You know that Cubase is lagging behind when even Pro Tools has the feature and Cubase doesn’t 
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haha too true 
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I can’t believe Cubase doesn’t have midi sync offset.
Even Pro Tools and Luna has it. 
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+1 for this feature
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Steinberg, can we still hope? Cubase 12?
Please hear us! Ableton Link, please please!
Yes, I bought the upgrade to Cubase 11 after all.
OK, there are some interesting new features and I still love Cubase.
But with Ableton Link I would love it a lot more!
Together with MASCHINE, iPads, AKAI devices, and yes, sorry, Ableton Live on another computer, everything in the same rhythm. Oh what would that be beautiful!
I think this might be interesting news?
'm also trying to sync both programs. Maybe there is a solution now.
In the last few years I didn’t even notice that there was no rewire function because I rarely/never needed it. But now I miss her. If it were a marketing strategy to differentiate oneself from other DAW manufacturers by means of incompatibility, I would find that a shame because it is at the expense of the user. In addition, Steinberg could finally introduce a working looping function for MIDI - maybe even live / on the fly can be operated in a similar way to Ableton
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If a clip launcher were made available, or Groove Agent could be slightly modified, with clip recording and launching in mind, then there would be no need for Ableton Link. The feature is so close.
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I recently looked at “Live Loops” in Logic Pro - just awesome, I wish I could do something like that in Cubase!!!. Since I’ll probably be switching from Windows to Apple soon anyway (Windows 11 doesn’t seem to be a real improvement…, and the awesome power of the M1/M2…), maybe I’ll also switch to Logic (a shame about that a lot of money that I have paid to Steinberg over the years…).
I still love Cubase and I’ve just gotten used to the workflow over the years. The midi editing there is just awesome compared to e.g. Ableton. But at the moment I almost exclusively use Ableton. It’s just so cool there, always staying in the flow, (almost) without interruptions when loading plugins, recording new clips via footswitch, and the unbelievably great support of midi controllers + Max for Live…
Ever since I’ve known Ableton, Cubase has seemed so clumsy to me and I’ve been getting annoyed by these constant interruptions in the workflow with Cubase ever since.
Of course I would prefer a “Live Looper” AND! Ableton Link! Ableton Link is always useful (if you’ve tried to sync Cubase with your iPad apps like I did, you know why…)!!!
The main thing that makes Ableton nearly impossible to use for me is that it ALWAYS converts any MIDI data coming in to a track to Channel 1. This is a deal breaker, and it’s a big one!
Try putting a multi-channel instrument in Ableton and getting the MIDI to work. Take Groove Agent for example. I was just asked how to do that earlier today. I spent 2 hours trying to create different MIDI tracks, etc. and nothing would work. It is very important for Guitar plugins like Neural DSP as well when you have multiple effects pre-configured to respond to different MIDI Channels.
The other thing is the 12 group limit.
I keep coming back to Ableton because it is favored by so many, and trying to get things done, and what would otherwise be very easy to do in Cubase, is just impossible in Live.
Composing in Ableton is also a non-starter, synching to video, creating sheet music.
The other option is MOTU Digital Performer. There isn’t really a cheaper option for it, so it’s hard to suggest it to students and the like, and I don’t really know it at the moment, but I spent much of the day watching the Groove 3 videos on DP, and I do like what I see so far.
Logic is a great songwriting tool, and is good for mixing TV, but not a serious composing platform.
I get what you mean about Cubase dropping out. I’m so use to it, and I am not trying to perform with it, so the hiccups when I change modes, are lost to me. After spending the day with Live, though, and going back to my own recording, it was suddenly apparent. Why? Why does Cubase drop out with every tiny little thing you do? It should keep playing.
That got me thinking, and I went back to trying to use Groove Agent for overdubbing and clip triggering, because I solved the trigger on (and off) quantizing with Kontakt. And you know, it DOES NOT DROP OUT! If it can do that, then surely Cubase itself can.
And just in case you are wondering, After a few minutes trying I remembered why I gave up on GA to begin with. The record trigger can be set to “Note-On” or “Note-Off” however. it is ANY note. It does not trigger by the note associated with the pad, but with any note on the channel. Even when used exclusively for percussion, I can not understand why it would be designed like that. It would have been 30 minutes more of coding to make the trigger be the note of the pad. It would have taken only a few hours to add trigger quantization to the pad itself. And it would have only taken a couple of days to make each pad or bank of pads assignable to a different sidechain.
The feature is right there, if I could get my hands on the GA code, I could turn it into a clip launcher for sure. Asking Steinberg to do that is not a big request that would take dev cycles away from other things. It’s an intern task for someone just getting to know the GA code. And that is why it is so frustrating that we are here talking about switching DAWs.
Live isn’t an option. Logic is locked to Apple hardware and so isn’t an option for everybody. But DP is looking pretty good.
Logic’s clip launcher is absolutely the best though.
Since Ableton Link is now implemented in Cubasis, hopefully it will not be too long before it is implemented in the full version of Cubase? Can anybody from Steinberg give us an ETA please?
In the meantime, this excellent 3rd party software from Blue Cat should provide a very capable workaround until such time (and currently on sale for under approx £30!)
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I’m deleting the rest of this post. Explain why below
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Great to see some positive feedback here - good work oquion!
Here is a discount code for the already discounted Blue Cat Connector’
I bought it this morning from JRR - brought cost down to about £26
Discount code: FORUM
I still hope they put a Clip Launcher in 12, or fix the issues with Groove Agent though.
After Paying for the full version of Blue Cat, and checking and doublechecking the clock synch, and being extremely careful with what was going into and out of Live. I can report the very unfortunate news that this simply can not stay synched enough to work. I can synch hardware with midi time code from Cubase, but Live will not stay in synch. In addition the Blue Cat has drift that can not be compensated for.
It was an interesting experiment, but unfortunately I can not in good conscience leave the original post explaining what I was up to there for someone else to be lead astray.
My apologies to Blue Cat and others, I am not disappointed with the product, as this particular use case was outside of what I would expect. The fact that it had to be purchased to find out, was however disappointing.
Argh… it was such a good quality wrote up with step by step instructions and screenshots oqion. Did you (or anybody) save a copy before deleting?
My QA head is saying, it would have been good to test and verify the problems you encountered with more than one user on one rig.
I just bought the product and was hoping to test on my machine this weekend.
Thanks for your efforts either way.
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Unfortunately no here are the links and screenshots though. it’s a shame it didn’t work. I have other fun uses for the BC connector, so it wasn’t a complete loss.
Thank you for your kind words, and I’m sorry I deleted it. I was worried someone would spend hours trying it out, and get to the same point I did.
https://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html
Make a LoopMidi Port.
Configure Cubase to send MTC (Transport > Project Synchronization Setup.)
In Live receive MTC from Cubase
Hit the EXT button, then play in Cubase, then go back and toggle the synch checkbox
Put BC to send from a track in Cubase , and set the port (here 6)
Also make a receive tack in Cubase, and set the port (here 16)
Put a BCC on a track in Live and set it to receive on the send port form Cubase (6). Also I used one of Live Lite’s “Send tracks”
From the track you will use to record clips put a BCC to send back to Cubase (16)
You can send to just one track in Live by busing the tracks in Cubase to the one you set up to send to live, then send back from Live Lite on each of the 8 tracks you are recording clips on.
My test involved setting live to record a specific number of measures, and playing drums from Groove Agent. The clip records and then begins to play along with GA.
When recording in cycle mode from Cubase and the cycle was exactly the length of the clip, it would stay close enough in synch for quite a while, that I couldn’t hear “flaming”, though I am sure it was there. but making the cycle twice the length of the clip, and it was off the second time through the cycle, and would shift a bit each time, never to synch again.
I tried with send midi on in the BCCs, and it seemed to get worse. I tried “drift comp” to no avail. I messed with the buffering settings, with no benefit.
I would have written up every TC if I had know there would be an audience for it.
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Hi oqion, I may have possibly have found a way to retrieve your original walkthrough with screenshots… I will see if I can save as a PDF and repost here after work
Apologies for the quality of the export. Here is a slight rough pdf of oqion’s original walkthrough… if you try it, please do report back with your results
Hopefully Steinberg will implement a native solution soon…
oqion tutorial - Ableton Link Sync With Cubase 10.pdf (699.4 KB)
I am not opposed to that.