MOTU MIDI Express 128 Compatibility

I run my hardware through a MOTU MIDI Express 128. I was able to download the Elements version of Cubase 10 and I could see all of the ports in the MIDI setup, but I was unable to go through the actual setup due to the version limitations.

I would like to verify that that MOTU MIDI Express 128 is compatible and works well with Cubase 10 before pulling the trigger.

Hi,

I cannot see, why it shouldn’t be not compatible. There is no reason. It should be compatible.

What exactly do you mean by “due to the version limitations”. What kind of limitations exactly do you mean?

Thanks. Normally I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but I could not get it to work in Studio One so I want to make sure it will work in Cubase. From everything I’ve seen it looks like people have had success with it, but I just wanted to make sure.

The limitation I was referring to was that the demo version is Cubase Elements which doesn’t support external instruments. I could see the MOTU MIDI Express 128 ports in the Studio setup, but I could not activate the “out” ports to test setting everything up.

Hi,

External Instruments is something different. With External Instruments you can use your hardware synth similar way as VSTi, by using Instrument Tracks (in the External Instruments setup, you have to define the MIDI Ports and the Audio Return Channels). This is something different.

So you can se the MIDI Express in the Studio Setup, MIDI Port Setup, right? Can you see the In (yellow) and Out (blue) MIDI Ports? You can’t (and you don’t have to) activate the MIDI Ports here. The MIDI Port become active once you connect any MIDI Track into this MIDI Port. So add a MIDI Track, set the output to MIDI Express 128. That’s it, nothing more is needed. (And as consequence, this MIDI Port becomes active in the Studio Setup.)

Thanks for this. I was able to get MIDI out to my hardware and get audio back using that method. Thank you!