I have quite a few number of hardware synths (MS-2000, K2600X, Wavestation EX, EM1X, QS6.1, V-Synth XT, Morpheus, Motif 7, D-50, JD-990, Z8) and of course all these babies are connected to Cubase with both MIDI and audio. So like anyone, I would like to use the technologies made available by Steinberg to:
1/ Edit and program my synths (device panel)
2/ Manage my presets and banks of presets seamlessly (VST3 presets)
3/ Organize, search and obviously find the good presets with mediabay
However, the first step would be to edit and control the synths from within cubase (back to the roots).
It seems to me that Device Panel has been designed for this purpose. But no panel is provided with C6 and it is almost impossible to build your own custom panels as it is more like programming software rather than making music keeping in mind that Cubase is meant for making music.
After this boring intro here comes my question:
can we count on Steinberg to implement device panels for existing HW synths for C6 (as obviously none of the main synth manufacturers cares about device panels)? Also, I doubt that Cubase is “the good tool” for creating these panels as it is far too much time consuming to build them which makes this technology unuseable and therfore unused (Am I the only one not using it?).
It may be good to have a tool similar to Microsoft XAMLpad (developers in the MS world will know what I am talking about ) or kaxaml (http://www.kaxaml.com/) to edit the panel and parameters and see the impact the changes have on the generated XML structure in order to offer the opportunity of copying / pasting part of this XML and therefore largely speed up the creation of the device panel.
To be honest I feel a bit frustrated to have this wonderful tool close to my fingers but not being able to use it?
Some years ago, I spent couple of days to create a panel for my Roland TD-8 drum brain. Some time later installed new SSDs to my computer and had to re-install everything. Of course made backup of my panel XML file, but have no idea, how to import this panel XML back to Cubase. Not going to spend 2 more days to re-create panel just to loose it, when having to upgrade again.
Of course tried it, clicked “Import Setup” and selected the panel XML file … but nothing happens. Even created a new panel and copied the old one on the top of the new XML file … still no luck.
Have given up with this feature. Device panels are nice idea, but the implementation just sucks.
If I import my panel XML there will be no new MIDI device on MIDI Device Manager. If I Create a new device called “TD-8” and import my panel while the new device is selected, there’s no panel. If I create a new panel for my newly created “TD-8” devicve and replace a newly generated panel file of that one with the old one, there’s no panel. Any other other suggestions?
Of course!
I’ve never used “External Instruments” feature of Cubase, since I do not mix ITB. OK … I lied … I’ve tested the External Instrument thing just to be able to help fellow Cubase user with his problems, but that’s all. But when I created my panel, it didn’t require to create an instrument track to use it.
As far as I know, I created my panel in C4 and I’m unable to import it back to C4 after re-install. OK! I know my moan doesn’t belong to C6 forum, since it’s C4 issue, but I was just responding the topic about panels.
And why don’t Steinberg have a site for this user-created content? They should learn from Line6’s customtone.com and similar services.
You should have used the “Export Setup” option in the “Midi Device Manager”. Then you could’ve imported it again. The .xml you posted is a “raw” panel file. Don’t know if, and how, you can make it work without the properly exported .xml.
Lately I’ve been using it extensively. It’s far from perfect but I don’t know anything better than it.
There are some things I would like to see improved.
While it can receive midi CC# and change the buttons and sliders accordingly, this doesn’t work with NRPN or RPN.
In Windows 7 the the text in the controls are not the same size as in Windows XP, causing aesthetic problems.
Would be nice if device panels could have their own MIDI input as well, so they could receive MIDI messages directly from the devices instead of having to merge all the messages in the “all midi input” stream.
there are cases where multiple repeated messages are sent when pressing buttons and sliders, causing much more traffic than necessary.
would also be nice to have an option to show signed knob values, independent for each knob (for example, instead of 0 to 127, -64 to 63).
You may have done this already, but perhaps the message board for the specific synth may help with the above. For example, for my Yamaha Motif I went to the Motif forum, where someone had made available the patch script to do just that. So I can choose/record/play back specific synth voices from Cubase.
I think there’s a fault in Cubase regarding NPRN. Myself I have been waiting for a NPRN-issue to be solved. I’m using a large pipe organ software-package called Hauptwerk that rely heavily on MIDI. It’s a tad strange - because it works nicely in Cubase 5.
They should learn from Line6’s