I have a dilemma. Certain controllers (midi that is) NEED to be in step, and others in Ramp. Steinberg recognise this with the list of exceptions in the manual. For example CC64 is excluded from ramp, and is always step. Why? Because it is a pedal that has a binary state - down or up. Ramp causes controller data to “travel” over time and you do not want this in this case.
Now, I also use the Una Corda pedal (AKA soft pedal or left pedal) ALL the time, and have it mapped to all sorts, such as mutes on with strings, etc etc. THIS pedal needs to be in STEP always.
I also use certain other controllers to manipulate sounds, for example cc01 thru around cc16. These control VSL dimensions, etc, and it’s great because CC’s are chased, unlike note triggers. When I flick back on the time line, all my sounds are updated.
I want the ability to decide for myself which controllers are fixed ramp, and which are fixed steps. It’s a feature request I guess.
This is not true. CC64 is a controller just like any of the rest and can have a value between 0 and 127. CC64’s suggested usage is damper/sustain pedal, but it doesn’t have to be used for that. Even when used to represent a sustain pedal, many of them actually send 0-127 and not just on or off. This is more common on a digital piano where you want to achieve “half pedal”.
I suspect you might have the wrong idea of the differences between Ramp and Step modes on the MIDI CC lanes. They don’t denote binary or non-binary states. They are just two different ways of representing and editing data. Ramp mode makes editing easier when moving from one value to another over time but at the cost of control and precision. Which takes me to my last point about Step vs Ramp.
As it stands currently, using Ramp mode in Cubase is flawed in my opinion because of data reduction. When using Ramp mode, Cubase reduces the amount of data to a degree that the result is a much more “stepped” curve than is visually shown. It is a case of what you see is not what you get. In some applications it might not be noticeable, but in others it is very much so.
Here is an example of how Cubase handles MIDI CC data.
I have drawn a ramp shape twice. First using Step Mode and then using Ramp Mode.
In order to see how Cubase reduces the amount of data in Ramp Mode, I have exported this as a MIDI file and then imported it back in. This is the result:
Here we see that what looks like a smooth ramp for 127 down to 0 has in fact been reduced to only 12 unique values. If we instead use Step Mode, we get the full scale—128 unique values.
Because of this behavior, I recommend anyone to stay away from Ramp Mode completely until Steinberg address this flaw.
