VST Quick Controls Defaults - what assigns them?

Haha I don’t either! I’d also say my resolution was more of a workaround than a solution!

I also don’t understand how with all QCs (Track & VST) deactivated & the keyboard in ‘Analog Lab’ mode, I am still able to write an automation track (a ‘proper’ automation track, not MIDI CC lane) using the encoders & faders. But only using the Analog Lab VSTi. All other VSTi’s result in just a MIDI CC lane.

Very odd - I think that theres definitely some magic going on behind the scenes.

Hi,

What about the MIDI > CC Automation Setup? How does it look like? Do you use Global Settings for all MIDI CCs and is the Global Settings set to MIDI Part?

Hi again, well the plot thickens…!

It was set to MIDI Part, but changing to Automation Track allowed the other Arturia VSTi’s to record a dedicated Automation Track! The Automation Tracks are labelled ‘MIDI Channel:All CC - CC XX (XXXXXXX)’ (with XXX depending on the parameter).

(note this is with QCs deactivated - see below).

However, something peculiar happens with the Analog Lab VSTi. With ‘MIDI Part’ selected, an Automation Track is recorded (labelled ‘Analog Lab V - P1 Brightness’), but the track colour stays grey when recording.

With ‘Automation Track’ selected, 2 duplicate Automation Tracks are recorded. One stays grey (the same one mentioned above) but the 2nd is coloured red & is labelled ‘MIDI Channel:All CC - CC 74 (Brightness)’.

So it seems that Analog Lab VSTi is somehow generating its own Automation Track irrespective of what’s set in the MIDI CC Automation panel (with parameters all labelled ‘Analog Lab V…’). Note that this happens using both ‘Analog Lab’ mode & also a User Preset with the same CCs.

All of the above is with QCs deactivated. If I activate QCs, the Arturia VSTi Automation Tracks that were previously labelled ‘MIDI Channel…’ are now labelled with the name, e.g. ‘MINI V3…’.

Also, with QCs activated, the duplicate Analog Lab VSTi Automation Track labelled ‘MIDI Channel…’ now doesn’t appear for the 8 encoders assigned to the Track QCs. The remaining encoder & 9 faders result in the duplicate tracks, with the ones labelled ‘Analog lab V…’ exhibiting some odd behaviour with the parameter being recorded being either ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’ (i.e. fader jumping to fully up or fully down) whilst its corresponding track labelled ‘MIDI Channel…’ displays the continuous value adjustment (e.g. one fader assigned to MIDI CC 82 was for FX wet/dry mix. The track labelled ‘MIDI Channel: All CC - CC 82’ shows a continuous ‘sine wave’ type curve whilst the track labelled ‘Analog Lab V - FX dry/wet mix’ is either ON or OFF, i.e. a sort of ‘square wave’ display).

So in summary, it seems that the best plan is to keep QCs activated for all VSTi’s & accept that with Analog Lab VSTi there may well be some strange behaviour!

Hi,

Oh man, it’s messy more and more. I’m sorry.

Have you discussed this on the Arturia forum, or with the Arturia support directly, please? I mean, I would be wondering, what is the expected behaviour. If the plug-in generates some MIDI (I don’t think so, because as far as I know, you can’t route MIDI data from a plug-in back to the track), or what does it do, in fact.

Yep, it is messy!

Something else I’ve noticed, this time with HALion Sonic. If I select ‘MIDI Part’ in the Automation CC setup but have QCs activated, when I select ‘write automation’ button, an automation lane is drawn instead of a MIDI CC lane. However, I suspect this is due to the interaction between MIDI CCs & QCs, but it’s confusing the hell out of me!

I’ve also possibly found a cause for the duplicate automation tracks mentioned in my last post - with QCs deactivated, if I use my controller knobs to move a parameter, then use my mouse to move the same parameter, I notice that another automation lane is generated with the labels as mentioned above. Hence this suggests that the duplicate simultaneous automation tracks when using Analog Lab VSTi is caused by that particular MIDI CC being counted twice - once as it triggers a parameter inside the VSTi, & again on the track.

For example, if in a VSTi (Mini V3) a particular knob assigned to MIDI CC 74 controls cutoff, if I move the knob then an automation lane is generated labelled ‘MIDI Channel:All CC - CC 74 (Brightness)’. But if I then use my mouse to move the cutoff knob inside the VSTi, another automation track is created, this time called ‘Mini V3 - cutoff’. In both automation tracks, the curves affect the same parameter.

The Arturia forum isn’t as active as this one, & the majority of the discussions are about the software instruments or other controllers/DAWs.

I think I’ll have to draw a line under this for now - the more I experiment, the more confused I get & the more weird behaviour I seem to uncover! I (perhaps naively!) expected that once setup, I could leave all the settings alone, but I guess that’s unrealistic given the complexity of both Cubase & the various VSTis, both with multiple parameters to control but with limited number of encoders & faders on my controller.

Ultimately though, I am still able to use my controller for sound design & to write automation, even if it takes some tweaking each time I want to do it!

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