your track, that data affects all notes playing on a given MIDI channel. And since, in most cases, a track in Cubase is assigned to one MIDI channel, it means that all notes on a given track will be affected by the data in the Controller lanes. It’s impossible to play a chord on one track, for example, and only have the top note crescendo — unless you were to assign that note to a different track or MIDI channel.
MIDI itself offered a solution to this problem with a special message type called polyphonic pressure (sometimes known as polyphonic aftertouch). You might be familiar with ‘channel aftertouch’ if you have a synth like the Access Virus, where, after you’ve played a chord, you can keep the notes held down and by applying further pressure, modulate a certain parameter within the synth. However, the modulation will be applied to all notes on the MIDI channel, as we’ve just been discussing. The idea behind polyphonic pressure is that it makes it possible for a keyboard to transmit a stream of aftertouch values for each note independently. Anyone familiar with Yamaha’s classic CS80 synth will know exactly what I’m talking about.