Don’t forget that under “MIDI/MIDI Controller Automation Setup”, you can choose where real time controller events during recording will go. With the right combination of settings here, you can even have Automation Lanes show CC events that are stored in MIDI parts. You also get say in how Cubase will behave if it comes across events in BOTH locations (should it prioritize one over the other, or merge and average them?).
You can easily move/transform automation lane data into a MIDI track. You can easily move/transform CC data from a MIDI track into an automation lane. Sometimes it requires a couple of steps to extract what you want into a fresh track, edit it there, then merge it back…but with a little practice there are all sorts of nifty techniques to isolate and work with things.
Furthermore, you can change channel CC events living in a MIDI part into note-expression events that are ‘note-bound’ (double click a note in the key-editor to get at it), rather than being channel events in the CC lane. With note-expression events being bound to individual notes, they’ll quantize and move/cut/copy/paste around relatively with note edits, rather than having to be dealt with on their own down in the CC lane. I.E. If you have a CC11 crescendo in a note-expression container, and move or quantize the note, the CC11 data moves with it. If you just have the crescendo drawn down in the CC11 lane, or stored in an automation lane, and you move or quantize the note, well, the CC information doesn’t automatically move with it.
Personally, I find CC data on a lane in the key-editor easiest to work with for doing precision edits. Getting the Logical Editors involved from here is a breeze, and saves HOURS of frustrating mousework! While there are a bunch of ‘individual events’, there are a number of ways to ‘group select’ them and ‘slide/scale/reshape’ if working with a curve. There are also tools to get rid of duplicates, and ‘thin’ the number or resolution of events, as MIDI often does NOT need so many, since the resolution is typically limited to a range of 0-127 anyway, and the ‘response curves’ are typically set in the instruments themselves. I.E. Why keep sending CC11,112 over and over every few milliseconds (it’s not changing, you’re just clogging the stream with useless events) as an automation lane would do (unless you set end points and cut it up) when you only need to send it ONCE at given moment?
Despite preferring to ‘edit’ controller events in Key-Editor lanes, I tend to bounce it all back to note-expression form after an edit. But then again, I need my stuff to hit cue points with video, so I’m always messing with tempo and more (constantly using Logical Editors to change the overall groove as well)…so the note-expression route is ‘worth the bother’ in my case.
You can also easily unbind note-expression style CC events, and put them back to being loose channel controller events. It’s just a few clicks to bounce it back and forth as needed.
It’s all really powerful and flexible to be honest.
As for what is ‘sensical’…well, it all depends on your project, and preferred workflow.
If you’re a step-input person, working with big ‘through composed’ scores, where tracks/staves are typically done with MIDI tracks, connected to “Rack Instruments”, then it may well make more sense to do all your CC stuff in the MIDI tracks themselves, and avoid keeping them in ‘automation lanes’. In this case, I find the “Edit In Place” feature, which allows you to expand a key-editor view, with CC lanes and all, right there in the main project view to be extremely useful.
In contrast, if your workflow is more of an instrument track user, with a style like, “Let me play these ‘licks’ in while recording with my keyboard/MPC/Wind Jammer, make a bunch of patterns and loops, and arrange it into a ‘song’ later.”…well, it can be very easy and convenient to keep controller data in the automation lanes where you can watch it all go in as you play, and do quick and dirty edits after the fact. In this case, why not enjoy the convenience of keeping CC performances on automation lanes? You can always convert and move the Data into the MIDI track(s) as independent CC events in key-editor lanes, or even bound to the notes as ‘note-expression’ events later for ‘precision event-by-event editing’ if you need to do so.
There is even a third option for recording real time controller movements…I haven’t fiddled with it much since I usually do ‘expressive’ data manually, long after I have ‘played anything in’, but I think it is possible to have real time controllers go straight to note-expression events, in lieu of either of the methods I’ve discussed above. There’s a tab for it in the track inspector for track types MIDI and Instrument.
There are times and places where each method (or a hybrid of the two) are more convenient and pragmatic. In my experience, it mainly matters when you start using lots of “Logical Editors” to save your self tons of time/effort by batch processing things using these ‘mini-scripts’. Cubase gives you MIDI Logical Editors, and it also gives you PROJECT Logical Editors. Depending on what you’re trying to do…sometimes the MIDI variant applied to parts/events is better, and sometimes the Project variant applied to tracks/lanes is better. Either type of Logical Editor can be bound to macros, which can in-turn be bound to MIDI events for remote control using Generic Remote maps.
If you’re sick of mousing yourself to death, stop and think, "Can I do do this whole part, or a selected portion of it with a ‘batch-script’? If so, Logical Editors are your best friend. I.E. I want to change the groove or feel by adjusting the velocity of every note falling within X milliseconds of the 2nd and 4th beat of a measure, and move them so they rush the beat a bit. Why do it one note at the time with a mouse, when you can process the whole track with a single Logical Editor? Same can apply to CC events to a large degree, you can scale them, and move them about with Logical Editors, and save a lot of time and frustration. I.E. I want CC11 to drive notes a little ‘louder’ as they play ‘higher on the scale’ and ‘softer’ as they go lower…rather than draw all that mess in one note at the time, I could do it to every note in the part with a simple "Logical Editor’.
for the confusion it creates.
. Why Cubase offers the ability to put midi data in an automation lane is a mystery to me…no other DAW I’m aware of offers this nonsensical feature.