I’ve seen others use the Elgato Stream Deck for DAWs, and am thinking about picking an XL one up this Black Friday sale. Does anyone have experiences with it for Cubase, or suggestions for other similar options for use with Cubase? My use case would be mapping a bunch of shortcuts to it, like bounce selection, render in place, and just whatever.
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I have developed Stream Deck plugins for Cubase and generic Midi with close to 30.000 users, and there are companies that sell pretty advanced profiles using these plugins.
Check out my Youtube channel for more info on the plugins, e.g., the Cubase plugin introduction to get a quick view of what you can do with it.
More complex things (e.g., controlling faders) can be done with the generic Midi plugin.
(btw I have an XL and have ordered two more XLs on the Black Friday sale 
)
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I use Metagrid on an old iPad for this purpose. If it can be mapped to a keystroke/macro or PLE it can be run from Metagrid (along with all the default Cubase commands).
The fact that this $30 App runs from a really old iPad (which won’t run much else!) makes it a great deal if you have an old iPad (or can pick one up cheap).
Wow! I was hoping for a confirmation that “yep, this works OK”, and here I get ready-made plugins I can get going with for free. Stellar effort. Thank you!
I use my Arturia KeyLab for faders, so that’s no problem. I just want a configurable shortcut thingy with pictures.
If that is all you want is KC’s , the yes Stream Deck should work.
Metagrid has a bit more advantages and is much more user configurable. For example, you can configure the size of the buttons on any given page. It can chain KC’s, PLE’s, and LE’s just like a Macro in Cubase, except it adds user defined pauses if necessary. If you are a composer with hundreds of tracks, you can locate tracks easily.
The drawback is it’s iOS only, however as Planarchist said, you can run Metagrid on very old iPad versions. I believe it still works on 4th generation.
in addition to working well, I have to congratulate Elgato for their seriousness. my stream deck was faulty, they replaced it for me, and they sent me the mark at their expense for the shipment. I didn’t even spend the money on shipping. they were really serious and precious.
Hi,
The HW has the advantage, you don’t have to look at it. After some time, you just learn by the haptic memory, where the button is. With any SW solution (Metagrid or other solution), you always have to have a look on it. What means to switch the focus from your screen/work to other task.
I like Metagrid for its flexibility, but the disadvantage of the SW solution and focus switch is there.
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I won’t be purchasing an iPad or any similar general purpose device, but thanks for the feedback, everyone.
Currently running it on an old 3rd Gen model! I’m not sure if the latest version of the App would run on it but whatever I have does! Not sure I’d be using Metagrid if I couldn’t use this old iPad…kind of makes it a no question type of affair…but it has been an absolute game changer.