Windows 7.
Sorry if this is another ‘noob’ question. I have 2 separate recording rooms away from the DAW. They’re wired for MIDI and audio and ethernet.
When I’m recording myself, what I do is…
Start the pre-roll @ the DAW 16 bars ahead
Run to the tracking room, grab the cans and hope I got there in time to start punching in.
Is there a cheap/simple ‘start/stop’ button I can add for punching in—either wireless or some add-on to MIDI?
Sadly, I have neither iPad or smartphone—but I’d consider getting -something- like an iPOD if there was a reliable ‘app’ for this… But I can’t see spending $500 just to start/stop.
Or maybe there’s a clever way to add a footswitch to a MIDI controller to start/stop recording? (Like if I hit C0 it starts recording and D0 stops?)
If you have a laptop you can use a VNC solution to control cubase remote (RealVNC for instance). Actually, I have the same setup as you and I used to run back and forth before I got myself an iPad to control Cubase. There are lots of apps for music making and lyrics/chord display, so you’ll probably find a lot of use for it if you decide to get one.
Have a look at v control pro. I’m experimenting with it now. I bought a iPad so I can do exactly what you have described. Just started using v control free. Seems ok. Gonna buy the app for next day or two. Good luck
Some food for thought about Ipad Controllers for Cubase:
• V-Control Pro is using the Mackie HUI protocol. Very stable and easy to set up! Works like a charm except the “haptic” behavior of knobs.
• Even more promising: Lemur! for Ipad. An open interface to program whatever you like it to do. There are a lot of existing templates; from Mackie Protocol to OSC and Midi back again, this piece of software does it all. But beware; to dive into the details, a lot of technical knowledge is required.
Bottom line, I never regretted spending some $ for an Ipad. It opens up a whole new world of applications to control your DAW.
Cheers,
BxSj
PS.: The one drawback from my perspective is that knobs are really though to deal with on a touch surface (hardware knobs are just better – and that why I do love my BCF2000).
How -specifically- does one do this? I have a keyboard and a v-drums in each room. How does one set up a keyboard so that pressing a ‘C0’ activates a command? I’ve used the Generic Remote to controller the Mixer via MIDI, but never used MIDI for transport functions.
RE: ‘Tranzport’ … sounds great, but I’m not sure about anything from Frontier these days—looks like they’re either out of business—or heading in that direction.
If I break down and get an iPod (I must admit to being something of an Apple Hater—but I’ve noticed there are almost -no- music apps for Android)… how does it actually -work-? I mean… is it via bluetooth? Or wi-fi? SPECIFICALLY: What hardware/software does one need on the ‘host’ computer to make it ‘happen’?
You can find ‘Start’, ‘Stop’, ‘Forward’, ‘Rewind’ … etc as Value/Action in Gen Remote setup, if you choose ‘Transport’ as Device and ‘Device’ as Channel/category.
So what? If you’ll buy one, it doesn’t stop working even if Frontier goes bankrupt tomorrow. Of course you’ll wont get any upgrades, but if your buying decision on anything is based on future upgrades, you’re just fooling yourself: any company may be out of business tomorrow.
Thanks, I’ll give it a shot… if I can just use GR to do this, I’ll be thrilled. I forgot about GR, I think because frankly, I never had much luck using it for mixing—it never seemed to ‘remember’ settings properly whenever I needed to change anything. But since this is a ‘set it and forget it’ sort of thing, it might work better. And I definitely have footswitches I can dedicate to this!
AFA the Tranzport—I just retired a Tango 24, which broke down 3-4 times in the past year, so I’m a little wary. I’ll admit, however, that I’ve had several of their products and until then, I thought they were very well made.
WOW! I got Generic Remote to work… well sorta… but this is -so- cool, I gotta get it fleshed out.
I used the Learn function with my V-Drums and I got one drum to trigger ‘Record’ and another to trigger ‘Stop’ using ‘Note’ in the top half and ‘Transport’ in the bottom.
-However- this is clunky. I can live with one drum to start recording, but giving up a 2nd drum to ‘stop’ is a deal breaker. V-Drums have a couple of auxiliary trigger inputs and I tried using those but so far no go.
When I hook a standard Korg tap footswitch to one of the trigger inputs, the Generic Remote Learn ‘sees’ it and assigns a MIDI address (I guess that’s the note #.)
However, hitting the switch does not initiate ‘stop’ as one of the real drums does.
Also, I was hopeful I could use the ‘Footswitch’ input on V-Drums—which changes programs—because again, Generic Remote Learn correctly ‘sees’ that switch and assigns it an address. The only problem -there- is that every time you press the switch, it increments the address. GRRRRRRRR.
So… where to go from here?
Is there a way to make a single drum do double-duty… ie. hit ‘record’ and then ‘stop’ later on?
Does anyone know how to solve the auxiliary input issue so I can use std footswitches to trigger ‘record’ and ‘stop’ without giving up a drum?
THANKS! So close. So close!
----JC
You can find ‘Start’, ‘Stop’, ‘Forward’, ‘Rewind’ … etc as Value/Action in Gen Remote setup, if you choose ‘Transport’ as Device and ‘Device’ as Channel/category.
I’m afraid the footswitch is not valid AUX trigger for V-drum unit. My Roland footswitch doesn’t even trigger any MIDI events on my TD-8’s AUX input. Yours may trigger something, but probably not the whole NoteOn/NoteOff sequence.
If you want to use drum sticks to control Cubase, I would suggest you to buy a cheap Percussion controller like Korg NanoPAD or Akai LPD8. These units are USB, so they need USB cable from your DAW to your live room, though.
Does your drumkit have any footswitch options? On mine I can set it to program change, open/close hihat and some other options. Maybe you can make it translate the midi message to a useful output with that?
NB: I found that using Tom4 I can start recording. HOWEVER to future users: User the ‘onRecord’ parameter -not- ‘record’. If you use ‘record’, it creates a new event every time you hit Tom4 -during- recording. If you use ‘onRecord’ it only creates a single event and any hits to Tom4 thereafter are ignored (and recorded as normal Notes.)
REMAINING PROBLEM: Stop Footswitch.
The V-Drums footswitch is a -stereo- switch for incrementing/dec kits. When you hit Learn in Generic Remote it senses a ‘Program Change Trigger’ and then assigns the current Program # to the address. So… I can use a standard footswitch to ‘Stop’ BUT the currently selected kit must match.
(Interestingly, Learn defaults to ‘42’ which as we know is the answer to everything in the universe.)
So I have to make sure that the kit is set to 42 before I start recording for the footswitch to work.
Given that the footswitch generates a Program Change Trigger, is there a way to make the Generic Remote ‘respond’ to the footswitch -regardless- of the currently selected kit? I tried ‘Program Change’ but that does nothing.
Perhaps there is a way to ‘transform’ the MIDI from the footswitch -before- it gets to G/R? My guess is that the MIDI Transformer plug-in would not work because Inserts would be applied -after- the signal hits G/R.
I’m currently using Steinberg iC for this exact same purpose (on an iPod Touch), but before I had the iPod, I used a USB-extension cable with a USB-keypad (which you can find in most computer shops with the laptop accesories).
Just to answer the specific question on the Steinberg iC workings, the app communicates over a Wifi connection (in your studio) and you have to install the SKI Remote server on your DAW which must also be on the same network as the wifi. The server then connects the app with Cb across the network.
For example, my DAW is connected to my home network using an RJ45 cable and the network also has a wifi router which my iPhone uses. The SKI Remote server is started when I boot my DAW.
But I personally find the lack of buttons on the iC app for jumping and setting the Left/Right markers and indeed the other 3-9 markers makes it quite inflexible to use, whereas a long cabled USB keypad is a much better implementation even though it has no screen feedback.
