Stumbling through the Cubase learning mountain… trying to figure out a few things around recording MIDI CC events. My assumption is when I hit record for an instrument track that it will record notes and all other CC events, including expression and a couple other faders I have mapped for dynamics and vibrato for the BBC orchestra Spitfire plugin.
Nope.
I found out the hard way that I have to enable “Automation Write” for these events to be captured during my recording.
What gives? Is there a setting that controls this behavior? I searched all over the documentation and couldn’t find anything. (That is some very short documentation, BTW… not impressed)…
I’d link to the docs, but that’s boring.
Is this a bug perhaps? A “feature”? It would reason that for an instrument track that if you are recording that you might want to record all the events coming off the controller. Duh.
Please help! I’m sure I’ll forget to do this in the future, or… even have the track selected and accidentally have Automation Record left enabled, which could have terrifying consequences if it’s not caught in time.
All I would expect is that for any track that record is enabled on that it records all MIDI data for the track. Having to arm/disarm automation write is lame. I’ve been going deep into the trenches of Cubase history. It seems almost like the codebase is so big and brittle that some of the fundamental working behaviors (like this one) will likely never change, even if it’s completely counter-intuitive.
And regarding the manual, yeah… it may be huge, but it’s terse in many areas. It would be nice if there was more elaboration on some sections. I basically have the thing open constantly, and do find it useful, but it’s lacking in certain areas. Honestly, I’m probably just used to the behavior of other major DAW’s that seem to get some of this stuff right.
For a 15+ year old product I’m surprised that quirks like this aren’t documented. I dare you to find a paragraph that explains: “When recording MIDI, make sure you enable automation WRITE in addition to track RECORD, otherwise your MIDI data might not all get recorded.” Why is that too much to ask?
I even had to pay $27 for a licensing dongle (dumb for modern software), and Cakewalk is now free. Geeesh. I’m really, seriously trying to warm up to this animal. I still have hope.
That’s how it works here.
Are you using expression maps?
Have you changed settings in MIDI Controller Automation Setup?
Have you checked if you can reproduce this with prefs disabled in safe mode?
Thanks for the tips! One thing I discovered recently is that there is that “Automation Mode” with ‘touch’, latching, etc… I’m going to have to try it out again and see if I’m still seeing the issue. I’m discovered the preferences are scattered all over the place, so I’ll double-check those as well.
I’m probably just holding it wrong. I’ll follow-up with the results.
The expression wheel (modulation wheel?) is CC data. Cubase has options about whether to write CC data as MIDI or as automation data (which would probably require automation write to be enabled). I may be a little off here as I don’t use it much but perhaps look into that.
