im sorry but i have absolutely no idea what anyone is saying about these midi controls.
please cubase just give me midi learn for all my knobs and faders for all my vsts at the same time instead of making me arm tracks and use quick controls
That is what a Generic Remote map does. You get nearly unlimited mapping…to just about anything and everything possible in Cubase.
Also in the VST instrument track (rather than on the MIDI or instrument tracks) you can automate every VST control in a plugin.
in ableton you press ctrl m and you can assign anything to anything. id like this sort of funtionality
First start a Generic Remote Map. It can be empty to begin with and just add things one control at the time as needed, or you can go ahead and outline all the buttons, knobs, faders, etc that the MIDI controller offers.
Make a key command that when you press control m, your Desired Remote Map shows up. From there assign any control you want to nearly any command or VST control in the DAW. Yes, it has a ‘learn’ button.
Go to “File/Key Commands…” Build a key command to open your Generic Map Directly.
From then on typing your chosen key command will bring this up:
From here you can assign controls to anything in the DAW. You name and learn the control in the top pane, and point it to what you want it to do in the bottom. The cells in the bottom will pop up menus when clicked that lead to pretty much every control and command available in Cubase.
As pointed out earlier…Remote Maps are universal to your entire Cubase set up. They are independent of 'Projects", and typically work according to ‘Track Order’ (depending on how you design your maps). I.E. In the Map above you can see I’ve got knobs assigned to PAN on the VST Mixing desk…in that example it’s going to work from left to right across my mixing console…so if I swap the order of a couple of tracks in the Project list, they’ll also swap spaces on the Mixer and ‘trade control assignments’ as well.
With that in mind, if you do a really complicated setup specifically for a given project…export the maps to your project folder so you can recall them again next time you work on that project.
This approach is for cases when 8 VST + 8 Track quick controls are not enough (complex live performance scenarios). There are indeed some things we can not automate on the standard automation lanes. I.E. Arming or Disarming tracks. I.E. Launching an automated Macro or Logic Editor. This method can give access to commands and controls deeper in the DAW and make them ‘automatable’.
As for having a good default Map for your MIDI controller for ‘driving the DAW itself’ in track order…that’s always a good idea in my opinion. Might as well make use of all those Sliders, Knobs, and buttons, and memory preset slots we pay for when buying a MIDI controller.
Uninterupted work flow. Add/delete tracks while looping playback without glitches/stutters.
Event automation on linked events that updates when automation on origional is modified.
A sampler.
Sounds like you have managed to achieve what I never could. In what way can you ‘design your maps’ not to be dependent on the track order?
There’s only a few ways that I’m currently aware of.
The first is to bind directly to a device rather than going through a MIDI or Track Mixer. Not ALL VSTi plugins will provide any options that can be controlled via VST (Such plugins will instead have you use true MIDI CC events…I.E. ARIA Player). In order to get a device to bind to in the first place you should load it up in the Rack before trying to build your map. At that point you can find the device and bind to it (If it offers VST controls).
You can bind a control to ‘selected’ track(s). Give the same control two entries in the same Remote Map one after the other. The first could assign a control to process a project logic editor (or macro if you need more than one to run in sequence) to select a track (or tracks) by name (or whatever criteria you set up in the logic editor). Then the second entry could have the control act on selected track(s). This isn’t practical for every situation, but it’s one way to do it.
A third option still relies on track order, but you could set it up in a way that communicating with the map over different channels, or ranges of MIDI events will bind it to different ‘DAW Mixer Channels’. I.E. If you move the target track from say slot 5 to 9, then changing the channel and virtual port of the track storing ‘automation’ for these controls to channel 9 would then send its events to slot 9.
If you prefer to work directly with XML, you can export one and have a look. A good XML editor really comes in handy for doing mass batch edits to all sorts of ‘things cubase’. If you take a look at one of these Mixer Maps in something like XMLPad, you can see that when binding to one of the “Mixer” devices from inside Cubase, it simply changed the tag in the command assignment list. DAW Channels appear to start with 0 (far left on the Mixing Console…In project list it starts with zero PLUS ‘number of assigned inputs’. I.E. If you just have a mic in the first audio input, that’s going to be DAW Channel 0, and things will pick up in your Project List from 1 onward.
I tested the method of binding directly to plugins instead of going through the dynamically allocated ‘Mixer’ devices…
First I loaded a plugin in the rack.
Sonnivox 88 Ensemble
Then I went into a Remote Map and bound a knob on my MPK2 to plugin’s built in reverb send.
Steinberg Padshop
Next I loaded Steinberg Padshop, and assigned my second knob to the Resonance control in the A side of the synth.
I stacked a couple more plugins (AIR’s Hybrid 3, and Halion 5) and assigned some controls to more knobs in the same way. For good measure I put Hybrid on an Instrument track instead of making it a ‘rack’ instrument to be sure it would work for ‘both’ rack and track loaded plugins.
I tested my controls and they all worked.
I swapped the order of the tracks around, and they all still worked, no matter what order my MIDI tracks or Plugins were arranged in the project window.
In this case, since the map is listening directly to my MPK2, it does not matter if tracks are armed or not. Turning knobs adjusts the proper controls in the relative instrument.
If for some reason I wanted to record and play back these knob movements, again I have options.
The easiest and most straight forward way would be to add a controller lane to the plugin’s track.
Here you see that I just set up a lane for the same resonance control I assigned to Knob 2 on my MPK2 above.
If the W button is active it’ll record whatever I do with Knob 2 on my MPK2 Controller.
If the P button is active it’ll play them back.
Here’s what it would look like if I put it on an instrument track instead of via MIDI with the plugin loaded in the ‘rack’.
I could also opt to record my actual CC48 event to a MIDI track and route the playback through a Virtual Port to a cloned copy of this same map. It’s a round about way to do it, but for some very special cases (like tricking a single control to do several things at once with variations, or automating things that Cubase doesn’t offer a direct VST automation lane…such as arming or disarming tracks, running macros, changing entire track presets, etc.)
Using virtual MIDI ports, you can chain maps to track output if needed. I.E. Make the map listen to a Virtual port, then connect directly to a VSTi. Add more Virtual ports and it’s even possible to daisy chain entire maps (Not sure why anyone would want to do this, but the point is, it’s possible).
For good measure I left this map active, closed out this test project, and loaded up a bunch of older projects that use some of these plugins. The controls were still in the exact same place on my MPK2 for any projects that used any of these 4 plugins. In some cases after loading an old project I found that to get this map working I needed to open my Map and click the reset button to get it started (I doubt this would be necessary had I quit Cubase and relaunched it each time).
Note, some plugins do NOT support VST controls. AKAI’s MPC Essentials and Plogue/Garritan ARIA Player are examples of two plugins that simply don’t have them (at least not in a way Cubase sees them). All I get for those is a DAW trigger to enable and disable the plugin. For these instruments I must use old fashioned CC controllers learned inside the players themselves over MIDI if I want to change filters and stuff in them with my MPK2 controls.
See the little speaker/monitor button. If you activate this ‘monitor’ button…what ever is connected to the track will play if you’ve got MIDI coming into it, but not record.
Unfortunately there is not an automation lane for this button that I know of. This particular button doesn’t have a ‘direct’ way to toggle it from the Remote Maps either, but you CAN access it via Macro through the "Generic Remote’ map. I currently do this to build a 60something rank pipe organ for live performing. MPC pads emulate punching individual stops on and off. Each track is a ‘rank’. Stacked maps make it possible to punch in and out ‘groups’ of tracks with a single control as well.
Also see MIDI Sends in the inspector of each MIDI track (Instrument tracks do not have AUX MIDI sends, but MIDI Tracks do. You CAN point MIDI tracks to a plugin loaded in an ‘instrument’ slot though).
You can echo MIDI input to up to four other devices/plugins at once, with or without MIDI effects applied. You can make it pre or post ‘MIDI Part’. You can also slip a real time MIDI Transformer as the ‘effect’ in the send if you want to filter stuff, or even apply real time variations.
Here is an example of a track that will Play Mystic, while also forwarding any CC74 events on to Padshop.
First I set the track to play to Mystic as usual.
Next I held down ctrl and touched the MIDI Sends tab (Holding ctrl allowed me to open both tabs at once, without holding ctrl all of the other tabs collapse).
I Pointed the send’s output to Padshop, and put in the transformer logic shown in the screenshot. That bit of logic causes everything but CC74 to be filtered out…so only CC74 gets passed on to Padshop.
I imagine most EDM producers are missing good music in Cubase!
One can build a Macro to do this. Did you want to save it to disk, or just stash it in memory of the same project the Curve comes from?
I’ll sit down and think out a few methods. What I have in mind is:
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Select the track with the curve you wish to save.
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Chose the range tool and select the range of an automation lane you wish to save.
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Call up a macro that copies just the range of events selected, pastes it to a new ‘temporary’ track (or to an area in the project otherwise stashed out of the way) then throws up a dialog where you type in the name and location you want the curve saved to disk. It’ll be saved as a track.xml that can be imported back into any project (also via macros) and inserted starting at the cursor location.
Alternatively, instead of saving such curves to ‘disk’ they can be stashed away on tracks sorted to a special folder in the project itself, or out of the way in ‘negative bar’ territory on the same track it came from. We could build Macros for BOTH I think.
If you want to save the entire automation lane that’s even easier than just taking a selected range…
To pull this saved curve back into a project we’ll build a Macro that
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opens a dialog to select the backup track file (or the track if we just stashed in memory somewhere in this same project).
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Pastes the curve on the selected track starting at cursor position.
I’ll have to sit down and work it out, but I’m at least 95% confident that such a thing can be implemented in a variety of ways.
So many people don’t seem to understand that we ‘the users’ can ‘build’ some very powerful functions and features for Cubase on our own.
Thanks Brian, but unfortunately these methods of circumventing the ‘track order’ problems are only valid in specific cases when a project is limited to templates which are mapped to plugins supporting VST controls only. Throw in a couple of Generic Remotes which use the Cubase mixer and/or FX/Group channel sends etc and your still going to face the same issues.
Most VST’s these days don’t really need a generic remote since they usually already have a way to map controllers. I find the most useful way to use the Generic Remote maps are for Cubase mixer and project functions - sends, returns, solo, mutes… As I understand it these will always be dependent upon the track order.
I almost see EDM as everything which is not 100% Acoustic and it needs tools different then Acoustic Instruments. Music is music. And what i like and do is music 
Again, I’m not arguing against an obvious way to link controls without going down the project and clicking W and R buttons, nor am I arguing against WAY more quick links and a quick and easy way to take ‘snap shots’ of how they’re all set relative to one another in an easy to use list. Just tossing up food for thought on things that can be done, with what we currently have. Quite a few things I’ve seen in this thread Cubase CAN do. It’s just not always obvious as to ‘how’.
I don’t totally agree. I’m not having problems automating ARIA, which has zero VST controls along side the Sonnivox, and Steinberg VSTi plugins I have that do. I’m currently not aware any VST effect plugins that don’t accept VST controls…if they exist then I’d assume they throw up a MIDI input of some sort to accept MIDI events to control them, otherwise remote control for such a plugin would be impossible from inside ANY DAW.
For a VST effect assigned to a Track insert this ‘mixer order’ rule for Generic Maps is true; however, any automations you recorded still moves about with instrument tracks, or stays parked on the same lane for rack instruments, so I’m not seeing the problem. Now you’d just use a different knob to automate this same control remotely, and it’d be in line across the Mixing Console where one would expect it to be. If the new location on the keyboard isn’t convenient after moving the track anymore, simply open the Map and change it, or adjust the control on the controller itself to a spot where it’s handy. At the end of the day, whatever control is used to make the automation lane…the VST automation lane remains the same.
I think the key in why I’m having relatively few problems linking pretty much anything I want any time I want lay in how the initial Generic Map for my MPK2 is designed. I.E. If you keep a uniform schema and duplicate it many times for each ‘midi channel’, while keeping ‘DAW/Mixer Remote’ stuff isolated to one port, and individual ‘VSTi’ stuff isolated to another, it’s not hard at all to make adjustments as templates change size and shape. Shifting tracks around in order doesn’t really effect me much. For things like individual VST effect controls like my favorite EQs, Verbs, Chourses, etc, it’s usually just a matter of swapping presets on my MPK2 and possibly changing its ‘common’ channel to hit the right ‘track’.
Where the loopMIDI stuff through an extra General Remote map really comes in handy for insert Effects, is that I can use a MIDI track to fire off ‘complete track preset changes’ on the fly (even for instruments that only have an A and B…I could cycle through the A and B, then fire off a complete preset change for the entire effect chain on that track).
When the 16 Quick Links (8 directly to VST, and another 8 that can do track, or track to VST operations) are not enough…
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For VSTi plugins one can bind a control directly to VSTi instances as needed. Track order will not matter. Or, they can bind through mixer positions. It’s still useful and easily assignable/removable as needed.
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One can still pull up the Generic Map and have a knob do more than one thing at once by either assigning more than one command to the same event, or stacking maps. Once it’s recorded to track automation lane(s) the track can be moved around in the project and it won’t change its playback.
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One can still use Virtual Ports to route track output ‘through’ a Generic Remote Map for various sorts of real time ‘processing’. Again, it’s really only necessary/practical IF you are trying to automate things in Cubase that do NOT have a way to control them directly from a automation lane. I.E. Triggering a macro, changing a track preset on the fly, or toggling things like the track record on and off from within the project itself.
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AUX MIDI Sends can be used to isolate, modulate, and echo events directly to multiple plugins from the same track.
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Adding the ability to loopback MIDI (Virtual Ports) opens up quite a number of new possibilities for people who don’t have things like Bidule, VEP, etc…they can route things back through tracks for extra transformations in a pinch. It’d be nice if Cubase had such virtual ports built in…meanwhile Mac users can set them up manually in their OS, and PC users can use something like loopMIDI.
any workaround for non VST3 easily side chain? because i miss a lot of full potencial from many plugins which are able to Side chain but are not VST3, using Quadro way is just over complicated for something i see easily implemented in many other DAWs! are you happy with Quadro? the unique advantage i can see in the user perspective in VST3 is the abilility to sidechain in Cubase, why them if in other Daws VST2.4 serve this purpose?
I’m an EM / Electronic Musician and all my production include vocals therefore I try to complete a song as fast as possible without wasting time.
More Urban, Electronic and Dance patterns in beat designer or groove agent would be nice. A keyboard Sampler and a Vocoder would also be great. Maybe in Cubase 9. Other than that Cubase is great for songwriting and producing professionally. Also what’s great is if you use CMC and a midi controller with Cubase
they’re plug and play. No extra programming required.
If you’re not already doing so, use track and effect chain presets to reduce some of the set-up complication. At least you don’t have to keep doing all the rigging manually every time you want to call up a side-chained VST2 plugin setup that you’re going to use often. If it’s a template you like to call up often and need quickly, bind it to some macros and/or key commands.
Yes… more patterns in Beat Designer please!
i wish i had only that wish!
- Enhancements to the Automation editor!
- Ability to ‘side-chain’ anything. (Not just specific compressors.)
- Ability to generate automation data via LFO signals. (Redundant if we have #2)
- Make automation data part of the EVENT, not global to the track. (So as to be able to move them in sync.)
- Ability to keep a pool of user created MIDI Loops (with CC data), similar to dragging clips from the MediaBay.
The automation ‘curve’ editor is in need of the most improvement, to me.
I use automation for all kinds of things, like filter parameters, etc.
It is very cumbersome and slow to edit each value by hand with the pencil or line tools.
So what I think we need the most is
Bezier curves for automation data!
That alone would be a huge help and time saver.
But, if we have the rest of the below options, this becomes less important, since they would make it so you don’t need to manually edit things as often.
Second, I really want to be able to ‘sidechain’ any parameter form anything…
I know that sounds crazy, but it would only require 2 simple things.
The ability to turn an audio signal into MIDI CC data, and the ability to take that CC data and send it to a virtual MIDI device (which could then be routed to a generic controller, etc). That’s it!
Then anything that can be automated by MIDI can be controlled by an audio signal!
Just as a how compressors gain can be reduced by a audio signal, a filter cutoff could be modulated as well!
That might sound weird, but consider it would let you get that pumping sidechain effect being applied to a resonant filter. Or as a way of shaping a sound by filtering the attack but not the sustain, etc.
Third would be the ability to create automation values (or just MIDI CC) by an LFO generator.
This would let you, for example, make one of those classic dubstep style ‘wub’ effects with much more precision than you could ever get by hand. (Without it taking forever.)
Of course, if we had the ability to turn audio signals into CC, we could just use a real LFO wave to do this.
Fourth, I hate spending time recording automation data, only to have to mess with it again any time I move an event. The automation data currently just stays where it’s at, instead of moving along with the event. That means I have to re-sync them. I wish the automation data just moved along with the event. (Not sure how it would handle spots where there is automation data but no event, but I’m sure there’s a way.)
Lastly, as another time saver, I would like to be able to keep snippets of MIDI events, including their CC data.
This would also accomplish the ability to “save automation curves” mentioned by a few others.
The goal here being that we want to be able to re-use content without re-doing it every time. (Or loosing it in our vast array of projects…)
So, there could be a MIDI Event browser, just like how the media bay works. Only we could, say, ALT + click to drag the event into the media bay. (Or a even a new, special window for such a purpose.)
Even just being able to ALT + Click to copy automation data would be huge, for that matter. More reason to make the curves part of the event.
I have seen each of these features implemented in other DAWS. (With the exception of audio level to CC value, though this should be possible in Reaktor, provided you have some way to do MIDI loopback.)
Those are my suggestions, at least the ones related to EDM. I honestly think they are achievable, and they would be awesome.