An Oddball Problem with Control Changes

Cubase
1

Cubase noob here coming over from Sonar.

Today I set up a template for my projects, and it seems to be working well (thanks to the help I received from a couple of forum members) except for one problem. I wanted to be able to make my Korg Kronos synth change KARMA Scenes at precise points, so I’ve set up control changes in Cubase, one on each of 8 MIDI tracks. Each track has only one function, which is to hold a CC#30, which is the CC to send from a DAW in order to tell Kronos to change to a specific KARMA Scene. The first track has CC#30 with a value of 0, which tells Kronos “Change to Scene 1.” The second track’s CC#30 has a value of 1, which tells Kronos “Change to Scene 2.” And so forth up to Scene 8 (CC#30, value 7), which is the highest numbered Scene on the Kronos.

So far so good, but now the odd behavior starts. If I start the transport from the beginning of Bar 1, all is well. But if I start the transport at any point from just after the beginning of Bar 1 up to and including the beginning of Bar 2, the KARMA Scene changes to 8 when I stop the transport. Not DURING playback; only when I stop playback. If I start playback at any point after the beginning of Bar 2, all is well…the Scene does not change unexpectedly when I stop playback.

My first thought was that I have a stray CC#30, value 7, so I then MUTED all tracks in the entire template. ALL TRACKS, so a stray CC would have no effect. But the problems remains. And I’ve checked the List Editor multiple times…there is no stray CC of any sort. And anyway, if there were a stray CC, why wouldn’t it trigger a Scene change when starting the transport from the beginning of Bar 1 and playing through Bar 2? Why does the KARMA Scene change only when starting the transport from just after the beginning of Bar 1 up until the beginning of Bar 2, and then only when I stop the transport?

Then I thought maybe the spacebar, which I was using to start and stop, was sending a CC, so I started and stopped playback using the mouse (clicking on the Start and Stop buttons), but the problem remained.

Finally I opened a project created before I started using the template…no issues whatsoever. The KARMA Scene does not change unexpectedly when stopping the transport. That leads me to believe the issue is specific to the template, but what could be the cause?

I’m stumped.

2

OK, I decided to just start deleting tracks and see what happened. The CC tracks are all in a folder, and I deleted all of them. Then the problem did not recur.

So I’ve now reinstated the CC tracks, but disconnected their outputs. When I want to use a CC#30 I’ll re-connect the necessary track.

But I still don’t understand this.

3

And it occurs to me that perhaps CCs are sent even when a MIDI track is muted. I don’t know if that totally explains it, but it seems to make at least some sense of it.

4

I checked with the Mute button and the MIDI Monitor plugin, and yes, some CCs are sent when you click stop. It seems to chase the CCs that you’re using in MIDI parts when you press stop. Definitely something screwy there!

Mike.

5

Thank you. I can’t think of any good reason for that to happen. Maybe a bug? Anyway, I’ve figured out a workaround.