[FIXED] Been setting up Generic Remote for hours, did a reboot, and everything disappeared!!

I agree that Generic Remote should be completely scrapped/re-worked with something that is much easier to use. I have spent so much time,frustrated, trying to make controllers work with Cubase and then going to a DAW like Ableton,where it all just --works—.Generic Remote does work,but :angry: UGH.

Just got caught up in this again and wasted a whole evening trying to duplicate my old remote settings from 9.5.
Worth mentioning in this thread for any others who are brought here that for the imported xml file to work, you have to give each control a unique name. Cubase doesn’t do this for you and if you don’t do it, only one control will be loaded!
How difficult can it be for Steinberg to fix this?

Oh, emg456… is this a new bug in Cubase 10 ?

The bastard feature is a killer - I think it has been implemented by 12 years old junior-programmers a decade ago. No other valid explanation (I think it must have been the same group of devvelopers that implemented the midi device editor).

cheers, ernst

Oh, yea… The fabulous Generic Remote :smiley: I feel your pain… the same exact thing happened to me, when I was setting up my TouchOSC app.

One of the Cubase’s “haha, fooled you” moments:

Again, have you guys at least tried, to do as I suggested? Make your GR changes, EXPORT it, now IMPORT the file you just exported even if you already made it and its there, NOW apply and save. Try with just a few new GR settings, and see if your GR are remebered by cubase on next reboot.

Edit typo

Indeed, and in the ‘so many more’, I’ll add the incapicity of GR to recognize properly NRPN messages and this, since forever, I think. I made a topic about it - if I remember well, it was in the old forum, which means at least 9 years ago…

Case study : I want to use an endless knob of my MPD32 controller to nudge right or left the cursor position in Cubase. NRPN messages allow this, normally, as they can have both increment or decrement values.

  • The first problem is that there is no command which allows the cursor position to be nudged in both direction : we have either Nudge Cursor Left or Nudge Cursor Right. From which, we have to define two controllers for the knob (one for nudging left an the other for nudging right), which is completely contradictory to the way NRPN messages are working.
  • As I am stubborn, I go through it, defining these in the GR (52 being the address used in the endless knob definition set in the MPD32, this one transmitting NRPN as 5 messages which are strictly compliant with the MIDI standard, with CC96 as increment / CC97 as decrement, and recognized as so with Cubase MIDI monitor) :
Upper pane : 
K01A          Ctrl-NRPN          1          52          1
K01B          Ctrl-NRPN          1          52          1
Lower pane : 
K01A          Command          Transport          Nudge Cursor Left
K01B          Command          Transport          Nudge Cursor Right

It doesn’t work, so I change the 52 value with 96 for the first, 97 for the second to get this :

Upper pane : 
K01A          Ctrl-NRPN          1          96          1
K01B          Ctrl-NRPN          1          97          1
Lower pane : 
K01A          Command          Transport          Nudge Cursor Left
K01B          Command          Transport          Nudge Cursor Right

It doesn’t work either. So, I try to tick the Learn function. At the moment I touch the knob, the Ctrl-NPRN vanish, I get this as the first line of the upper pane, and the knob increases the cursor position to the right, no matter in which direction I turn it :

K01A          Controller          1          98          1

98 is the second CC component of a NRPN message, supposed to give at the receiver the defined address of the control message (52, in this case, see above) : it doesn’t vary in an incremental or decremental way. IOW the whole NRPN message recognition by GR is broken. The only way to make the whole thing work is to define these, as a workaround (without the Learn function, of course) :

Upper pane : 
K01A          Controller          1          96          1
K01B          Controller          1          97          1
Lower pane : 
K01A          Command          Transport          Nudge Cursor Left
K01B          Command          Transport          Nudge Cursor Right

…and there is an added issue : as the controller address in not recognized by the GR, I have to define each of my available endless knobs (theoretically, I have 3 banks of 8 ones) with different MIDI channels. As there are only 16 channels available, I gave up since a long time trying to use the last bank… Consequently, I need to have this in the upper pane, just for my first bank (each controller defined with two lines and having a different MIDI channel) :

K01A          Controller          1          96          1
K01B          Controller          1          97          1
K02A          Controller          2          96          1
K02B          Controller          2          97          1
K03A          Controller          3          96          1
K03B          Controller          3          97          1
K04A          Controller          4          96          1
K04B          Controller          4          97          1
K05A          Controller          5          96          1
K05B          Controller          5          97          1
K06A          Controller          6          96          1
K06B          Controller          6          97          1
K07A          Controller          7          96          1
K07B          Controller          7          97          1
K08A          Controller          8          96          1
K08B          Controller          8          97          1

At the end, I am still wondering in which case the Ctrl-NRPN setting is supposed to work… :confused:

If there’s anyone that knows, it’s probably Hans Zimmer’s studio tech Mark

Hi,

As I mentioned, import is not necessary.

  • Make the Generic Remote.
  • Apply.
  • Export.

Done.

It’s forgetting to do that, while you’re trying your controller mappings out is the issue people have i imagine - i.e. i can be switching in and out of the GR editor as i setup a controller - and then something happens/do something else and you forget to export and apply before you close Cubase.

So even though i know what needs to be done, it STILL trips me up - it’s an awful longterm bug that is inexcusable really. As i said before - it’s directly responsible for Cubase users collectively losing thousands of hours of work.

Yeah. Even after all this time I run into that, no fun. Makes me gun shy to use it. (the gun is just the GR, don’t worry :wink: )

If you have a crash on exit, cubase does not remember that you added a remote, or any other changes you made to the global setup.
So add a remote, export it, quit cubase should do the job.
If not, you have a crash on exit, or you have duplicate names in your remote file. All remote names need to be unique. Otherwise cubase will reject the gr file every time

I had a Mackie Control Pro, sometimes it was lost. I had to insert it again and again.
Even the CC121 Steinberg Controller sometimes is lost.
Ok those are easyer to insert again…
But still it is funny lost sometimes…

No - I now remember it from before!! Problem with these things is you tend to do it once and then not touch it for a year or two till (usually after upgrade) it doesn’t work anymore. By that time you’ve forgotten all the issues.

Yes but the point I made stands - Cubase does not uniquely name each control as you add it in- unless you do this yourself only one line will be remembered after export/ import.

Hi,

This has been addressed in Cubase 10.5. You don’t have to click to Export to save the settings anymore. Hallelujah!

:exclamation: :exclamation: :exclamation: :exclamation: YES! :mrgreen:

Oh wow! lol - They DO read what we say. Wish there was a full list of fixes somewhere lol.

i just made it: Must “Apply” before you export. (can make sure button is not grayed out, by adding 1 more CC)

…->add your CCs press “apply” then export → import again right away and then press “apply” again. → anytime the file is imported to a new GenericContr, it’s all back…press apply.

Seriously, I have 5 generic remotes here, I never have to import after export. I just export them after editing. Then after reboot they get loaded again. Creates a backup of what you did I use version numbers and a log file to remeber what I changed.

This will give you only the latest version of course.
Also if cubase hangs before quiting this will not work.

And YES, every controller needs an unique name in the top row. Once you know that, is it still a problem? I’ve been there myself. The manual is not very clear on this, but two lines could help a lot of people:
Beware:

  1. you needed to export your generic remote file or it will get lost or changed on next edit (so actualy “save” it to a location on disk, just like a regular project)
  2. All your controllers in the top row need to have an unique name (most left field) or your generic remote file (.xml file) will become unreadable.

Hi,

This is not the case in Cubase 10.5 anymore. It works even without the export. This has been fixed.

not so fast Martin, I just edited my post:))