Automating Halion - Standing Wave

Cubase
,
1

I’d like to start by saying Hi! I don’t remember if I’ve even posted here yet, but thank you for hosting a forum for questions.

I have to admit that so far I have been somewhat disappointed in my purchase of Cubase 8.5 in some respects. I constantly seem to be hitting brick walls where what seems like it should be simple and obvious is convoluted or anti-intuitive.

At the moment I am trying to automate a part of Halion in a track. There is a preset called “Standing Wave” that I am attempting to automate in a track. It has three oscillators. What I am attempting to do at the moment is turn one of the oscillators on in the middle of the track, and then increase the level slowly through that section. I first attempted to do this by hitting the “W” button on the Halion plugin, which I was under the impression would write my actions in automation. It seems to work with the globe-controller on the bottom right of the plugin, but does not work at all with turning the oscillator on and off and increasing the level of that third oscillator.

Then I attempted to right click on the oscillator and click “Learn CC”. I have to admit, I got it to work a few times but have no idea what I needed to do in the end to get it to work. I think I hit record, had the W and R buttons on the plugin pressed, and then went into the key editor or something and it finally would learn the CC. Terribly anti-intuitive from my perspective.

However, when I did get it to work the times that I did it would assign the Osc. 3 On/Off to Controller 88, and then assign the Osc. Level to controller 88! I don’t want them to be controlled by the same controller and have no idea to assign them to a specified controller. Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

For a software that is in version 8.5 I don’t understand how the workflow remains this convoluted. If anyone has any information it’d be really helpful. Also, if there is any “automate anything in Cubase 8.5” tutorials I’d love to read them. The one’s that I’ve seen mostly focus on the Quickstrip, when I attempt to use that to automate those two buttons (the Osc. 3 On/Off and the Osc. 3 Level) it doesn’t show these anywhere on the controller list there.

:neutral_face:

2

Here is one answer:

  1. Open the key editor to the track you want to automate.
  2. Right Click on the Controller Lane and Click “Create Controller Lane”
  3. If the track had no other controller lanes the new one should be a duplicate Volume Lane
  4. Click on the dropdown that appears if you hover over the name of the controller lane (possibly “Volume”)
  5. Select “Setup” and go into it
  6. Add some of the unused controllers on the left to the column in the right
  7. After you add a controller (Let’s say it’s 102), choose that controller from the dropdown
  8. Draw some “programming” into the controller (create lines in the lane - not sure if it’s necessary).
  9. Have the R and W buttons on in Halion
  10. Right click on the button you want to automate and click “Learn CC”
  11. Click play and let it play for a bit.
  12. The button should then say “Assigned to Contr. 102” when you right click on the button.

If anyone else has an easier way, please. Otherwise my opinion of Steinberg will continue going down the tubes. If you’re in version 8.5 and assigning a controller to a part of the interface is this convoluted…