May 03, 2010 01:03 pm Are you auto quantize them? I prefer not to, i quantize after its recorded, it seems easier then to "see" what beat i was playing, because more likely than not, i'm wayyy off time.
One thing that could be user-error with cubase, make sure you have the snap/quantize set to the correct note duration. As in, if you're playing a hip-hop sort of "uneven" high hat with a lot of 16th notes, make sure you set that to "1/16" and not "1/4." I can't remember exactly what the menus/ buttons are named, i'm on my laptop at the moment. But look around in the midi key window (with the drum map and such on it), you'll figure it out.
One other thing, triplets and time signatures sometimes blow. I find myself often writing something (piano or a beat) with a triplet feel to it, and incorrectly figuring the tempo or time signature as 3/4 or just somehow messing up on something that i'm doing. The best thing to do is just record without a metronome, play back, and count it. Then its a little easier to understand what you're counting wrong.
Last thing, very likely the quantize/ snap feature is going to be quite off at some parts. well. most parts for me :P mostly due to your keyboard chops and sense of time. Record in small segments to get a basic beat down. Then figure out things such as fills. but playing the main beat only once or twice will lessen the chance of you getting behind while playing. Chances are whats happening here is you have auto quantize enabled, and then you're playing slightly off time, which you barely notice. But when the computer see's the note closer to the beat before the note you intended, its going to pull the note BACK and be further off time, so it sounds jumbled.