live cue to cue performance for casesuras, fermatas, skips

Cubase
#1

I’m still using MIDI Maestro for live performance because of very easy to configure features for Cue to cue performance with support for vamps, caesuras, fermatas, skips
I’ve just upgraded to Cubase 6 hopping there are now such features directly available. It seems not. However I’m trying to workaround this using markers and macros.
The typical use case is to play a song (classical opera aria) until a marker, stops there - the singer sings his ad libitum cadenza - then on a key command the transport control skips to the next marker where the orchestra restarts after the singers cadenza and plays again until next marker.

Defining a macro with to key commands I have a workaround.

  1. Locate Next Marker
  2. Play until Next Marker

But it’s not yet as stable for live use as it is in MIDI Maestro - executing the macro by accident at the wrong in the song then only the to be skipped parts are played insted of what you wanted to have played. Of course I’m sure I will find a better solution - but if someone has already worked on such use cases and has found better solutions yet.
The limitation I see with cubase is that there are only two types of markers, normal markers and cycle markers. Just having other types of markers, for example cue begin ( fermata begin) cue end (marker to continue playing) would make it much easier to have a stable control for such use cases.
Any suggestions?

Thanks, tomotello

#2

Have you had a look at the Arranger track? This will still not be as flexible as Midi Maestro sounds to be, but allows for setting up what you describe.

I have it set up so that when each cue is finished, the playback head advances to cue up the next cue, and waits for a keystroke (or in my case a pedal tap) to start playback of the cued section. This is very simple usage compared to potential uses of this facility.

  • I have each Arranger Track event set to ‘pause after repeats’ (there are two other modes)
  • I use a midi pedal as a Generic Remote to step through cues (command: start/stop)
  • I have “Return to Start Position On Stop” turned on in prefs: in the event I hit the pedal by mistake, i simply hit the pedal again. Playback stops and the playback head returns to where is was.

See p. 125 of the Cubase 6 manual.

Steve

#3

Hi Steve
Thanks a lot - this what I was exactely what I was looking for!

There is just one thing I didn’t find out yet: Playing in Arranger mode with “Pause after repeats” it stops at the end of the event - but I didn’t get it to configure what you described for jumping directly to the begin of the next event:

“I have it set up so that when each cue is finished, the playback head advances to cue up the next cue, and waits for a keystroke (or in my case a pedal tap) to start playback of the cued section.”

Where did you setup this? I could not find such an option nor somewhere in the arranger menus nor in the gerneral preferences.

Thanks for your hints!
Thomas

#4

Hmm… did you set the number of repeats to ‘1’ for each arranger event?

Also- you actually have created an arranger chain?

#5

1000 words…
Screen shot 2011-02-13 at 9.15.06 AM.png

#6

Hi Steve
Thanks a lot! As far as I see it’s configured the same way (see attachment), but it stops at the end of each event and then I have to push twice the to continue with next arranger event.

However, I could workaround this be creating a macro assigned to a single key with the sequence
-Transport - Locate Next Event
-Transport - Start

At least this does now what I want - to press one single key to continue at next event start. There might somewhere a configuration for the behaviour apart of the 3 modes int the arranger editor…

Thanks again, Thomas
arranger_editor.jpg

#7

Nice workaround, but I’m a bit concerned about the behavior being different in Cubase 6.

It does look like our settings are identical. If you have Cubase 5 still installed, would you mind trying this business there? I am on C5, there is not a single word different in the manual in this chapter, so they should behave the same.

thanks,

Steve

#8

In fact - it seems the behaviour is different in Cubase 6 now. I just loaded the same project into Cubase 5 and it works like expected with mode set in arranger ‘pause after repeats’ it jumps directly to the next event. I’ll report this to Steinberg.
Regards, Thomas