Reading through this, I can´t help but wonder if many of these requests would become much simpler if Cubase had a standardized Instrument Profile that it could build upon instead of heaving to describe every possible instrument and articulations itself.
Such profiles could provide a common foundation - a central datatbase, for example - that could therefore be used afterwords, whenever instrument-specific information is needed, whether in Exrpession Maps, Drum Maps or the Note-Editor to just name a few Cubase features.
User-specific preferences could still be handled separately, either through an additional settings layer or simply by keeping the existing customization system.
That way, users would still have complete freedom to customize their workflow without having to manually recreate or dublicate information that already exists inside the instrument itself.
If your´re interested, i recently posted a separate feature request that explores this idea in more detail.
What’s the difference of expression maps from midi notes key switches , besides being “transpose safe” ?
for me expression maps are 1 step forward and 1 step backwards. Especially that there is no universal setup or standard, they have to be setup manually and differently for each library.
You can change input options, for instance you can use MIDI PC instead of the default keyboard keyswitch. I could see more options in the future, for instance I would like to see switching sound slots (articulations) on track with a single fader om my composer fader controller
It also opens up a panel when you track select for expression maps in the regular DAW view where you can mouse click select too. This gives you a nice overview of what articulations are available after you selected a track which is really nice.
In the Editor you also have an articulation drop down menu to change articulation (which only works if you use expression maps properly).
This is my number one request - that and/or an api for realtime interface with expression maps. Either would dramatically improve the ability to quickly build and map external controllers in metagrid or even hardware and have them automatically and correctly update when a track is selected.
Right now it’s extremely slow and tedious to get this working - especially when you have a 2800 track orchestral template.
It would be especially amazing if we could use an AI prompt to build an expression map - partly by grepping the known articulations and default remote keys from the net as a starting point. In fact, being able to have an AI or script batch create them for a selection of tracks (or an entire template) based on a few parameters would be heaven and save literally hundreds of hours.
For what it’s worth, I agree with @sberg on pretty much every request/comment here.
Expression maps have so much potential and I really appreciate the recent improvements but they can still be quite slow and frustrating to build and use in large templates.
@mlib many of us are but the problem is it still remains slow and painstaking to setup - especially with large templates with hundreds (or thousands in my case) of tracks.
Happy seeing people engaging positively in feedback to continue to improve the expression map experience.
Cubase is a composer DAW, probably one of the most prominent DAW for composing, having complex orchestral controls like expression maps + logical editor macros, scoring tools and hopefully in the future internal touch control pages to run on an external touch screen panel (like in iPad Sidecar) makes sense. These tend to be some of the most complex DAW templates running on Cubase.
I am curious what we could see more being added to improve DAW templates, perhaps even a better mix console for large template use (different mixing views and features).
I have also mentioned in a separate thread improvements in channel strips as another area we should improvements (which is related to the mix console when composing):
THIS is extremely convenient and valuable. Why this info is not readily available I have no idea. This will speed up my orchestra work very much. Thanks!!
Hi Crispin, happy to share a bit more. What I’m building (SHERLOCK 2) is a personal WPF/C# touchscreen control surface for Cubase using the MIDI Remote API — not a commercial product, just my own tool from 7,000 tracks that I’m going to try to reduce to 1,500-track template.
The relevant bit for what you’re describing: it can now read any native .expressionmap XML file directly — regardless of naming convention or source library — and auto-populate the KeySwitch button config from the raw trigger data inside the file. So no need for a pre-built/curated map per library; you just point it at whatever .expressionmap you already have (yours, a third-party one, anything), and it builds the controls from it.
It’s not aiming to compete with Metagrid Pro as a product — different scope entirely, no cross-DAW support, no iPad app, nothing polished for distribution. It’s still very much in active development, built specifically around my own template and hardware. Maybe down the line, but no promises. Happy to share a screenshot or two if useful.
Hi Crispin, as promised, here’s a quick GIF showing the automatic import of button assignments for a bank’s articulations.
So, I simply open a track with Expression Maps; the button window opens, though it is empty at first. I then open the configuration window and click the Expression Maps button to import the corresponding setting. A small window appears confirming the number of articulations; all that remains is to save, and the buttons are immediately assigned in the Keyswitches window.
I can also manually input my joints—or delete, modify, raise, and lower them—and copy this configuration to apply it to another one.
@Freudon That’s brilliant work! I take it this is PC only for now? I’d love to take it for a spin if you ever do a Mac version. Again, would gladly pay!
A ridiculous dream I have is to be able to read expression maps and light up a Roli keyboard (or similar) with the correct keyswitches (colour accurate) - is this something that could be eventually modified to do that?
