Hi all!
I’m finally setting up my external synths as External Instruments in Cubase (v11) and can’t figure out how to get multiple channels from one synth. When adding a new Instrument track it’s only for one midi channel, adding the same Ext. Instrument again is not possible and adding a separate Midi channel does not add the Ext. Instrument thus only gives midi controls, not audio, like inserts and sends. Any pointers on how to achive this? I shouldn’t need to setup a separate extermal instrument for each midi channel?!
I.e. having a Roland D-110, it’s multi timbral and able to play different sounds on separate midi channels, but in Cubase it’s only possible to connect one External Instrument with one Midi channel at one time. But I can reach the other sounds midi channels by creating separate midi tracks, but then missing out on the audio inserts and sends. The dry signal from the separate channels goes directly to the Stereo Out bus, except the first one connected to the Ext. Instrument track.
Hey there. Sounds like a good time.
Can you please send a screenshot?
Midi will default to the next channel. Eg. in halion sonic the first instrument is assigned to midi 1. Every one loaded after goes to 2, 3, 4 respectively.
If you change all midi inputs to number one or the respective port you want it should work. Let me know how you go
I think see what you mean.
You want the midi to route to a track for direct processing in multiple instances?
How many midi ports from the physical unit are you using?
Assuming you’ve tried using instrument tracks and then setting the input to the hardware?
Really need a screenshot to see what the routing you have looks like.
One port on the external instrument, 16 MIDI tracks, channel 1 to 16.
The instrument has to be set multi-timbral mode, on my Roland devices it is called “pattern mode”. It should now be able to play all 16 tracks simultaneously, some devices will only play drumkits on channel 10. I’m not at a Cubase instance at the moment.
Awesome. That helps a lot. When I get into the studio in the next couple days I’ll test some outboard gear with cubase which I haven’t done yet.
Hopefully someone can get to some hardware before me. @Martin.Jirsak do you have any hardware at hands reach? @nickas you mentioned some hardware…super 6?
External instruments depends on how many inputs your audio interface has , you can setup an Ext inst via the studio I/o section but only if you have the in’s , then you can setup i external instrument per midi channel and input . (16 midi’s and Audio ext inst tracks )
If the Super Six has USB multitimbral then you need to switch the Asio driver over to the Super 6 audio driver to give Cubase all the 16 inputs available , if it hasn’t then it is just down to your Audio interface
If you are on windows , you can only choose between Asio’s not use at the same time .
If you are on Mac you can do something i can’t remember what it’s called i pay no attention to Mac lol
I think I have to go with this setup; 1 Ext.Instr. track and the rest as midi tracks, as they all route to the first tracks audio outs. I cannot put audio inserts and sends on each of the separate midi channel sound sources. All tracks have to be bounced later to add inserts/sends.
I know it’s a pain but the only real way for multitimbral is as you are doing it , Stereo input audio channel and then 16 midi tracks , the limitation is basically the audio inputs .
Yes, your first image is how I have mine setup, and if I want to monitor Inserts/Sends for one of those sounds, I route the sound to output/s 3, or 3&4 of the synthesiser, and make the connections to the relevant Audio Interfaces inputs, then set up these inputs in Cubase, create an Audio Track, select the correct Input/s for input source and enable the Monitor function on the track.
If you have any spare inputs, you could (if you wanted to) route a couple of Mono or a Stereo source from your D-110 to the Audio Interface and do the same as mentioned above.
To me it sounds like you expect to be able to put plugins on indivdiual sounds from your synth, which are assigned to seperate midi channels.
Please understand that this is a limitation, if you want to call that way, of your D-110 synthesizer. It mixes all sounds together and passes the mixed audio signal to your Saffire interface and then to Cubase. Cubase can then only assign plugins to the mixed audio.
If your synth had multiple audio outputs you could assign different sounds to different audio outputs in your synth. Midi channels don’t play any role in this.
If my above assumption is correct there is no way to have different Cubase plugins on individual sounds of your synth live.
What you can do is go with the Instrument/MIDI track setup that you already have. Then record one track after another solo, ie. for 8 tracks you would have to do 8 recordings one after another.
For a short moment I had an idea of getting this to work, but of course i can’t split the incoming audio into separate audio tracks for each midi track. It has to be done as you say; record each sound separately and apply fx after. This is how I have always done it before, through the years.
