Help please!Can't get MIDI track voice to change in playback

Steinberg Lounge
1

Hi All -

Posted on the Motif forum too, but casting a wide net on this one, hoping anyone can help please, after HOURS of no luck …! …

I’m trying to get a MIDI track to change voices during playback - trumpet for first part, cruchoid guitar for 2nd. This is after deciding after years of putting the different voices on different tracks that I’d like to do it the way it was intended …

I’ve got Cubase SX3 and Motif Classic.

I’ve created 3 automation lanes in my Cubase MIDI track #2:

  • CC0 (Bank select MSB)
  • CC32 (Bank select LSB)
  • CC33 (Modulation LSB)

In the MIDI track Inspector: “In” = Yamaha USB In 0-1, “Out” = Motif Device, “Channel” is set to 2 (this is Track 2), “Program” leading into the section of interest is set to Trumpet. Just so you know, I’ve got a working patch script set up, can choose any Motif voice and have it play back well from Cubase. Track 1 is a piano part, and I have the Motif set to “Song” mode.

So, I entered “Write” mode in the three automation lanes (CC0, CC32, CC33), and after referencing the Motif’s Voice List, I wrote some changes at the appropriate time in the track: values 63-1-36 (the MSB-LSB-Voice Number values for trumpet) to 63-0-105 (for crunchoid). As I play the track in “Read” mode, the values for these parameters in their respective automation lanes change as expected/written (this part alone took me hours to figure out).

The problem is that during playback, the voice does not change. Troubleshooting, I don’t have any MIDI filters on in Cubase, and in the Motif it is set to receive and transmit control changes (“Utility” in “song mode” F3-SF2 show control changes are both checked for in and out).

Can anyone tell where I’m going wrong? I wonder if it IS somewhere in the Motif - when I toggle “Notes” on and off during playback in that same Utility F3-SF2 window, the notes keep playing - that seems weird to me, which makes me think I’m probably missing a key concept or three.

Alternatively - am I somehow “overriding” the CC changes in the Cubase automation track by having a “trumpet” listed in the MIDI track Inspector?

Or is using automation lanes the entire wrong way to do this?

BTW - the automation lanes are working in general when I stay within Cubase - Mute/Pan/etc. all work as expected.

Sorry this is so technical-sounding - I’m really kind of grasping here …

Thanks in advance for any help -

2

I’m not directly familiar with the Motif but since you say it is set up to both transmit and receive control change parameters here’s what I’d try…

Take the MIDI track you have for it (the MIDI notes…not the automation tracks). Copy that to a new track that you’ll use for testing.

Set the new track in record mode but set the record function to “Mix” (Not sure what version of cubase you’re running…i have 4.52. In 4.52 this is set in the transport bar…there are options to record MIDI and Mix it with the existing track or replace etc…).

Play the track and at the place where you want the voice to change, just key in the change manually on the Motif itself. Play it back and see if the Motif changes voices this way. If it does then take a peek at the track and see how it recorded the cc data.

Personally, i generally dont have a need to do voice changes, via MIDI, in mid song so I’ve not had much recent experience with this but, many years ago, thats the way I would record patch changes in a MIDI track.

All the best,

karl

3

Thank you, karl - that is an excellent troubleshooting technique, wish I’d thought of that myself (“doh!”).

In the meantime, for benefit of anyone else later who might have the same problem: someone (“Bad Mister” - godlike status dude!) in the Motif forum pointed out a way to do this from the “List Editor”, and that works like a charm. As far as I can tell, “Program Change” is not an automatable parameter, so it has to be done another way … as in editing the “List Editor”.

Thanks again -