Please note that this problem has nothing to do with Direct Music. It is caused by a faulty implementation, really a rookie mistake. Enabling and disabling Direct Music just causes Cubase to stop using the MIDI remote script for some reason. Very disappointing that AKAI and Steinberg let customers take care of this.
The root cause is that the MPK249 Cubase preset “10 Cubase” uses the same MIDI message for the button S1 (Control Bank A) as the MIDI standard specifies for the sustain pedal: 0xB0 0x40 0x7F.
The following image illustrates the problem.
First two rows: pressing S1 two times with preset “10 Cubase”
Middle two rows: pressing and releasing the sustain pedal
Last two rows: pressing S1 two times with preset “7 Reason”
The code in the window behind is part of the MIDI remote implementation.
The following works for me.
On the MPK249, go to edit mode and change the CC number for switch 1-16 from 64 to 32, and the CC number for switch 17-24 from 65 to 33.
On the PC, replace 0x40 with 0x20 and 0x41 with 0x21 in the script akai_mpk249.js.
In my case, the file was located in “C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 12\midiremote_factory_scripts\Public\akai\mpk249”
and
in the “script folder” C:\Users\sunnegardh\Documents\Steinberg\Cubase\MIDI Remote\Driver Scripts\Public\akai\mpk249. The script in the “script folder” kept getting overwritten, so I changed both files.