Control start and end positions (indirectly also length) via an endless rotary control

Cubase
1

Hi there,

is there a way to control the start-note and end-note positions of a selected MIDI note in any of Cubase’s editors via an endless rotary knob on a remote control device?

When I am scoring, I regularly have to adjust the note start points and/or note lengths. Currently I am doing this manually with my mouse. I have a Novation SL25MkII sitting on my desk with plenty of rotary knobs which are currently not mapped. I was wondering if I could potentially use two of these to control the start and end positions of any selected MIDI note in a Cubase editor.

Any ideas how to pull this of? I saw that there are already commands available in the remote control device but these split the task into two separate commands: e.g. there is move start left, and move start right + another pair for the end positions.

If I am not mistaken I would need to find a way to build some custom MIDI logic to “decode” the MIDI data being generated by the rotary i.e. … are there any tools around that I could employ to build such a helper software myself? Was thinking about PD for example… Anything else out there? or does Cubase already support this natively (I doubt that)?

My idea so far:

  1. Take two rotary knobs and assign them to two separate MIDI-CCs, one for controlling the start point and one for controlling the end point.
  2. Write a script which fires Cubase editor commands (either via MIDI or keyborard controls) along the following logic:
Catch and store initial MIDI CC value.
Get subsequent MIDI CC value if changed within a specific time (ms).
If new value is lower than the old one, execute Cubase editor command to move start point backwards.
If new value is higher, execute Cubase editor command to move start point forwards.
Etc...

I know it’s a bit technical but I could see some real workflow benefits from having some physical knobs to control note position and length rather than purely relying on my mouse…

What do you guys think?

P.S.: @Steinberg can you please give us some API access and in-host scripting capabilities like Bitwig? :mrgreen: That would be absolutely awesome! :unamused:

2

Hi,

In general, to assign MIDI message to a function, go thru Generic Remote Device. But the function you are searching for is not available.

You could achieve this with the AI Knob.

Btw, the endless encoders are not so endless how do they look like. In general, they just send increase or decrease command, then it’s translated to dedicated values depending on the current value of the controlled parameter.