I see, so if I understand you correctly you only have a single 8 track bank visible at any given point then? Meaning bank 1 works for everything?
It’s a creative solution for sure. I might play around with it, but I don’t quite like losing the overview I currently have.
Definitely like that approach though as it solves a problem.
I do exactly the same thing as @Pablin_Drummer , it works great once you’re in the flow of it. And works particularly well if you approach mixing with the top down approach (i.e. placing groups of instruments into their own bus).
I even have tape on my MCU to show ‘drums’, ‘bass’, ‘guitar’, ‘vocals’ etc. And the last one is ‘groups’ whereby i have all my busses for the overall control of each instrument type.
You can easily hop back to ‘all’ too, it’s not as though you lose that ability - it just makes navigation via MCU easier if you want to adjust the drum level as a whole, or hit the ‘drums’ button and go straight to ‘kick’, ‘snare’ tracks etc.
once you get used to it it is wonderful … it is even very useful to me using a Nanopad to open and close the plugin of each insert or to bypass (I left a thread in the forum) it helps me to focus on each family when mixing. for global vision, or use a new agent, out of commands, or use another mixer …
Yeah, your way of working is absolutely impossible in an orchestral template.
The way of designing a film scoring template has changed over the years, but most industry professionals now days has a template with several thousand tracks that are unloaded (long discussion why, but it’s currently the most efficient way of working if you don’t have a part of slave computers) and organized into track visibility groups.
This renders any single-fader controller useless. Let’s say I want to change volume on track 800. I would need to press the bank button 100 times before reaching the channel I want. Next I want to change panning of channel 400. 50 times pressing the bank-button.
It would just be quicker using the mouse.
I’m currently using Logic. I switched from Cubase 8 many years ago since the first version had stability issues on OSX in the beginning. Now I’m considering switching back again since Logic has other issues that is a deal breaker for me. But as long as it’s not possible for auto-bank to work, it’s barely worth it.
It is something that definitely should be a option. It should be a auto mode and a key-command for it too. “Left-align remote to first selected” and “Right-align remote to last selected”.
Just posting a brief update here.
I did some proof of concept tests for this, and put together a script in python that reads the information Cubase sends out to mackie controllers, and used that to make a very basic handling of banking.
Basically it’s incredibly easy to see if a track is within the current bank or not, so in my script I just check if the selected track in Cubase is in my bank, and if it isn’t, I change banks up and if I find it, I stop, otherwise I bank down and see if I find it. If I can’t find it in 10 jumps, I give up and try again next time track selection has changed in Cubase.
It’s a bit of a hack, and a very brute force way to do it, but it works very well.
It would be pretty easy/trivial for Steinberg to implement this if they wanted to spend a little time doing it, and enabling it as an option for the mackie controllers.
So in short, my Behringer X-Touch will now always follow my track selection in Cubase now, whether it’s done via my Console 1, via clicking inside Cubase, or using any other MIDI controller I use for selecting tracks.
I’m content now as I have my own solution for this now, but I still think it’s something Steinberg should add, as I now know it is a very easy thing to do.
How do you ‘find it’ though? Via the shortened (6 chars) track name?
See, for Steinberg it’s even easier for them as they know the track count and the number of the track so wouldn’t even have to seek via text string like that.
As Mackie doesn’t have the auto-bank as part of the spec that’s the reason it was never implemented. Whoever designed the initial script where simply adhering to the spec I think.
For me personally I like that it doesn’t autobank as my faders are independent from what I select on the screen - I like them fixed in that way. But the option would be nice to enable/disable.
I can see it being desirable to have your faders and tracks stay where they are, but at least you should have the option like mentioned.
For me, I use a Behringer X-Touch One controller, which is a single fader + track controls + transport… so for that usecase you (well me anyway) always want it to follow the selected track.
I use a Console 1 with the Fader next to this, so having track selections follow my Console 1 is really really awesome. Before I was constantly forced to manually bank if I wanted to get any use from my X-Touch… I also do use the display on it to see which track I have selected, as my setup is often run without me necessarily looking on my screen.
Interesting fact:
Cubase Pro 11 does this differently than Cubase Elements 10 (and presumably 10 Pro).
I just tried these two as I have both installed… but in Elements the sysex with the track names also comes with the track number of the first track in the bank, so essentially that gives you a track number, making navigating easier.
However in Cubase 11 Pro you don’t get that.
I can use names if I let my program browse through all the banks and map it out, but I haven’t done that, as that also means it is unreliable if I change names etc… I have been considering adding this as an extra method to help me find banks faster though.
The way I find them is unfortunately brute forcing them, as I haven’t found any good clues to help me navigate (other than using the names and learning which tracks are where).
What happens when Cubase selects a track that isn’t the selected bank in Mackie Controller is that it sends a note off on all tracks, and that lets me know it’s not the right track.
So I go up x times, and then down x times. If I find the bank, one of the tracks will get a note on, and then i stop.
If I can’t find it, I stop after a set of attempts. This is actually quite quick, and I can optimize it more…but right now it works really really well for me, and it does the trick.
When you select midi tracks, or folders it will cause a wrong bank to be selected, and my logic fires as well, but that’s fine. Doesn’t cause any problems whatsoever. The next time Cubase selects a valid track, it’ll fire again, and find it.
Oh and lastly, how I’m actually able to control the messages like this is by just creating a virtual midi track that I use as a mackie controller.
Then in my program I communicate between the virtual device and my actual hardware controller to make this play nicely.
Yeah that’s a necessity if you are selecting tracks via the DAW. The sad thing is that despite the Mackie protocol being decades old, so much hardware is sold today with it as a ‘feature’ - but it seems that no DAW manufacturer is willing to take the implementation further. Auto-banking, as you say, should just be there - even if it wasn’t part of the original spec.
Maybe there’s licensing issues in place from the day the implementation was added? Whereby the code used must not be modified without Mackie’s explicit agreement or such like (?!).
Interesting, are you aware of the two Mackie modes that Cubase Pro runs in? I don’t know if Elements is the same, but it may be that you’re running Pro in one mode, and Elements in the other perhaps?
I just presumed the Cubase script was universal and shared across each flavour. 
Oh, so you’re having to manually go up and down still? While I appreciate it works, that sounds too cumbersome in a final (60-70) track project. I much prefer to navigate with the controller, so it’s always boss - and then use VST Mixer 2 for on-screen adjustments, but hey, the more options the better.
I’ve got other controllers which I run via virtual MIDI ports like you’re doing, and custom code ‘emulating’ Mackie modes. They work great when I’m in the zone. But if i’ve not used them for a while i can leave myself a little confused! I do love to play with controllers though, more often than not to the detriment of me actually doing -any- music!! (groans)
Oh no I don’t do anything manually.
I just click the track in Cubase, or on my Console 1, and my “hackiemackie” midi device does all the banking automatically for me and stops when it’s on the right track. It finds my bank within 0.2 seconds probably…maybe faster. If the bank I am looking for is right after the currently selected bank it is virtually instant.
I might make a vid at some point demonstrating it.
Oh as for this, I intentionally kept mine very simple.
It only performs the automatic banking to find the right bank, and nothing else, just because I know the pitfalls of making something overly featured and fancy, and then forgetting how it works.
This simply works how I wished Mackie would work.
I didn’t dig into this further after I noticed it, and just kept working with my Pro installation (I ran Elements to do development and testing on my laptop infront of the TV haha…).
I still have Cubase 10/10.5 Pro installed and can check it out later.
While at it, it would be truly useful to incorporate a command to enable/disable the click(metronome) and change the bpm in an eventual new Mackie standard.
To turn the click on/off you can program it to one of the 8 function keys (16 functions available in total by using Shift). Just check the MCU controller setup page in Cubase.
Feel like sharing your script? 
I don’t mind once I clean it up a bit, but it’s a bit messy as it’s just made to work, and not much more. Requires a little bit of python know-how to get it running though.
Functionality it works flawlessly for me right now though. In the ‘worst’ case scenario it takes 0.35 seconds to switch banks automatically, and if it’s a close bank less than 0.10 seconds… this is just because I’m more or less forced to brute force the switching.
I wonder how it would work in a template with a few hundred tracks.
I have a friend that could help me get the script running.
I’ll tell you right now that the script is hardcoded for a set amount of banks right now, which I seem to remember is about 6-7 or so.
It’s easily extended though to accomodate for larger sized templates, but without making it a bit smarter it’ll come at a cost of some extra time. I can’t see it take longer than 1-1.5 seconds in a worst case scenario though, but it may start to be a bit annoying at that point.
I had this idea to work on a learn function for it though, where you can scan through the banks and see what’s in there, and then build a map to make navigation faster.
Right now it’s on hold though as I have a bit limited time to work on this, and it works for my own use case perfectly right now.
Interest and questions like this about more tracks does help get me a bit motivated to look into it more though.
Another thing of note is that I don’t know how this works if you were to run multiple mackie controllers, as I just use a single one.
However, all of these are things that Steinberg could easily make themselves, and they could make it extremely efficient as well since they don’t have to do guesswork that I’m forced to do.
Having used this for some time now I can definitely say it is a massive workflow improvement for me, and kinda went from me considering to upgrade to a Steinberg CC121 from my X-Touch One due to lack of auto-banking to being extremely happy with my X-Touch One.
Well whenever you feel it’s ready I’d be happy to try it out. I also am using just an X-Touch One.
Will let you know. At least this inspires me to try to put in a bit more time into it. I might have some time to work on it over the weekend.
I too would be very interested in this! Just got an X-Touch One. Thanks.