Cubase 12.0.50 MIDI Remote "Parameter Bank" controls

Cubase
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Just got rather excited seeing these items in the MIDI Remote actions list:

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I’m wondering if there’s work underway to allow us to change pages of quick control parameters, anyone from steinberg (@Jochen_Trappe ?), or any other users found what they do yet?

I also see that if you hover your mouse over the VSTi page/layer select it now reads “Select Quick Control Layer”:
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I can’t play until later, argh! But could it be that there’s an option to have pages of 8 parameters per Insert/Instrument?

EDIT: IT DOES WORK! You assign the parameters listed within the parameter tree (Not the focused quick controls) and you can page through banks - like MCU! YESSSS!!! :slight_smile:

In the “===setup===” option you can also expand the number of controls beyond 8 parameters, seriously - why isn’t this in the release notes?!! This is massive improvement!!

If no-one else posts instructions, i’ll update this later when I have time.

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I think this is even better then Quick Controls. It looks like we can use now all parameters of a FX or Instrument. Just like the Remote Editor, but maybe just not that easy. It looks very promising :slight_smile: .
I also have seen that the API can now handle the slots of inserts, fx etc.

Previously you have lost control over the mapping if you moved or changed slot of a insert etc.

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Indeed, this is brilliant. Got it working, and it’s a little laggy with the MIDI Remote view at the bottom, but if you close it up it works well.

I can’t wait to use this in the API with hardware that has screens, as the parameters are updating as you parameter page turn too.

I’m really ridiculously excited by this, as i’m such a hardware nut - I hate dialing in synth sounds with a mouse… With this I can create pages for filters, oscilattors, LFO’s etc… Just brilliant… :slight_smile:

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Exactly. I told Martin that QC is simply not enough, especially if you make business as a sound-designer or patch-creator. I feel with you. The thing i hated the most on VSTi, was the using of the mouse. Experimenting with a synth, was basically hearing through the patches, instead of really diving in to the synth itself.
I told him, that 8 parameters is not much, like two envelopes, but where is LFO, Filters, FX.?

Great that they finally managed it.

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Hi,

I’m very excited by this new feature too, I hop we can now control inserts and channel strips more efficiently.

I made a post earlier to reference and test all the new features in MR API in v12.0.50

Will do some tests asap and report there.

Thomas

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Take care that you don’t have many duplicate assignment fighting each other. It would help to start fresh on a surface editor script too.

This looks very good! It’s going in the right direction. From some basic toying around, I can see that any parameter is assignable, in any bank of controls, that allows to swap pages on demand. :100: It works with the channel strip even when the modules are swapped around. Some (stock, strip) plug-in parameters are broken, but that’s not new, and not a fault of the Remote either.

Excited! :heart_on_fire:

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I was thinking the very same thing.

Did you try the new mappings, and if so - any lag for you?

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I did, and I did have much lag. But.

  1. I have an AKAI MPD218 here to toy with, and I set it up as an 18 bank setup. 3 banks switchable from the device x 6 pots.

  2. I had a script written that reserved bank C (pots 13 to 18) for currently impossible stuff ( like nudging locators, zoom in out, zoom project cursor etc.)

So, the combination of the two was what was causing all the mayhem for me. Parameters over 10 would start over (for example if parameter 1 is Frequency, parameter 11 would again be frequency, and because my script returns the pot to the middle like a panpot, it would clash badly and fight to return the control to where the script wanted.

Keeping a bank of just 12 went smoothly. I’ve also had a crash while building pages quickly (duplicate, rename, assign the whole page, change to other pages to assign the new page there, all while never leaving the mapping assistant etc.)

Other than that, it’s really cool. Now it’s a matter of having enough physical faders/pots or coming up with a damn good plan of prioritizing parameters, or devising a web of pages for faster tweaking of relevant parameters. Per instrument? Globally? Much to think about! :exploding_head:

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This new feature looks cool.

One good thing is you can set the size of parameters banks from 1 to 128 and this is independent for Inserts and each Channel strip module.

I can confirm that plug-ins and parameters names and values can be sent to LCDs.

What i didn’t figure out is how to set the order for the parameters for each plug-ins if it is possible…

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Go to the Remote Editor, it’s all done there… i.e.:

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Once in there you can just learn from the plugin, and add new pages with the + buttons
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Thanks, i looked at this already but found it was not working.

But it seems the problem might be a bug with a bank of more than 8 parameters. Basically, Nuendo doesn’t save the assignments. I need to check this a bit more in depth.

In the mean time, anyone has found the way to use it in the API? I had trouble finding the correct syntax.

Thomas

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This is very exciting - and a huge leap forward for remote controlling software plugins inside Cubase. I also didn’t realize this was one of the big additions from reading the release notes. Big thanks to @skijumptoes for finding and posting this most excellent news !!!

And @Jochen_Trappe for President! :slight_smile:

My first little test using Retrologue and Padshop ended up behaving like I was hoping for.

I had previously already added some parameters to those instruments via the Remote Control Editor, so ended up testing with 32 parameters for Retrologue and 16 for Padshop 2.

The bank switching worked in my quick test with Retrologue while using either 8 or 16 parameters.

And I tested 24 parameters without bank switching and that was fine, too.

Moving back and forth between the Instrument tracks containing Retrologue and Padshop seemed to work fine, too.

However: It’s easy to see confusing results when sitting on bank 2 or more and the target instrument doesn’t have enough parameters assigned. In that case, the MIDI Remote fills the assignments from the top of the selected Instrument’s available parameters.

I think this behavior makes sense and is desirable for many use cases, but can be confusing at first.

p.s. During my testing I encountered a couple of small temporary glitches. But they seemed to go away and I’m not sure how to reproduce them, so it doesn’t make that much sense to write them up, yet. In both cases I suspected the glitch to be more in the Remote Control Editor, rather than in the MIDI Remote.

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Have you guys found a way to specifically target a Plug-in slot for the selected track? I can use successive “next plug-in” and “edit plug-in” to open the plug-ins’ interface, but it’s like fumbling in the dark a bit.

Is there a way to target the Nth slot specifically yet?

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Thanks for all this info , this looks great , been trying to get the Novation Zero to work , at first i thought the Led’s were reacting to CC changes but nope , they just stay on the last automap used , do you think this could be a conflict with automap or the Led’s are still not receiving data ?

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Still the old remote control seems far more practical with “edit per slot” function. I agree though that these new additions are really useful and looks very promising.

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it seems that the first 8 parameters of the “remote control editor” coincide with the 8 Quick Controls, so it is better to set it from 9 onwards.

bye

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Yeah, this is exactly my reaction too!

Really awesome to see the new additions, and I’ve been waiting for them to do the insert slots, but that you have to shuffle through the slots to edit or bypass seems a little odd compared to have just for each of the slots (or at least the option of it).
But looking at the scripting Programmers API guide it does look like it’s available through scripting, if I read the code correctly. Haven’t tried it yet :slight_smile:

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Still, I do not understand what is the use of introducing a new function like the parameter command, instead of adding the previus-next (etc.) commands to the focus quick control menu. Now we have 3 different menus controlling parameters, instead of 2. AFAIK the new par function must be focus to listen (like FQC). It’s like canceling FQC. Is there a way to combine these two that I’m missing?

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There’s two reasons really, The instrument “slot” is not in the same control target as the insert slots. So firstly, That’s why you have a set of controls for instruments and set of controls for inserts.

MCU and all previous “deeper” mapping protocols all follow a similar rule, so most DAW’s built with MCU as the main control protocol (i.e. Logic) operates in the same manner too.

Secondly, “Focused” quick controls are just as they say on the tin, they’re controls tied entirely to what is in focus on your screen with the optional ability to lock them or not. It’s a super easy method of changing what’s in your face at any time.

These new set of parameters are not related to such focus, like MCU, you can select an instrument, or scroll through the inserts slots and adjust parameters across any of those pluigin instances, and never have to open a plugin window. It’s up to the user if they want to roll with it on a selected track basis, or you can even target specific tracks.

So yes, it’s two different target types (inserts vs instruments), and two different concepts (focused vs MCU style).

Luckily the MIDI remote gives you pages, so it’s very easy to have a button that either toggles between FQC, Instrument or Insert pages. Or create 3 distinct buttons on your hardware if available.

Why there’s not paging on FQC, I don’t know the answer to that - All I can presume is that behind the scenes these new parameter controls are piggy backing on the existing MCU controls that has most of these functions pre-defined.

It’s a bit of a mess, in honesty as like you say, functions appear to undermining /cancel others… However, if you’ve played with remote mappings with Cubase for a number of years it’s more straight forward and understandable.

Most users will be happy with FQC and never need or see these other options, I guess that’s the general consensus?

Or there will be some kind of massive tidy up at the end and everything is moved to FQC? Who knows! :slight_smile:

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Thanks for spending the time answering.

It is very clear to me the reason of the existence of these two different functions. Quick Control, Focus Quick Control and the 2 submenus of the new Parameter functions were on my mind when I was speaking of 3 controller set.

Exaclty as you said…