Expression Maps Prevent Manual Keyswitching

Cubase
1

I’m having loads of problems with Expression Maps. They seemed so promising on paper, but have proven to be a half-baked feature at best, designed for Score editor interpretation and not with modern sampled instruments in mind, instruments that allow for multiple simultaneous keyswitch “chords”, etc.

Today’s problem: Keyswitches activated by an Expression Map remain locked ON. I can see that on the Kontakt keyboard UI on the instrument they are triggering. No subsequent key I press in the keyswitch zone has any effect until I remove the Expression Map from that Cubase MIDI track. I have a MIDI monitor setup on Kontakt, and no manual key presses are coming through when an Expression Map is in place, even when the transport is stopped. Because the keyswitch from an Expression Map never sends a “note off” to that keyswitch, it appears to be interfering with the scripting on the OT CAPSULE instruments.

Anyone know of a way to send the keyswitches a “note off”? Berlin Strings doesn’t seem to respond to a cc123 Note Off (although it shows up in the Kontakt MIDI monitor). Or some other workaround?

Steinberg needs to redesign Expression Maps from the ground up. Maybe Dorico will be a game changer for this in some unforeseen way.

2

There is a checkbox at the bottom-left of the Expression Map Editor window, “Latch”.
(Btw, I agree with all your comments about the limitations, when more than one simultaneous remote key is required.
It is possible to send multiple keyswitches from a single remote key, but you need a separate remote key for each possible combination… not very usable in practice :wink:.