If I have a midi track selected, I’d like a quick way (preferably a key shortcut) to open up elements of the associated instrument track’s settings, for instance, the instrument track fader. I have set a key shortcut to open the associated VST instrument itself, but have not been able to figure out how to open, e.g., the fader, or the inserts (not on the midi channel, on the instrument channel).
The associated instrument track settings do appear in the left column inspector, but I’d like to open that up via key command, make an adjustment, then be back to the midi track that is currently selected and, hopefully, still selected once I have, for instance, adjusted the fader.
This would be especially useful when there is a large distance between the midi track and the associated instrument track in the track list.
I’ve been looking through the key commands list, but am not seeing anything appropriate.
Yeah, that’s kind of the whole point of instrument tracks. It removes the ambiguity about the target of the midi, so you can closely couple the instrument with the midi track.
I may not have explained my use case very well. I have an instrument track with a vsti (e.g. piano) on it, but I may need multiple midi tracks all triggering that instrument track (verse piano, chorus piano, etc). This separation of midi tracks helps with organization (can have the “verse” piano midi track organized with other “verse” tracks, etc). It also helps with experimenting with different “musical approaches” in a way that track versions of a single track cannot do. In a sense, I’m kind of using it like a rack instrument, but with the advantages of an instrument track.
When I am working on one of the midi tracks (say “outro piano”), I want to quickly, with as little thought as possible, adjust the vst fader of the piano, or add an insert, or whatever. Then continue on working on the outro piano midi.
As it is now, I have to (in my understanding, but I may be missing something) mouse over to the inspector, open the instrument channel settings section, then open the fader (or inserts, or eq) section, then can make the adjustment I want. For a quick “barely think about it” adjustment, that’s more mousing than I’d like.
I have played around with what seemed like the appropriate key commands and made shortcuts for them, but they do not work as hoped.
Inspector → toggle channel: this only opens/closes the midi fader. I want the audio fader/eq/etc.
Inspector → open next: very promising, it opens each successive inspector section. However, bummer, once it gets to the instrument channel section, it hangs up and doesn’t work any more. I suspect this may have to do with the instrument channel inspector section being “nested”: it has its own subsections (fader, eq, inserts) – the exact things I’m trying to get at with a key command and cannot. This behavior also makes it impossible to “next - next - next” down to any inspector section below the instrument channel settings section.
Am I missing something? Is this a bug in the behavior of “Inspector → open next”? Or do I just misunderstand how it works?
I think the best you can do is click on “Edit Instrument Channel Settings” in the midi track inspector. You can even do that when the instrument section is closed. That gives you the channel window where you can do all the things you mentioned. Other than that, I think the best you can do is cmd-click on one or two sections (e.g. audio fader and inserts) and leave them open in the inspector.
Unfortunately, when I use the big “e” to do your first suggestion (“edit instrument channel settings”) from the midi track’s inspector, Cubase un-selects the midi track and instead selects the instrument track itself… which defeats the purpose of “quick adjustment and back to working with the midi track” since now whichever midi track I was working on is unselected and it may not be clear which one it was any more.
So your second suggestion, basically just pre-opening multiple inspector sections with -click (I didn’t know you could do that, thanks!) is the workaround.
Ideally:
Key shortcut targets “Inspector → open prev/next” be fixed to not hang up at the Instrument Channel nested section.
New key shortcut targets added for each and every inspector section and subsection in the case of Instrument Channel.
Thanks all, just wanted to be sure I wasn’t missing something.
hmm, it doesn’t do that for me. The channel settings for the instrument track pop up in a new window and the midi track remains selected. I wonder if there’s an obscure preference setting somewhere that governs that?