"Latency" in Expression maps? PLEASE update expression maps!

Cubase
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SO, first of all. Steinberg, PLEASE update expression maps! We all want it. It is very important for us power users, and it is quite outdated in several regards, especially the interface.

But, I want to talk about expression maps triggering “too late”.

Example: I select a note in the key editor and then select the articulation I want from the expression maps I have created. (in my case from the drop down menu. I use “attribute” as I don’t like “direction” and I have so many articulations that it would fill up the whole screen if I did use it).

What happens is that the articulation doesn’t trigger until the NEXT note after the one I have selected.
This is quite a problem to say the least. It doesn’t happen consistently, but there is always a few instrument in my project that do this. I don’t know if it has to do with using large templates as I often do, with tons of expression maps.

I can’t live without expression maps. It would make life very difficult with complex instruments in larger templates.. I trigger them with an tablet with “buttons” on the screen and that works really well.

Now, it doesn’t happen to all libraries but to many big and important ones, for example Spitfire and Afflatus. It might be a problem with the VST, but the best solution would be that you could make the expression map trigger before, similar to the “delay” in the inspector.

Some libraries need the trigger just before the note, and some are fine on the note. This is especially the case if the triggers are keyswitches. And before you suggest alternative input not all libraries have an other option than keyswitches. In that case the expression map will trigger the keyswitches. Other libraries use CC numbers like for example cinematic studios.

Anyone has a clever solution?

Steinberg, please update the expression maps! That is an update that I know many have waited a LONG time for and would highly appreciate.

Cheers!

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try using a pre roll on play, i don’t remember what i had mine set to but that’s how i fixed the issue (can’t access cubase at the moment).
you can experiment with the smallest value that consistently triggers the articulation on the first note
playing from selected was also working, but it’s less elegant

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It sounds like a good idea but I don’t see how this will solve the rest of the articulations, unless I misunderstand you. Because every articulation is late. So, later in the song when I change an articulation it won’t trigger where I want it. It will always come a note late.

I did try with different values on the pre roll but that only move the cursor back before play, it doesn’t change the timing of the expression map. Again, I might misunderstand you.

I appreciate the advice in any case.
Cheers!

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ah sorry, i misunderstood then!
i guess mine was a different problem, where only the first note would not pick up the articulation
i don’t recall have this issue on all notes

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Like so many incredible Cubase features, Expression maps were launched and then seemingly ignored. I’m still not sure what they’re for.

Steinberg is often its own worst enemy.

They must get frustrated about creating all these incredible features and then not getting the accolades they should.

If you build a great feature like Expression Maps, then promote it! Create projects that display all the things that expression maps can do (but not just a project that has a bunch of stuff happening; have one just about how to use EMs, one on how to use GA properly, etc)

However, telling my cat about this would probably be more useful as Steinberg seems to not care about anything we mention here.

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100% agree with the OP!

For this reason I abandoned the Attribute Articulations and only use the Direction Articulations, thus losing all the utilities for which they were created. Then manually rewrite the Attribute Articulations note by note in the Score and hide the “temporary/substitute” Direction Articulations.

Added to this enormous flaw is another which aggravates the situation, obviously using only the Direction Articulations: when you press stop and start again from a previous or subsequent point, the last active articulation during the stop remains set! (To check, open the instrument and you will see the key switch locked. Intervene manually, by clicking, to unlock it). This behavior often occurs with Spitfire’s BBC SO Core.

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I have sort of a solution to this, that is by no means great, but it solves the problem temporarily:

In those cases the articulation maps trigger late, I create a “ghost midi note” before the note that doesn’t trigger correctly. This ghost note has a velocity value of zero, but also has the articulation that I want. Since the trigger is one note late, this solves the issue, but it is also quite stupid because I have inadvertently created a very complicated keyswitch…

But as stated, it only happens on a couple of instruments, so I don’t have to recreate my setup. The very tiny positive thing about this “keyswitch” is that it can be placed anywhere and so is easier to include in changes in the key editor.

If you are making a score out of this, you have to deal with that ghost note of course… (I never make scores out of mock ups, it’s just better to start over on a clean score)

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I used this trick too, great idea!

But the inconvenience was twofold and I abandoned it: in addition to inserting the note to get around the obstacle, I also had to remember to hide it in the score… in the long run it became an onerous procedure.

EMs are brilliant… but even today they have some annoying flaws!

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I hope they’ll update Expression Maps.
Negative delay per articulation, selecting and remembering articulations in Inspector, bug fixes and many other features that people have been talking about for years.

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Totally agree with you. I mean it’s quite embarrassing that they still haven’t updated Expression Maps: I mean if you see how Sound Variations work in Studio One you can get an idea.
For me the point is to consider that most people in Hollywood use Cubase for professional film scoring: this one and other features (such as the infamous SCORE EDITOR) should be updated right away.

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I am anything but an expert for this topic. However, from the info that I gathered from Steinberg staff on the forums, Steinberg is aware of the shortcomings of the current Expression Maps implementation. It seems that there are two things that need to be done, and you mentioned them both: switch the score editor to something based on Dorico and re-work expression maps.
It sounded as if Steinberg needs to address the score editor first. I assume if they change expression maps first, they will have to do the work again when switching the score editor.

That is just my interpretation of the info gathered.

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let’s wait and hope for the next release…

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One thing that has driven me nuts with SB ever since 3.5vst days is that they introduce some great feature, not push it or explain it, then abandon it because they feel it’s underused.

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Well negative delay on expression maps is getting existential for many of us, as we do not have the desire at all to have 20-30 tracks for one instrument! (hint: look at DP11)
The state of the expression maps UI is friendly speaking incredible bad. One cannot resize the window, no copy paste of whole expressions there, no auto increment of the key switches in new expression and so on. I just don’t get it, that a really great DAW - as Cubase is - is continuously ignoring such important feature for composers. Steinberg please update it. We all would appreciate this very, very much. Thank you.

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I would love to see some of the Dorico engine end up in Cubase in some simple form so that I can use that as an editor routinely instead of piano roll. Also the ability to export something that imports directly into Dorico for further refinement in a few clicks…and visa versa…if you setup some playback and do piano roll editing in Dorico, then push that back over to Cubase in order to do more then what is currently available in Dorico for editing performance.

would it make sense for Dorico’s expression maps to make it in to Cubase? maybe but at some point you’d just be repeating Dorico on cubase…which I don’t think does actually make sense and I don’t think Steinberg will do that. But needless to say Cubase expression mapping could be drastically improved… well for me the couple areas I’d love to see it improved:

  1. per-articulation negative offset
  2. when note channelization is being done, make sure to chase and follow expression events (CC, PB and AT) over to the channels where notes are sustaining. I believe it may do this partially, but it has holes in its current behavior.
  3. The editor needs to be improved drastically
  4. in addition right now we have to edit a lot of lines in the editor in order to represent every possible combination of mutually exclusive key switches which leads to expression maps with thousands of lines. This is excruciating to the point of nobody bothering to use some of the expression map group functionality because its too painful to enter it into the editor. It could have been done way smarter and we should never ever have to re-enter the same keyswitch twice into the editor. This is just plain bad relational DB design.

for a start

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Just stumbled across this thread and agree that the expression maps in Cubase need some updating.

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Dear Steinberg, why are you ignoring us? Some words about this would be nice. Something like “hey guys, we are aware of your needs and plan to solve this in Cubase 24 in about 10 years” we would certainly appreciate.

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Dear @suranovsky ,

thank you for your passionate engagement with Steinberg products.
We are aware of the the needs of you and many others and plan to solve this within the next 10 to 20 years.

:grin:
No, I am not with Steinberg. I justed wanted to give you some nice words of (moderate) comfort.

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Oh, what a bad luck, I just thought, I got a glimmer of hope … :sweat_smile:

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Maybe some better words of comfort.
Steinberg had hinted in the past that rewriting the score editor was needed to be done first before working on expression maps from their point of view.
Since they now have the new score editor, maybe that means that they will be able to work on expression maps, too. Of course, nobody knows for sure and how long it would take…

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