I found an easier way to do expression maps, what's the downside?

Cubase
1

Hello, I discovered that you can change the midi channel with the articulations inside the expression maps.
So I set a few of my tracks this way. It’s s much easier to load 4 single articulation patches inside the same kontakt, then do an expression maps with 4 “empty articulation”, meaning they doesn’t send any midi message except the midi channel instruction. It’s so much faster to setup

Is there any downside doing this?

2

Hi,

You could also set the track’s MIDI Channel to Any and set the MIDI Channel of every single track individually. Then you can set the editor to show the colours by the MIDI Channel, do you would have an overview.

From my point of view the down-sides are:

  • You are limited by 16 MIDI Channel only. Todays maps have much more articulations.
  • You have to build your map manually. Lots of todays libraries already have the expression map file available.
3

Okay Okay !
first downside not an issue for me, as I split the Legatos, the Long and the shorts. So I rarely have more than 16 legatos or 16 shorts articulations

I dislike working with midi channels

I think I really like this workflow.

Maybe someday we can set different delay compensation inside the expression map, and therefore I could group legatos, long and short inside the same master kontakt, but as you said, only 16 articulations will be allowed then in the expression… but that’s a story of another day

Thanks

4

Hi,

I have nothing against it at all. If it works for you, it’s great!:+1:

1 Like
5

Hey Martin, speaking about midi channels based expression maps, I noticed than moving my cc1 and cc11 fader on my hardware controller only affected the currently selected midi channel kontakt patch (corresponding to the selected articulation in the expression map).

Is there a way to force cc1 and cc11 messages to be sent as “omni” ? I didn’t know the expression map also re-routed the cc messages by articulation when a different midi channel is set for this articulation. I guess it’s my misunderstanding of midi (CCs do not travel without notes)

6

The message itself must contain a channel number. There is no omni setting in this regard. This is defined by MIDI, not by Cubase.

A CC#1 message looks like this (example):
B2 01 7F

B2 => I am a CC message for channel number 3
01 => the CC number is 01 (mod wheel)
7F => my value is 127

To send such an event to all 16 channels you’d have to send 16 events, each on their own channel.