Dear Steinberg, Just bringing this up again. If we could get the ability to drop in VST instruments into the instrument MIDI-plugin slot, that would be awesome. It’s not that the current midi plug-ins are bad, they are just outdated compared to something like Scaler or various sequencers/arps. I like to use the Reason Rack scales and chords…its much easier to use than Chorder. but trying to get everything routed and useable in Cubase is a PITA.
Thanks!
I’m not sure I understand the request?
Any VST or VTI with MIDI support can be routed to any other VST or VSTI MIDI Supporting plugin
The difference is now you need two seperate tracks to manage one instrument and making sure they are both either record mode or monitored. Which means also keeping track of which track is being sent to which tracks if you have multiple tracks doing the same thing.
Also handy if you only need a tool like scaler but dont always need it enable or controlling other tracks and you can see exactly what its controlling. I could go on on just the project simplicity side, but that is a start.
Instead you just put exactly what is controlling what right into a midi slot. Similar to how both Reaper and Bitwig do this. The device stays on the track. Less mess.
If you still don’t get it, its fine. But coming from other DAWs and how easy it is to manage instrument tracks still gets annoying in Cubase. I use Bitwig a lot and now with dawproject format, this would also make transferring projects easier.
I get what you mean, although I personally don’t use those tools, but I agree that the handling in Cubase for MIDI based Effects is sub par…
We are not talking about VST instruments here, though. VST instruments are plugins that receive MIDI and output sounds. What you mean is VST(3) plugins that (optionally) receive MIDI but also output MIDI. This is actually something that Steinberg completely ignored de facto since the introduction of the VST3 format, which were never intended to be able to output MIDI at all… this caused a lot of friction with developers, because in VST2 it was easy. It took Steinberg years to acknowledge that yes, there are use cases for MIDI output and yes, people want to use that… imho they completely failed to understand the requirements of their user base (and the plugin developers) when coming up with VST3.
The MIDI plugin slots are actually not really VST plugins, as far as I know use a different API which is a) probably not really supported anymore and b) practically no one besides Steinberg ever used it.
So the solution imho would be to have optional/additional Insert slots for MIDI and Instrument tracks where you can load VST3 plugins that output MIDI or VST3 note events.
I have only ever seen one 3rd party developer of MIDI plugins for Cubase. It was years and years ago.
Yep, I remember stumbling upon a web site which had MIDI plugins for Cubase… Most other developers simply used VST2, as that worked in other DAWs, too…
Exactly…it would be basically like the players inside of Reason that attach to top of instruments. Reason have had some great player devices over the years. Which is another great example of what you could put inside those plug-in insert slots. Reason put a midi out rack device to do just this inside RRP.
Full support for this demand! It’s a real shame that Cubase doesn’t support VST plugins on MIDI tracks. Every workaround using separate instruments and MIDI tracks is beyond ridiculous, impractical, and frustrating for every user. I just finished writing an editor for the Pro-800, developed with Reaper during the dev phase, and was astonished by the poor workflow Cubase offers for pure VST3 MIDI editors – as I said: a real disgrace.
And yes: The Steinberg MIDI Plugins are totally outdated.
I have a number of plugins I like to use for MIDI and have wanted a way to save everything as a track preset, for a long time. Putting them in MIDI plugin slots sounds like a good way to go!
Even if technically, those MIDI plugin slots wont support VSTs. Give us a better way of working with midi type instruments. Going modular in some form since Cubase is going that (no pun intended) route anyway, and let us create instrument chains. Like a mini modular instrument environment with a handful of slots as like an empty instrument type.
The closest I have found so far is FL studio plugin: Patcher. But make it Steinberg flavored. Having to load up another DAW into a DAW…well you can see how cumbersome that is
Maybe try out Element by kushview. It’s a free plugin and from what I can tell, it’s somewhat similar to Patcher in FL studio.
I have, and it works pretty good. Much simpler than FL studio. Thanks
My wish/hope/request is still making a simpler Cubase flavored multislot instrument type wrapper or as part of Cubase itself.
its not only that you need two+ tracks to deal with midi plugins, but also doing it that way is not sample accurate. In order to have sample accuracy there needs to be actual midi plugins VST slots in the instrument channel strip to host 1+ VST midi plugins. This would be similar to what LogicPro provides for Aumfx plugin slots.
But understand, that Steinberg does not officially consider VST to be a midi plugin standard…they consider it to be an audio plugin format. they have never taken midi plugin functionality seriously at Steinberg for VST plugins, it has always been an afterthought and outside of their vision for what VST actually is. Of course by now there are many many midi plugins based on VST…so it should have become obvious a very long time ago that people want and need this functionality….so I don’t know why they don’t do it either. I second the request!
as work around for Steinberg’s oversight….kushview element is basically free and usually works great for sample accurate midi plugin interactions. Some other worthy commercial contenders include DDMF MetaPlugin, BlueCatAudio Patchworks, PlogueBidule, Unify, and there are some others too, but those are the main contenders…and I highly reccomend for this use case unless/until Steinberg adds VST midi slots on the instrument tracks.
Interesting! Is this because of the latency or processing between tracks and their MIDI sends/outputs? Have you measured this? I am guessing if you did a track for track audio render, they instrument track recieving the midi notes would not line up exactly with the midi notes on the timeline?
Yeah, I have tried Element, BUT it’s just massive overkill for a simple 2 or 3 slot device. One for something like Scaler, and one or two(if I want to layer or stack instruments) device being controlled by Scaler.
This is why I have decided to just build the damn thing myself using JUCE and it’s HostPluginDemo and customize the heaven out of it. Make it exactly the way I want it. This way I can create a Cubase track preset with Scaler and then whatever other instrument I want to go after. All it does is process MIDI in → MIDI out and sums the audio outputs at the end of the chain. Right now its only 2 slots with a very simple GUI…get that working. Yes, I know Scaler3 can host plugins just the same, but I also want something that I can layer/stack/modulate instruments.
yes I have measured by looking at the midi timestamps. Its because every time you patch one midi track to another, it sends the midi back to the entry point of cubase and assigns a new timestamp as if its new incoming midi in a new process block. Its not just simple added latency, its added jitter as well. its not a consistent amount of latency being added.
The same thing happens in DP and LogicPro, where I also measured track-to-track midi routing, they all do the same thing.
well its free and it works.
Sure good idea…. Juce is great. Hope you share it.
well really Unify or one of the others will work best and kushview generally works fine for free. But if you build something that works well in a simple form that is really three-click to setup for simple case of one midi plugin and one instrument…could be very useful for sure. These days I tend to use Unify because I think its quite good and capable of a lot more, if you wanna talk about massive overkill, it is massive overkill, but its quite good and well supported…but unfortunately its the most expensive one of the lot.
Yes, Unify is definitely massive overkill, but looks very nice. If I really wanted to go that route though, I would just open up Reaktor, Bitwig: The Grid, FL Studio: Patcher. I just need something for Cubase that is quick and simple for simple control and layering with minimal GUI.
I thought for sure even Waves newer StudioVerse Instruments would do the trick, and It…kind of does, but once you load 1 instrument, that’s it. It does not let you insert another instrument in that chain. Otherwise it would be perfect and simple.
Despite the size and cost of it, Unify is the most straightforward and easiest, and supports an excellent preset database manager for storing unify presets, so basically you can just setup your midi instrument chain as a preset and load it in one click. It also comes with some of its own incredibly useful midi plugins. It can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. The turn off for kushview is that you have to cable things together and that is also a turn off for DDMF metaplugin and plogueBidule. Patchworks has a non-cabled interface also and its also not hard to setup simple two slot presets in it. its a bit more fiddly about assigning midi routing, but anyway, it works fine and is very simple in nature and if there is a certain midi plugin you commonly use with the same instrument, you can create a preset and load it in a couple clicks.
There is a free thing out there called PluginBuddy which is more along the lines of what you are talking about but I’m not sure if it can handle midi plugins.
Reaktor is not a good choice for this. Nor is bitwig..not sure why you are mentioning those. FL’s patcher works sometimes, but I find it unstable on mac and hasn’t been updated in a long time, i’d choose any of the ones I mentioned already over that one.
Will be interested to see your JUCE plugin if and when you finish it.
