Cubase Pro 15: only first exclusion group of Expression Map sends MIDI events

Cubase
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1

1. Summary

In an Expression Map with two mutual exclusion groups for articulations (“Playing Style” and “Expression”), only the MIDI trigger events of the first group are sent to the instrument. The articulations of the second group do not trigger sending events to the instrument. As a result, combining multiple articulation dimensions via groups is effectively unusable.

2. System Environment

Application: Cubase Pro

Version: 15.021 (Build 252)

Architecture: Apple Silicon (native)

3. Steps to Reproduce

  1. In Cubase Pro 15, open the Expression Map Setup window.

  2. Create four sound slots, each with one articulation and a unique trigger note:

  • Legato (Default) — trigger C1, Note-On C1

  • Pizzicato — trigger D1

  • Non Vibrato — trigger E1, Controller 15, value 0

  • Vibrato — trigger F1, Controller 15, value 127

  1. In the “Articulations & Mutual Exclusion Groups” section, create two groups:

  • Playing Style with the articulations Legato and Pizzicato

  • Expression with the articulations Non Vibrato and Vibrato

  1. Assign the Expression Map to an instrument track (in this case: NI Stradivari Violin).

  2. In the Key Editor, place events in both articulation lanes — for example, first Legato + Non Vibrato, then Pizzicato + Vibrato.

  3. Start playback and observe the instrument’s behavior.

4. Expected Behavior

Since the two groups are mutual exclusion groups, articulations within a group must exclude each other, while articulations across groups should be freely combinable. Specifically:

  • When a Legato event is hit, Cubase sends Note-On C1 (velocity 120) to the instrument.

  • When a Pizzicato event is hit, Cubase sends Note-On D1.

  • When a Non Vibrato event is hit, Cubase sends Controller 15 Value 0 to the instrument

  • When a Vibrato event is hit, Cubase sends Note-On Controller 15 Value 127 to the instrument

  • Both groups send their trigger events independently — Playing Style (Legato/Pizzicato) and Expression (Non Vibrato/Vibrato) can be freely combined.

5. Actual Behavior

Only the first group (“Playing Style”) sends its configured MIDI trigger events correctly: the instrument audibly switches between Legato and Pizzicato.

The second group (“Expression”) does not switch visibly between Non Vibrato and Vibrato in the Inspector / Key Editor as well sends no MIDI trigger events (controller changes) to the instrument. The sound does not change accordingly — the articulations of the second group have no audible effect at all.

6. Workaround

Working workaround found: The sound slots belonging to the second group must be added via the “Add Sound Slot (Attribute)” button (puzzle-piece icon), not via the regular “+” button. They are then treated as Add-on slots .

Steps:

  1. Add Legato and Pizzicato as regular sound slots (button +).

  2. Add Non Vibrato and Vibrato via the “Add Sound Slot (Add-on)” button (puzzle-piece icon) — these slots then appear with a puzzle-piece icon in front of the name.

  3. Keep the group assignment as before (Playing Style: Legato/Pizzicato; Expression: Non Vibrato/Vibrato).

After this change, the trigger events of both groups are sent correctly to the instrument and Playing Style and Expression can be combined freely.

Visual confirmation: Once the slots are configured as “Add-on”, Cubase visually groups them in the sound slot list on the left as a separate block — slightly indented and marked with the puzzle-piece icon. This visual cue is a reliable indicator that switching between the articulations of the second group is now working.

9. Proposed Solution

The “Add-on” workaround demonstrates that Cubase is technically capable of handling multiple articulation dimensions in parallel. The issue is conceptual: the “Add-on” status of a sound slot and its membership in an exclusion group are currently treated as two decoupled mechanisms — even though they should express the same thing semantically.

Concrete proposal:

  • Whether a sound slot is marked as “Add-on” or not should be irrelevant for sending trigger events.

  • The grouping alone — i.e. the assignment of articulations to mutual exclusion groups — should determine which slots exclude each other and which are freely combinable:

  • Within a group, articulations exclude each other (only one is active at a time).

  • Across groups, all articulations are freely and independently combinable, and all corresponding trigger events are sent.

  • This would make the “Add-on” mechanism redundant as a separate concept — the groups would be the single, unambiguous source of truth for grouping and combinability.

This unification would fix the current faulty behavior and at the same time make the Expression Map’s interaction model substantially clearer and more consistent.

2

I kind of agree with your proposals, but I am pretty sure there is a good reason for the way it is..

3

You’ve written a large missive in your first post, but it is based on a misunderstanding of how it works. Your proposals are an extremely bad idea given that you do not understand how it works.

If you’re using groups, and you’re not using add-ons, you define the slots based on the combination of techniques that should be occuring at once.

Ex.:

Legato + Non vibrato

Legato + Vibrato

as Sound slots. Two articulations simultaneously in one single sound slot. When you trigger legato in the first group and non vibrato in the second, it will locate the sound slot for “Legato + Non vibrato” and trigger that. When you trigger legato in the first group and vibrato in the second, it will locate the sound slot for “Legato + Vibrato” and trigger that.

It is nonsensical to use groups while just having one articulation in each sound slot, except for the case of using addon switches.

When you click the + button to add a new sound slot, notice the prompt text “select one or multiple articulations”. A lot of people miss that and think that sound slots can only have one articulation each, which confuses them.