The Object Selection Tool
Most likely, you are already familiar with the Object Selection tool. It used to be called the cursor, but Cubase has since changed to calling the mouse-controlled arrow icon (the pointer) the Object Selection tool and now reserves the term cursor for the line that scrolls through the song (formerly the Song Position pointer). Nonetheless, the Object Selection tool is definitely the most useful tool of the group. To keep things from getting too repetitive, I will be abbreviating the Object Selection tool to the acronym “OST” throughout the rest of the book.
Accessing the Tool ButtonsBefore I go into details about the OST, I’d like to point out something else that’s very important about the tool buttons as a whole. If you move the OST anywhere within the note display and right-click your mouse, a pop-up menu appears (see Figure 8.3). If you examine the icons in the top half of the pop-up menu’s left side, you may notice that they are the same as the icons above, within the tool-button grouping on the toolbar. This is another great way of accessing these useful tools without using the toolbar. These tools will remain in the pop-up menu whether they are displayed on the toolbar or not. I find it much easier to access these tools from the pop-up menu, but choose whichever way works best for you. One other way you can access these tools is by typing the corresponding numbers that appear next to each in the pop-up menu. Using any or all of these ways can help speed and ease the process of working in Cubase. Figure 8.3. The pop-up menu’s “toolbox.”
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The most basic use of the OST is to select a note, part, or tool. From now on, I will refer to both notes and parts as objects. To select any object with the OST, position the arrow icon over the object and click your mouse.
To select multiple objects, simply hold down the Shift key on your keyboard while selecting each individual object with the OST.