Synchronizing MIDI synth with Cubase

Cubase
#1

Hi,

I’m rather new to Cubase and music production. I have an rather for today standards old Yamaha CS2x which is the little brother of the more popular CS6x.

I plugged it in through my midi card onto cubase and use halion1 as a VST. The basic midi features work, keys, velocity, pitch and modulation wheel, arrpegiator. But most of the other in built features of the synth are unresponsive. The control knobs, other effects, key pitch shift,…

As i was tinkering about in cubase, i think it was in the add midi devices window (can’t remember right now), i saw a list of Yamaha synths and the CS2x was listed. I believe the synth and cubase are compatible, because Cubase is also mentioned in the synth’s manual, however an older edition of cubase. As far as i could tell the manual doesn’t really explain if at all how to sync to cubase…at least with my limited knowledge i couldn’t make anything out of it.

So i basically have two questions:

  1. Is there a simple universal way to sync these two together so i can use all my other features on the synth?

  2. How exactly do i record from the synth to cubase using the inbuilt samples of the synth rather than using a VST?
    As far as i could gather, you need to monitor the sound from the synth separately and record only midi data on cubase…but how do i actually listen to the recorded sound? Do i need to somehow export the samples to cubase so it could add them to the midi track?


    Sorry for my noobish questions but i’m rather puzzled by all this. Thanks

#2

Which version of Cubase?

#3

Aloha A,

A lil MIDI lesson.

Try to see ‘MIDI’ as a stream of events and Cubase as a camera taking pictures of that stream.

When you play on your synth with built-in sounds, your physical keys are sending out
messages to the sound producing samples inside the synth.

This is called using "local On’.

This is all very normal but

When using a DAW (Cubase) you want to first send those signals from the keys into Cubase AND THEN back to
the sound producing samples inside the keyboard.
This is called using "Local Off’ and requires two MIDI cables. (more on that later)

By routing the signal this way Cubase can take digital ‘pictures’ of all your signals as they pass from your keys,
into Cubase and back out to your keyboard.
(The number of pix recorded per second is called MIDI Resolution).

These pictures record everything you do on the synth.
Note on/off, aftertouch, pitchbend, modulation, patch change etc etc etc.

Once the pictures are taken and saved, Cubase can now play them back just the way you made them.

The beauty is Cubase can play back these ‘MIDI images’ either back to your original synth
(this is where the second MIDI cable is used) or to an internal VSTi like Halion or GrooveAgent One etc

These pix can also now be edited and manipulated (Quantized,Transposed etc etc).

I use the term ‘Synth’ because I am mainly a guitar synth player and the Local ON/Off thang
is much easier to understand. But the concept is the same for synth/keyboard players.

Remember:
Synth players use "Local On’ for playing live on stage
and Local Off’ for recording MIDI info in the studio.


HTH
{’-’}

#4

I have Cubase 4

I do understand that MIDI is just instructions, the “wave” samples are stored inside my synth. I have both MIDI IN and OUT connected.
But exactly how do i set up cubase to read my synth samples?

tnx