Hi,
Got a question about midi devices manager. When creating a new MIDI instrument with MIDI devices manager it is possible to create a patch list using program “change command”, for a specific hardware which is very helpful. However, is there a way to copy all the names of the patches from a txt or csv file into the editor? Or it has to be done manually one by one. It’s easy but time consuming.
MP.
Welcome ! 
Yes, it’ easy to do a patches list for a given external hardware instrument, even if, as you said, it’s a time consuming task. In an ideal world, it would be great to be able to have a dump request feature in Cubase itself to do so (maybe it is possible via the Device Panels feature - admittedly, I never have tested this…).
Beside this, AFAIK, there is no way to import directly a patch list unless it has already been created and saved in .xml format by Cubase, but I could be wrong. It would also help to be able to do this with a raw .txt format file that would respect a documented structure.
This said, maybe there is a way, via a MIDI multi-instrument editor/librarian that is able to do a dump request to import all the patches of the involved hardware, then export them as a list in a Cubase compatible .xml format, I don’t know…
Hi, depending on your OS, you can browse through the scripts subfolder of your version of Cubase.
For example, if you’re on Windows, you can go to your %appdata% ->Roaming->Steinberg->Your Cubase Version->Scripts->Patchnames.
Here you’ll find the script documentation.txt which describes how to properly create a txt file that includes banks and patches.
At the same time, you’ll see some already defined which you can alter and save with a new name.
If you open one of these, in a spreadsheet app, and then have a separate file for your own patches, you can try to paste properly these patches names. Finally, you have to copy all the data to a new txt file, and then you can add a new midi device which is defined by this file.
Now, maybe there is a utility for this in this forum or elsewhere, to avoid the described operations, but I just don’t know.
There used to be, it was called ScriptMaker and it was on the old FTP site, however I don’t know whether that’s accessible any more, and, even if it is, I don’t know whether ScriptMaker would even run on Windows 10.
Cool!
Ah, we can always create a new one, in Java for example, I find the script documentation pretty straight forward. However, I don’t know how useful it would be, since most of the time MIDI users are advanced when it comes to manipulating config files 
OK, I found it. It’s Windows-only, and you can download it by copying the following into the address bar in Windows File Explorer (not the web browser):
ftp://ftp.steinberg.net/Download/PC_Stuff/Patchname_Script_Maker
So it will look like this:
… and just drag whichever folder you want to your PC.
It works under Win 10, no problem! However, I don’t see an option to import a batch of presets.
There isn’t. As far as I can see the entire functionality of ScriptMaker has been integrated into Cubase. Except creating a .txt file.
Yes.
I had a closer look at the templates included, and they are tab separated text files.
This is good news because we can copy-paste one of these in a spreadsheet (be it Excel, openOffice Calc, not a difference), and then after deleting the empty rows, we can work with it and paste our patch names and banks/sub banks.
Here’s a screenshot with editing the xg names.txt
I’ve made some changes just for testing (device name and other header info, a bank, a sub bank and two presets) and then saved it as text (tab delimited) in Excel, at the scripts folder:
Entering Cubase->MIDI Devices, I successfully imported this script with the patches as shown here:
So, with a little work, an import of patch names will work 
Hi all,
thanks for the replies! Will definitely test all the methods. Should make life easier.
Thanks
MP
Hmm looks like a better way of adding a midi instrument but does this instrument show up in the Inspector with patch names or as a generic showing bank number and patch number?
C
It shows as an instrument channel with all the features like inserts, sends etc. It also shows patch names in an custom organized way. In my case sorted by banks. But it may be sorted by a sound category for example.
Hi everyone.
I am new to this forum but I came to this topic and noticed I have done some work on this myself. So I have entered all the patches in Cubase for my Roland XP-50 with 4 expansion boards as well.
I have the following boards:
JV80-03 (Piano)
JV80-10 (Bass and drums)
JV80-04 (Synths)
JV80-19 (House)
If some one is interested in my XML file, let me know.
Hello Kairoos,
if you like you can attach your files to one of your posts. I think you first need to clear your newbie status in this forum to a more veteran rank by reading some posts for some minutes.
Either attach them here or better yet create a new topic with a title like “Patch Scripts for Roland XP-50, JV80-03, JV80-04, JV80-10, JV80-19”
Just leaving this here:
The old ScriptMaker.exe works perfectly in macOS Monterey with CrossOver.
As a side-note it did not help me do what I wanted. Would be amazing to have an app that could read a syx dump of a synth to create the script, in modern synths the patch name is even included in the dump, it wouldn’t be imposible I think.
It’s a shame how Steinberg has abandoned the Midi Device Manager, I use it mostly with a Prophet 600 and got totally diferent results using it as a plugin. Would be an amazing feature to be able to do that with any synth,
YES! It does. At least in W10 emulated via CrossOver on macOS Monterey
If you own MIDI Quest, you can export your banks as patch lists ready to go…
The problem with the MIDI Devices is, every time you change/update a patch on your hardware, you have to delete and redo the entire MIDI Device… Once the device is created, it’s stuck with the patches that were in the text file at the time you made it. Any updates to the patch list require you to delete it and start over. It’s a nightmare once you’ve spent time making a controller panel for a synth and then realize one of the patches isn’t the same anymore.
You have to recreate the ENTIRE panel all over again as well from scratch. There’s no exporting, no copy/paste, etc… I abandoned both my Rev 2 and Microwave XT control panels after realizing it was all futile work if you’re a sound designer of any sort.
