Am I the only one who after 2 years using cubase still can't understand remotes, quick controls etc?

Cubase
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I have tried. I have read the manual. I have watched maybe 15 videos about generic remotes, and quick controls, vst AND track quick controls and the remote control editor.

I do not know what I am seeing in the left side in the track inspector, the quick controls that are shown do NOT correspond in any order to the quick controls for either the Studio Setup > VST Quick Controls or the Studio Setup > Track Quick Controls.

I have tried ten times to set up the quick controls for a VST like Reason Rack Plugin, and it does NOT WORK. I know it’s a vague description, but let me now try to be precise.

The Quick Controls on the left side of the Cubase UI, in the “Inspector” does not even say “this is the track quick controls” or “this is the vst quick controls”, but there are both vst quick control and track quick control items in Studio Setup, I have both set up to not have any device set up, and that’s the only time that the feature works as I would expect. If no device is mapped as Track Quick Controls you don’t have track quick controls, or vst quick controls. If I try to map either one to a real device, everything goes completely weird.

If I map VST Quick Controls to my Arturia beatstep, I can “learn” knobs 1 to 8, as Quick Control 1 to 8, but the 8 quick controls do NOT correspond either to the VST knobs in the VSTi rack on the right nor to the quick controls on the left.

Is there somewhere a sane set of tutorials in english or even Klingon, for that matter, that are clear and concise on how to set this up?

I am currently at the point where turning the first two knobs on the controller both affect the first parameter in the inspector > Quick Controls and both the first two knobs on the VSTI panel are mapped to the same parameter and I have no idea how they got mapped to anything at all, since the UI is completely and utterly bonkers insane and completely impossible to understand.

No matter what I do, quick control 3 seems to be hard coded to my main keyboards expression wheel.

So lost. HELP. I feel like I am missing key information like “VST Quick Controls are a joke, and don’t even work, don’t try it”.

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I have been using Cubase for 15 years now and I still don’t know how to use it. Well I haven’t even bother to try…

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I’m watching for replies here. I play with this and barely understand it. :slight_smile:

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That’s because they’re completely unintuitive to use, never work properly, and never retain settings consistently. Not worth it imo.

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Yep, it’s messed up. I’m using Cubase for more than 10 years and at some point, I gave up because it’s not only hard to understand what is what, a lot of controllers can’t even properly work with Cubase while eg. in Ableton Live it’s a breeze to use the same controllers.
They should make a completely new system for midi CC assignments. One that is easy to understand, is reliable, work with most of controllers and is FAST to assign.

Oh yeah and there’s a lot of plug-ins that can’t be even assigned to those archaic quick/vst controls.

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It would be great if Steinberg would give this some love in Cubase 11.1 or 11.5.

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Track Quick Controls are accessed in the Inspector in the left zone. I think they can also be accessed inside the MixConsole. These are only Track Quick Controls and are not VST Quick Controls.

VST Quick Controls are accessed in the right zone where you see all your VST Instrument plugins. Some can also be accessed inside the plugin itself, like in HALion Sonic SE.

The Studio Setup lets you set up a MIDI controller device to control these Quick Controls. Track Quick Controls and VST Quick Controls can use its own MIDI controller, separate to each other.

Once you have set up your MIDI controller to control Quick Controls, you then have to map certain parameters inside your Cubase session to the Quick Controls. For example…

Add a filter plugin to one of the insert slots in the inspector and make sure it’s visible for editing.
Go to the Track Quick Controls section in the Inspector and click the L for Learn button.
In the filter plugin, move the cutoff parameter with your mouse. This will now map the cutoff parameter to the 1st Quick Control slot.
Make sure to deactivate the Learn function by clicking the L button again
Now, use your MIDI controller you set up for Track Quick Controls. It should control the 1st Quick Control slot that is mapped to the cutoff on the filter plugin.
This only works on the selected track. If you were to select another track, that controller will control the Quick Control of that selected track, if there are any mapped.

For VST Quick Controls, go to the right zone and click the tab that shows all of your VST instruments.
There is a button to set the focus of the VST Quick Control to that particular instrument. This is how you select the instrument you want to control with your VST Quick Control MIDI controller.
The parameters for each VST Quick Control slot are generally mapped by default, but there is a Remote Control Editor in Cubase Pro that allows you to assign your own parameters.
To open the Remote Control Editor, right-click the plug-in panel of the plug-in and select Remote Control Editor.

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That’s very helpful. So one of the confusing things in the UI is the VST QUick Control editing features. Right click on the right zone, after finding out how to SHOW the vst quick controls which are HIDDEN BY DEFAULT, and then try to figure out without instructions, how to actually change which VST parameters are mapped to them. It’s actually easy ONCE YOU FIGURE IT OUT. RIght click the quick control knobs and click on them. NOPE. Try again. How about clicking somewhere far away from the knobs and find the REMOTE CONTROL EDITOR. That is a brilliant thing.

Why when I right click a KNOB is the ONLY option “Show “” automation”. So insane.
This is what I mean about it needing love. The only part of the panel that can’t be right clicked to get to the REMOTE CONTROL EDITOR is the part that MOST DEFINITELY SHOULD HAVE.

Your comment is SUPER HELPFUL though and contains most of the most essential facts. Thanks.

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Actually that is exactly our plan.

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Awesome! Fingers crossed for this project.

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Very excited about that.

Seeing how BITWIG is doing this has me hoping Steinberg’s clever cats have something equally powerful and new to reveal in a future Cubase edition.

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Yep, I have seen the announcement before and thanks for letting us know : it’s great, but…

… at the developers of this incoming feature, PLEASE, don’t forget the NRPN messages management, which is broken at its present state : a convoluted and limited workaraound is necessary to make Generic Remote definitions work with them. See these (just in case and among others…) for more details :

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/issue-using-endless-knobs-with-c6-commands-solved/37233/5
https://forums.steinberg.net/t/all-versions-generic-remote-definitions-nrpn-messages-recognition-broken/145401/13

Thanks in advance… :upside_down_face:

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The MIDI remote API could definitely benefit from a major update.

So would the device panel editor - a great feature I actually use, but it’s a painful and delicate process. Also, snapshots from midi panels get stored in weird places.

Other MIDI remote issues: Patch selection in the inspector from a patch list has some issues since Cubase 10: at some point, selecting a patch no longer works.

Similary, when re-opening a project, some midi channels show as selected patch “temp: [some patchname]” - and it is the wrong patch. Saving the project with the correct patch does not help, the only real remedy I found is to delete the entire midi channel and set it up new.

Hoping for good news soon!