Generic Remote Improvements

Cubase
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1

We all know that Generic Remote, whilst powerful in some ways, is also highly limited in one really big way:-

Referncing individual channels with anything other than ‘selected channel’ is next to useless for different templates / projects, as the channel will be different, hence so will plugin assignment

There’s two enhancements that could be made to Cubase that I think could really improve this (and potentially other areas)

  1. Introduce the concept of unique Identifiers (GUID / UIID) to channels, as opposed to using numeric id / index position
  2. Provide the ability to save / associate the whole remote to a specific project, rather than being global

Here is a use case I find especially frustrating that this would be able to solve:-

  • I have a template with 7 FX groups routed to a master FX group (these are accessed as a bank of 8 with MCU and channel visibility)
  • I have a generic remote that IDEALLY would be set up to control each FX plugin on insert 1 (currently i’m using FaderFox PC4 for this)

This works fine, as long as EITHER a) use ‘selected channel’ for the desired plugin, OR b) have my template pre-loaded with fixed insert plugins that match the GR

Neither of these solutions are ideal - I don’t want to have to select the FX channel to edit it, when I can select banks 1-7 on my Faderfox and essentialy flip between all fx inserts from the hardware; on the flipside, fixed inserts is next to useless, different songs need different fx, obviously.

Where the enhancements would help in this case, are as follows:-

Assuming 2 above was implemented, and we could save our Generic Remote for a specific project and editing it’s banks would be localised to that project, then having GUIDS on channels then protects the project from adding new tracks and moving things around (which always happens).
I could (and should) be able to assign insert 1 FX1-7, and have the GR know that it’s still the same channel regardless of what else changes, and GUIDs would make this possible.

Currently though, insert an audio track earlier in the project, and the GR assignment is broken
Changing the GR bank assignments, currently affects ALL projetcs (e.g. mine is FX1-7 for FIX GR), and i might want to make bank 6 an Valhalla Ubermod GR layout for a specific project because i’m using that on FX6. If I make that change, then all other projects have the same change.

For me at least tackling these 2 issues would VASTLY improve the main issues I face with Generic Remote.

More minor annoyances that it would address would be where you ‘accidentally’ change the wrong plugin because either you haven’t ‘selected channel’ or haven’t noticed that after inserting a new track somewhere your GR assignment is screwed up.

1 Like
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And one big one I forgot:

Let us name the Generic Remote mmkay?

Generic Remote 5,6 & 7 really aren’t very meaningful precious, no

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+1

I gave up since a long time using the Generic Remote defintions for everything related to named channel strips. I use it only with the Selected option in the ‘Channel/category’ column, because of this. It’s a misconception that we live with since countless years. I checked lately when I started to use the Generic remote : I thought at first that it was since Cubase 6 but actually, I retrieved the first .xlm defintion files that I saved - they are dated of 2008…).

It has never been fixed or reconsidered, despite the obvious pitfalls that appear immediatly when trying to use it with named channels. This, with the regular posts concerning the generic remote definitions done through all these years…

Concerning also the Generic Remote definitions, allow me to add my own : a true working recognition of the incoming NRPN messages (see here, for more details).

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+1 on this :slight_smile:

NRPN does not work at all. Encoder support is primitive and useless, as it offers only two options (absolute and relative). The relative setting can only work on some encoders. We need more options on this. In fact it shows that Cubase has no full MIDI implementation and because of this, we can not add our own hardware to a studio setup. Not to mention the very poor documentation or manual regarding these problems.

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It does not need to be improved. it need to be replaced with something else, a totally fresh retake. The only hope is that the code is so bad that they need to do that for MIDI2.0. I expect midi 2.0 will be one new key feature for Cubase11.

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The Generic Remote is the only option for users to add own hardware controllers. Improved, replaced, rewritten i do not care for the terms of this useless attempt they call Generic Remote. It is fundamental to a DAW to provide the right solutions for hardware. I sit on many controllers, that i simply can not use easily. I need to be a kind of a developer, for the most simple things. This Forum will know soon, how annoying that will be to upset customers.

I will spread the word everywhere i can and in every forum i know of. That Cubase has no full MIDI implentation and that you only can use hardware that is greedy expensive for a year or two, until they deside to support “newer” more greed and expenisve controllers, because your “old” hardware will not be supported anymore.

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I don’t think even midi should be part of a generic remote control. MIDI has to much limitation for a good generic interface, for sure there need to be a MIDI layer, but it should be one instance using the generic interface.