MIDI patterns not recording! Help!

Hi everyone. I’m a new to this overwhelming world, so please excuse the probably-stupid question. i have been using MIDI and virtual instruments for a bit of time and getting a good deal of success. Here’s my problem though:

Drum Machines have preset patterns I can play, as does Electric Sunburst (guitar plug in). In addition, many instruments contain sequences and arpeggiators that are very neat. Lastly, some orchestral instruments have interesting articulations - like jabs and rips for brass, runs for woodwinds, etc.

My problem is that i can call up the various instruments in Cubase in an instrument track, but when I press record, one of two things happens:

  1. Either Cubase does not record the patterns being heard at all (blank MIDI recording track that disappears when I press Stop)
  2. Cubase only records the key that I pressed on my keyboard to trigger the patterns (so, I get a single note playing instead of a brass stab or woodwind run or something)

There must be an simple solution to this I just don’t know. How do I get Cubase to record what I’m actually hearing in my headphones, rather than the solitary keyboard note I played to trigger the effect?

Thanks in advance for your help. I’m truly stumped.

Hi and welcome,

In general, there is no way how to record the MIDI dat from the plug-in back to Cubase. A virtual MIDI Port (from the plug–in back to Cubase) would be needed to do so.

So there are multiple option.

Most often, the proper way is to record the driven data to Cubase. So this MIDI data is driving the plug-in (changing the articulation, or switching among arpeggios, etc.).

Some plug-ins offer to drag and drop the resulting MIDI data to a MIDI track. It depends on the plug-in if this feature is implemented.

Why do you want to record midi from the instruments? The instruments you load on an instrument track produce audio, not midi. So the method to get Cubase to record what you hear in your headphones is in fact to record the single note that triggers the effect. If you do that and play it back, the result will be exactly what you heard the first time.