Hello.
Has anyone figured out a way to assign one of the modulators in cubase to a midi cc#?
For example, I’d like to assign a LFO modulator to lets say midi CC 74 and have it modulate the “brightness (midi cc 74)” of my external synth.. Or can one of you programmer types figure out a script for it? 
This is not possible in Cubase itself. Somebody mentioned that with the help of a commercial 3rd party plugin it can be done. It’s called Blue Cat’s Remote Control.
Thanks for your response.. I will check it out.. I guess I could add this to the feature request tag, but looks like I am the only one interested in this missing function.
Steinberg have mentioned that they did not incorporate this feature due to the coarse time resolution of midi.
The modulators run on VST precision, ie. the time resolution is determined by the project sample rate.
If you use 48kHz for the time it takes to transmit a single midi NoteOn event approx. 45 samples will have occurred. A single controller message takes approx 30 samples. Doesn’t sound so bad? Yes, but that means a single modulator signal will occupy the entire midi port. You won’t be able to send anything else anymore.
In reality you would need transmit midi with a much more coarse timing and that might not be so nice for smooth running curves.
Get the MeldaProduction free bundle, which has the MCCGenerator utility. You’d need to get the paid upgrade to actually make use of this one. That bundle upgrade costs $54, but can often be had for half that price, and is well worth the investment. MCCGenerator does what it says, backed by a very flexible and powerful LFO (and more) implementation.
@Johnny_Moneto - Thanks for the background info. I understand what you are saying. I personally would be ok with the coarse timing limitations of MIDI myself. At least I have an answer now on why Steinberg didn’t implement this.
@dmbaer - Just watched the video for MCCGenerator. This is pretty much exactly what I am trying to achieve. I am just weird about 3rd party plugins and cubase. Yes I know they are safe, but I have become so used to just using cubase stock plugins and what not. Back in the day I used to install every plugin under the sun and always had stability issues. Now that I stick to just stock cubase my stuff is very stable. Plus I already spent the money to upgrade to 14 to get the modulators.
I have semi found a work around. I used the “note to CC” midi insert plugin and then I go to the midi editor and have velocity vary by lets say 50% and assign midi cc 16 to control my envelop on my roland se-02. It’s basically a step filter/effect at that point. I am also pretty sure you could probably do some sort of translation with the logical editor but I am not the best at using that. I think last time I tried to use the logical editor to just reduce some volume here and there it took me like 1.5hrs to figure out.
I have the MCCGenerator on my machine as well. The free plugins from Melda have never given me any trouble whatsoever so far (Windows). I have also not seen any crashes caused by them.
However, I used it yesterday to do what is discussed here. The result is a bit discouraging as, as predicted by me, the plugin creates a ton of midi messages. In fact so many that it started to slow down operations of Cubase itself.
So use it, but be ready to deal with an extreme amount of midi.
TY for the feedback and info regarding mccgenerator. You are a service to this forum. Much appreciated.
My pleasure. If we find a good solution I am certain that many other people will be happily using that.
By today I realized that I need to disable the “high accuracy” option of the Melda plugin to significantly reduce the amount of midi messages created and make all of this workable.
High accuracy will send a pair of messages for the first 32 controllers, ie. a 14 bit value, for example Main Volume MSB and LSB. Most instruments don’t utilize 14 bit message pairs, so this is fine to disable.
Here is a the MIDI recording of an LFO triangle. Cubase was asked to create ramps. Tempo = 125bpm, Cubase with 480ppqn.
Same with Steps:
Same with Steps, sinus curve instead of triangle:
And last but not least - sinus with ramp:
All in all: Looks pretty usable to me.
Here is the setup:
Modulators only work on tracks that have an audio channel in it: audio, instrument, effect, group,…
Load the MCCGenerator as an insert onto the audio channel. Create the connection of the modulator to the plugin.
Create a MIDI track. Assign the MCCGenerator as the input of the MIDI track. If you use Cubase Pro and defined External Instruments you can also create an Instrument track.
Oh well, I am live commentating my discoveries. Sorry for the multiple postings.
I tried to actually use the above on one of my external synths. It is a desaster. As soon as I let MCCGenerator send the modulation signal to the midi port and then to my external synth, Cubase becomes choppy and basically unusable.
I don’t know whether the blockade happens in Cubase already or in the Windows midi system.
EDIT: It looks like it is the driver of my midi interface that is struggling. So your mileage can vary.
So, live conversion does not work for me.
But, workaround, I can pre-record the modulation signal onto a MIDI track, then disconnect the input from the plugin and then send the midi data to the External Instrument.
Yeah thanks for all the testing with the 3rd party plugin. Again, I am wanting to stay away 3rd party stuff..
I have the one solution for now with the midi to cc velocity trick..
another way that is not so great is to just use the line tool.. Change it to square or sine wave and set the quantization to something i want and draw it in for the CC i want, but there’s no randomness with that method which is why I wanted to use a modulator.
