MIDI Export Issue: Character encoding bug with Croatian diacritics (č and ć)

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Dear Steinberg Support Team,

I am experiencing a consistent issue with MIDI Export in Cubase 15 Pro. When exporting a MIDI file containing Lyrics or Text Events with Croatian characters, the system fails to correctly encode the characters “č” and “ć”.

The problem:

  • Upon MIDI Export (both Format 0 and Format 1), the characters “č” and “ć” are automatically replaced/flattened to a standard “c”.

  • Interestingly, other Croatian characters like “š”, “đ”, and “ž” are exported correctly and remain intact.

  • This issue occurs regardless of the font used in the Score Editor.

  • When the exported MIDI file is re-imported into Cubase or opened on hardware workstations (like the Korg Pa5X), the “č” and “ć” are missing, replaced by “c”.

This suggests a specific encoding bug where the MIDI export engine does not support the full Windows-1250 (Central European) character set or fails to map these two specific characters during the conversion from Unicode.

As a professional user working in the Croatian music industry, correct lyrics are essential for our workflow. Could you please investigate why these specific characters are being stripped during export?

System info:

  • OS: Windows 11 (Region set to Croatia)

  • DAW: Cubase 15 Pro

  • Export Settings: MIDI Type 0 & 1 (both tested)

Looking forward to your assistance.

FINAL TEST RESULTS:
I have now completed a thorough cross-version test on the exact same machine and project.

  • Cubase 12 Pro: MIDI Export of č and ć works PERFECTLY.

  • Cubase 13 Pro: MIDI Export of č and ć works PERFECTLY.

    Cubase 14 Pro: MIDI Export consistently FAILS and flattens these characters to “c”.

  • Cubase 15 Pro: MIDI Export consistently FAILS and flattens these characters to “c”.

This confirms a clear regression in the MIDI export engine that started after version 13. The system correctly handles š, đ, and ž, but fails specifically on č and ć in the latest versions. Steinberg team, please look into this as it is a major workflow breaker for users in the Central European regions.

Best regards,
Dalibor

2

Hi,

As far as I know, this is caused by the Windows update, which changed handling of some ASCII symbols.

But this will be fixed in Cubase 15.

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3

Hi Martin,

Thank you for the quick response and for confirming the fix!

Just to clarify, I am already using Cubase 15 Pro, but the issue still persists in my current version. Can we expect this fix in the upcoming maintenance update (hotfix)?

In the meantime, I will continue using my Cubase 13 “bridge” for MIDI exports, as that version still handles the characters correctly.

Best regards,
Dalibor

4

Hi,

I don’t think it’s in the upcoming update, as the Windows update is very recent. But the next one should include the fix.

5

Hi,

I can confirm the bug from KARUBA's post. (my system: Windows 11 Pro, Cubase 15 Pro, Region-Croatia)

Martin's response was fast and helpful as usual, but I still disagree with him that this bug was caused by a Windows update.

Namely, I tested the same bug on my second machine, backup studio computer with an older Windows build (Windows 10 Pro - version 20H2, Cubase 15 Pro, Region-Croatia) and the bug is exactly same.

(Tested lyrics was “ošišala je šiške, ali nije postala moćnija mačka” :slight_smile: When midi file was imported lyrics has become “ošišala je šiške, ali nije postala mocnija macka”)

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6

Note that MIDI Files only support ASCII characters. The MIDI file specification was written a long time before Unicode and UTF8, and so there is no way to know how to interpret non-ASCII characters in a MIDI file (eg they could be interpreted as ISO-Latin1, UTF8 or Shift-JIS (Japanese)).

This is one of the things that will be fixed in the MIDI 2.0 File format specification, however the spec is still currently being developed.

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