Newbie Help

I have come to the world of Cubase after ten years of no music. I am connecting a keyboard via a Focusrite to my MacBook and can trigger the internal sounds in Cubase using midi. However, I have tried and tried to figure out how to get the internal sounds from the keyboard recorded and just cannot do so, I cannot get any evidence that the program is even hearing the sounds from the keyboard (no sound is coming out, no volume indicators moving or anything). I have watched the videos etc for help but cannot figure it out. I am completely new to this so I am probably missing something really basic. Would someone be able to set out the steps I need to go through in a project to set up a new track that is recording external keyboard sound plugged in via my FocusRite? Is there a list of setting I should check to make sure I have got everything set up correctly? Would appreciate any help as I have been struggling with this for four months. I do not have much time (work away from home and two kids). I did not expect it to be so hard to get started when I bought the program!

Thanks in anticipation!

You’ll need audio leads out from your keyboard to the focusrite and then record an audio track, as opposed to the midi track you have already recorded.

I have disconnected the midi and got audio lead but nothing is registering. I am pretty sure it is the way I have the track set up but do not understand enough to fix it.

I am going into project and telling it to set an instrument track up but then do not seem to be able to tell it to receive the instrument sound in audio from the synth via focus rite. I am sure there must be a checklist I can work through (eg do you have input set on x and something else set on y?) but I do not know enough to figure the checklist out and I do not have the knowledge that the online tutorials assume.

It is very frustrating as I have a piece of expensive kit that I just cannot figure out!

Re connect the midi, I assume you are going to use a VST as well.
I plugged the audio leads into the focusrite and added an ‘audio track’ in cubase. Under ‘device’/‘device set up’ the audio section needs to be active and mine just sais stereo in and stereo out. Hope this helps.

You need both audio and midi connected to your keyboard.

I didn’t notice what version of cubase you’re using but the full version allows you to setup an external keyboard as an external instrument and shows up just like a VSTi in the program. Saves a lot of hassle.

The typical way you use a keyboard with a DAW setup is to turn off local control on the keyboard so that when you hit the keys it makes no sound just sends out midi.

Then you’d create a midi track and bounce the midi back to the keyboard where it would make sound.

Then you have your audio output from the keyboard into your interfaces line inputs. You need a stereo audio track setup with the inputs pointed to where you plugged the keyboard in and the monitor button on so that you can hear and record the audio output from the keyboard.

The external instrument would combine these steps into one where you create an instrument track with your external instrument and you’re done.

You would work in midi until you have something you want to keep and do an audio mixdown of the input where the keyboard is so you have an audio track.

I do this over and over with the yamaha mox because it can make great sounds in voice mode which is only one voice at a time. So I can put as many tracks as I want in voice mode in cubase. It gets confusing unless you have a method of keeping track of which midi part used which voice to create which audio file. I use a naming convention for that so that later on I can create that sound again.

Thanks guys. This gives me a couple of things to try!