Sampler Track: Inconsistent Behavior with External Instruments vs. VSTis

Cubase
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1

I recently encountered an issue with the sampler track’s behavior when using an external instrument, and I wanted to share my experience and thoughts with the community.

The issue: When dragging MIDI from an external instrument to the sampler track, Cubase does not automatically render the audio, resulting in no sound output. However, when dragging MIDI from a VST instrument to the sampler track, the audio is rendered as expected, and the sampler track plays back the sound.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Connect an external MIDI instrument to Cubase.
  2. Record or create a MIDI part using the external instrument.
  3. Drag the MIDI part from the external instrument track to the sampler track.
  4. Attempt to play back the sampler track. No sound is produced.

In contrast, when following the same steps with a VST instrument, the sampler track plays back the audio as expected.

I contacted Yamaha US Support about this issue and received the following response:

“After testing, we can confirm that it is not possible to do this with an external instrument. The reason it works with a VST is because in the background, it is creating an audio file which in turn will allow it to be played in the sampler.”

“With an external instrument the sound is located on the hardware so there is no way for Cubase to convert that MIDI to audio by just dragging to the sampler. This in turn will result in a null output when the keys are played in the sampler.”

Their suggested workaround?

“The only work around is to render the MIDI to audio and then drag the audio file to the sampler. So follow the same steps you are doing but before you drag anything to the sampler, render that midi file to an audio file then drag the audio to the sampler.”

While I understand the technical explanation, I believe this behavior is counterintuitive and inconsistent with how the sampler track handles MIDI from VST instruments. The current workaround of manually rendering the MIDI to audio and then dragging the audio to the sampler track disrupts the workflow and feels more like a bug than an intended feature limitation.

Suggested improvement: I propose that Cubase should automatically render the MIDI to audio when dragging from an external instrument to the sampler track, just as it does with VST instruments. This would provide a more consistent and streamlined experience for users working with a variety of MIDI sources.

I’m curious to hear if other users have encountered this issue and share my perspective. I’d also appreciate any insights or explanations from the Steinberg team regarding the current behavior and the potential for addressing it in future updates.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

2

Cubase can’t render from instruments outside the computer. For instance, using external instruments, it cannot ‘export’ a mixdown due to the fact that the external instrument is only connected via midi. The audio from that device is fed into the program through an interface. VSTs live inside Cubase (or whatever DAW) and the program can access the VST’s ‘generation programming’ and render the audio. The connection in not the same with external devices.

4

The explanation from the support is correct.
Since you would like an exisitng feature (or workflow) to be redesigned I changed the tag from “issue” to “feature-request”.

5

Thank you Johnny, Bob, and Steffen for your replies. You’ve helped clarify why dragging MIDI from an external instrument to the sampler track doesn’t automatically render audio the way it does for VST instruments. There are technical limitations since Cubase can’t directly access the audio output of external MIDI devices.

Given this restriction, I believe that if there is a technical limitation precluding automatic external instrument rendering for the sampler track Cubase should either:

  1. Show an informative error message when attempting to drag external MIDI to the sampler track, explaining that automatic rendering only works for VST instruments and suggesting the workaround of manually rendering to audio first.

  2. Not allow the user to drag a MIDI region from the external MIDI instrument track to the sampler track at all. The drag/drop could be disabled to visually indicate it’s not a supported action.

At the very least, this limitation should be clearly documented in the Cubase manual so users are aware of the different behavior with external vs virtual instruments.

I think these enhancements would make the restrictions with the sampler track clearer and avoid the confusing scenario of it appearing to accept MIDI but producing no sound. Even though the engine can’t render the audio in that case, some simple error handling, UI tweaks or documentation would at least explain the limitation rather than just failing silently.

I know the developers have a lot on their plate, but I hope this edge case can be cleaned up in a future Cubase update. Until then, I appreciate you all clarifying the best manual workaround of rendering external instrument parts to audio first before importing into the sampler track.

6

Personally I think Steinberg should have a look at your request and see if they can alter the current behaviour so that drag’n’drop can work. Of course if the external instrument does not provide any audio the file will be silent, but Cubase could first make a real-time render (= recording) and then use that file for the sampler track. There are questions to be decided on, though. E.g. should only the pure audio return be rendered or should any channel effects be included? Also a real time rendering operation would need to stop playback, and so on.

But it could be a nice addition to the feature set - and, you are correct, would add consistency in this area of the user experience.