Hi everyone!
I have a problem with my cc controls. If I add for instance cc72 release time, or cc73 attack in my Midi controller set up and I draw an automation of the release time or the attack, my plugins don’t respond. Velocity does work, Main Volume too, but the other controllers don’t.
Strangely on my home computer everything works fine, and I didn’t have to map anything. But on my studio computer, I can’t make it work. I’ve had this problem with Cubase 10, and know again with Cubase 12. I have updated drivers and windows.
Did anyone have a similar experience, and maybe knows an answer for this.
I just had this exact same issue with a friend whom I was helping the other day with this. He’s working in 10.5.
He had played the MIDI notes on the first recording pass. Then he did a second pass where he moved the knobs. So this created two lanes on one MIDI track - one for the notes, and one for the CC info. What he should have done was simply hit the W button to write automation, then hit play instead of record, then moved the plugin CC parameters. Instead, he had two separate performances - one with just MIDI notes and one with the CC info.
So I copied the MIDI notes from lane 1 and pasted them into the second take on lane 2 that had all the MIDI CC recorded in. It made no difference and the CC didn’t respond at all, even though the CC info was clearly shown.
I figured that in theory, it should work, but Cubase doesn’t look at these moves as automation. As a result, even though the CC data was perfectly intact and was clearly visible underneath the MIDI notes in the CC section on the MIDI part, the automation lanes were all blank. Because he’d hit record instead of pressing play.
I’m not sure what method you used but just for troubleshooting purposes:
- Create a new instrument track and put the plugin on that new track.
- Hit the W (write) button at the top of the plugin window, then press play and start moving the plugin’s attack and release parameter. Then turn off the W and keep the green R button lit.
- Click the “show/hide automation” dropdown underneath the instrument track in the Project(edit) window and see if you see any data on that lane instead of looking at the CC lane on the MIDI part.
The reason that velocity and volume worked was that those parameters are a Cubase function and not a plugin function. The attack and release were plugin-specific, whereas volume is just a mixer function. Velocity is not something that is inside the plugin window that you can control and is also a function of the MIDI track itself. In other words, if you removed the plugin entirely, you’d still have volume and velocity as part of the track itself, as well as expression and sustain and foot (CC4), etc.
Report back your findings after doing the above-mentioned troubleshooting steps. You’ll notice that as soon as you see automation data showing in the edit window on those automation lanes (not the CC lanes in the MIDI part), the plugin automation will respond.
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Hi, thanks for your message! I think my issue is a bit different. I just draw some notes and then draw the automation of the release time, or the attack, or the brightness. And before, it always worked. And at my home studio it still works, but on different computers in the studio where I work the plug ins don’t respond to the automation.
And thanks for the info about velocity and sustain, now I know, that’s not part of the plug in. Maybe it has something to do with the hardware or sound drivers on my work studio.
If you want, feel free to post a screenshot of the automation lanes that you are drawing and maybe put the plugin window in the screenshot off to the side so that we can see what it’s showing you.
Also, for troubleshooting, instead of drawing the automation for release time, try hitting the red “W” button above the plugin (very top of the plugin window) and then manually moving the release knob inside the plugin while you are playing back the audio. Then play it back and see if the release knob automation is working.
Let me chip in here, please.
MIDI and that includes MIDI CCs are not automation. You can transform CC to become automation but they are not the same.
However, anything MIDI is neither a Cubase function nor a plugin function. It is a protocol on how to transmit data.
The difference between automation (and let’s call that VST because that is what it actually is) and MIDI is that with VST a plugin can tell Cubase exactly which parameters it has and which values these parameters can have. MIDI is a set of generic transmissions and you (as the user) have to make sure that sender and receiver agree on the transmissions. E.g. when you send CC#72 in Cubase to a synth than you have to assign that CC#72 to a particular parameter inside that synth.
The same applies to velocity and volume. These are only names for generic MIDI messages that the receiver (synth) has to interpret. There are quite a few synths where you can setup velocity to control a filter as an example. Different MIDI messages have received a name and DAws and synths often adhere to these names, ie. a Note message actually triggers a sound. But a Note message can also switch on a light or steer a model train. It all depends on what the receiver does upon receiving the message.
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Thanks for your replies, it helps a lot to understand more about midi en automation. I did another test: we have at our studio a certain kind of computers. On several computers of this kind I had the same problem. When I did a new install of Cubase 12 on my laptop and on my home computer everything worked fine. I didn’t have to assign any parameters to my plug in, it worked automtically. The dealer of those computers said I might miss an Asio driver, I installed that, but it didn’t work yet. My next test will be deinstalling Cubase and installing it again, now I have the Asio driver. Thanks again, and I hope I can fix it, I’ll let you know.
You keep your descriptions very vague. Therefore it will not be possible for us to be of any further help.
What plugin are we talking about specifically?
Dealer does not seem to know what they’re talking about. ASIO only handles audio.
Waste of time.
If you have a proper, dedicate audio interface you should use the ASIO driver made by that manufacturer. What is your audio interface?
@Johnny_Moneto gave some solid information a few posts up explaining MIDI CCs and the difference to VST automation.
In essence, MIDI CC #72 may control the release time on one synthesizer, but not on another. It is up to the developer of the synth if they want to map CC #72 to that parameter. This goes for hardware synths as well as VST instruments. Often times the user manual has a section listing what parameters/functions are mapped to what MIDI CC (if any).