Mechanical Faders Not Moving With Midi CC

Hi Everyone,

I’m having an issue with my Icon Platform M+ and Cubase 9.5 Pro. It seems that the mechanical faders do not follow the midi CC data that is recorded in the Instrument track midi event. So how I have it setup now is that Faders 6-8 controll the Modulation (CC1), the Expression (CC11), and the Vibrato (CC21). It works perfectly where those faders controls those CC channels within a Kontakt library.
The issue comes when I play back the file, the mechanical faders do not follow the midi lane CC data.

I spoke with an Icon representative and he had this to say:

This is a common limitation users experience when they’re using a generic control surface with a custom mapping, which is caused by return MIDI messages.

The issue is that while you’ve mapped the message you’d like to control these parameters, the plugin and DAW are sending a return message to the controller that it is not mapped to expect the return message for.

Unfortunately there is no current way to map this return message using our iMap (though you may be able to use a MIDI translator to map this message). However we are investigating ways to make this mapping easier and more intuitive for users.

It may be possible for you to clear this message up within Cubase by also setting the MIDI learn parameter for Cubase along with the plugin and the faders, so they are all expecting the same messages.

Do any of you know if there is a way to get this to work in Cubase? Much appreciated for the help.



I was able to find a video where a guy used a script or something to send the midi back to the controller, but it’s for Reaper.

Regards,
Ben.

Hi,

You have to send the MIDI data back to the MIDI controller, Icon in your case. You can do so via MIDI Send.

There is no Midi Send in an Instrument track. Hopefully Cubase can implement Midi Sends for Instrument Tracks.

Any other work arounds?

Use MIDI Track, and rout it to the Instrument, and via MIDI Send to your HW device.

I tried this out an it works, but it really becomes problematic if your template consists of over 100 tracks. So definitely need to have Midi Send directly on the Instrument Track to just keep things clean and simple. I really hope this gets added in the next update. I can’t see why it can’t be because the functionality already exist in a Midi Track.

Hi @benjaminduk

Have you find a solution with your iCon Platform M+ and CC controlsin Cubase?
I tried to keep the Mackie Control on 5 first faders (for global mixing purpose) and I would like to use only the last 3 faders to control CC1, CC11 and CC21 on the selected track, but impossible to find a simply and global system…

Thank you for help!

@valentins Unfortunately there is no solution to this unless Steinberg add Midi sends to Instrument tracks. I’ve mentioned this before, but not sure why this would be difficult since the functionality already exists in Midi tracks already. I guess not many people want this functionality so it’s low priority.
Hopefully one day in the future.

One way of doing this would be to run VEPro as your instrument host and then use Midi tracks.

Hello @benjaminduk

Midi sends are available in Cubase 10 with instrument tracks! (EDIT : NO) I have the Midi send panel in the inspector. But I do not understand how to use it with motorized faders ah ah!

I opened a support ticket both in Steinberg and iCon (the same controller as yours : platform m+).

Why it’s a real pain to control midi signal with the midi key editor and a midi controller?!

EDIT : My bad! It’s not Midi Send but Midi Insert…

Hi,

Use MIDI Tracks instead of Instrument Tracks. In the MIDI Tracks, you can use the MIDI Send. Or if you use Generic Remote Device, you can set it so that it will transmit the data back to the hardware (but them the MIDI Message has to be sent again).