Hi,
It seems to be OK. I expect the Focusrite sends the Out1-2 to the headphones.
Hi,
What would you expect to hear now? Where is any data, you would like to hear?
I am including screen shots of the entire Project in these images so that people can see the track settings too!
Isn’t the record/ monitor button the one that’s already highlighted in red under the track name? the black dot against a red square?
Hi,
The red button is the Record Enable, yes.
So do you play the keyboard? Can you see incoming MIDI data to Cubase on the Transport Panel? Did you load any patch/sound in HALion Sonic SE?
Please, answer all questions…
I am wondering if something in the track inputs is responsible?
Again, I am listening through headphones attached to the Focusrite and I can hear any other audio (ie: Itunes, youTube in Firefox, etc) through them… but nothing from the MX/ cubase.
I am sorry, but I must get ready to go to work now.
Hi,
Answer the questions posted above, please.
The screenshot you posted doesn’t help at all, this screen is not relevant at all.
Again, this is not relevant at this moment at all.
Again, you cannot hear anything from MX, if you selected the Focusrite as your Audio Device driver and if your headphones are plugged to the Focusrite.
Please follow our instructions. It will help you a lot.
In this image:
When I press the keys on the MX49, I HEAR NOTHING. (I do see that the meter at the bottom right (MIDI OUT ACTIVITY) is activated (as shown) , suggesting it is receiving a signal, but I hear nothing)
When I press the keys of the visual keyboard I can hear the instrument (Blues guitar)
This seems to be OK.
Do you hear a sound, if you press the key on the virtual keyboard of HALion Sonic SE?
Do you see the number 1 in HALion Sonic SE blinking yellow when you press the key on the MX?
Do you see incoming MIDI on the Transport Panel?
Can you attach a screenshot of the Studio > Studio Setup > MIDI Port Setup?
Reply all questions, please. It’s tiring to ask the same (important) questions again and again. Trust me, we know why we are asking them.
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Without diving into the details too much, lets discuss ‘concepts’. I think that will help make more sense of all the ‘options’ you have (and there are many with hardware like the MX).
With modern keyboards, you can usually get two types of data streams over a USB connection. Some also have a 3rd data type.
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Digital Audio
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MIDI controller events
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Some instruments might also send a sync signal of some sort over a dedicated driver.
Usually you’ll need to install some drivers on your computer. Some might even come with special VST/VSTi/AU/AAX ‘plugins’ as well.
Audio and MIDI will each have their own sets of drivers, and it’s possible to use any one with or without the other. You might even have some apps on the computer that use the audio drivers and ignore the MIDI drivers, and vice verse.
Modern instruments like the MX can serve as your actual Audio Interface. It’s one of the things that makes such keyboards attractive…as you’re getting a full blown audio interface built right into the unit! One less thing to need to carry around if you gig live.
Plug Mics and stuff into the MX. Connect the MX to a computer over USB. Plug the MX into a mixing console, or directly to amps/speakers/headphones, and you’re ready to rock! Leave all those other ‘boxes and cables’ at home.
If you ask an ASIO compliant host or program to chose the MX as the audio device, then it takes over as if it were itself an entire audio device.
So, if you go for the MX as the driver in Cubase, the other audio devices on your system are ignored. You’ll want to connect anything related to your Cubase session to the MX. Audio inputs, outputs to speakers/headphones/whatever. If you go this route, forget the other interfaces exist for now. The MX becomes the boss, and you’ll hook EVERYTHING you need in the session directly to inputs/outpus on the MX itself (including your headphones/speakers/microphones/guitars/etc).
If you use one of the other audio interfaces on your system, then you’d most likely need to connect the MX audio outputs into whatever audio device you’ll be using (I.E. with analogue audio cables from the MX into a pair of inputs on the sound interface), and from there have your Headphones/speakers/whatever, connected to that interface.
Some modern keyboards also come with a VSTi plugin that makes it possible to make a USB audio connection from the synth while also using some other sound card. I don’t know if the MX comes with such a plugin, so check the docs. If it does, you can use whatever audio interface you like for Cubase, and get audio from the MX into the DAW over USB through that VSTi plugin.
If your MX comes with a special VSTi plugin, then you could use that to get audio from the MX into Cubase through an ‘instrument track’, and it wouldn’t matter if you have Cubase set to use some other audio device. Such a plugin should configure the connected instrument so sample rates and such match between the keyboard and the Cubase host system (or get converted if the keyboard can’t share the clock Cubase is using and lock up a perfect match).
Forgive me as I don’t have an MX to test out here, but I suspect that if you use one of the other audio interface drivers besides the MX one in Cubase, and it did NOT come with some kind of special VSTi plugin, then the ‘digital audio over USB’ connection from the MX becomes useless to your Cubase session.
If the MX does NOT come with a special VST plugin…and you want to use some audio device/driver other than the MX one…
With the smaller versions of Cubase like LE/SE, you’ll need to assign the audio output of the MX to an Audio track. Cubase Artist and Pro have options to set up permenant ‘instrument busses’ on the Mixing console, but the smaller versions require you to go through an Audio track. I know in Pro you can tap F4/Inputs, and make assignments to the Mixing console there first. Once established, your named input bus should be assignable to an Audio track as the input.
At that point, if you toggle ‘Monitor’ on for the MX Audio track, you should be able to hear the MX making sounds when you play it.
Let me know if you can get this far, and I’ll be happy to come back and see about getting MIDI working.
That deals with the AUDIO side of things…
Next comes MIDI!
Keyboards like the MX can do MIDI over a USB cable. You’ll install drivers on your computer, and it will make at least one MIDI port in your DAW. Some might throw up 2 to 6 ports! I don’t know about the MX, but you should get at least one.
These are relative to MIDI and Instrument tracks.
Typically Cubase will grab ‘any and all’ MIDI ports registered in the system and merge the input of all them together if you pick "All MIDI Inputs’ for a MIDI or Instrument track. Sometimes you want things to be more isolated, and can assign a ‘specific’ MIDI input for an Instrument or MIDI track.
MIDI and Instrument tracks to NOT record/play actual ‘audio’ information. Instead, they ‘sequence’ trigger events. Like an old player piano.
MIDI and Instrument tracks can take a MIDI ‘input’ source from your MX over a USB>MIDI-Driver, process them, and ultimately trigger sounds from any instrument(s) that you have assigned as the ‘output’ or endpoint of a MIDI/Instrument track.
For both Audio and MIDI/Instrument tracks, they need to be ARMED in order to hear anything you are playing live through their ‘inputs’.
Tracks are ‘armed’ for either monitoring, or recording. If you arm it for monitoring, you can always ‘hear’ whatever is coming into the track’s input in real time. It just passes right through the track…any processing for the track insert gets done on the way (such as changing the channel, midi modifiers you can adjust for the track insert strip, and so forth).
If you arm it for ‘recording’, everything passes through just like monitoring, but…anytime you hit the record button on the transport, such armed tracks will also RECORD whatever is coming into them.
If a track is NOT armed in either way, then you’ll never hear things arriving at the ‘input’. You’ll only hear whatever might be recorded on such tracks ‘while the transport is playing or recording’.
Yes, tracks can have recorded events on them, and ALSO send a monitor signal. It’s also possible to record to tracks that already have stuff recorded on them…whether it will ‘replace the old’, ‘layer up new on top the old’, etc? You have a bunch of ‘options’ on how all that can work.
On the MIDI end of things, I’d recommend browsing the MX manual to see what modes and features it has for serving as a ‘MIDI Controller’. Look for terms like, “Local Mode”.
Once you’ve at least confirmed that you can trigger sounds in Cubase from the MX (I.E. Play a VST plugin like Sonic or Groove Agent), and inversely, trigger internal sounds in the MX from Cubase, you’ll probably want to figure out how to turn the Local Mode ‘off’. When playing sounds in the MX through Cubase, you’ll typically have them ‘loop back’ into the MX through a MIDI track.
I.E. Tap a key on MX, it doesn’t play a sound locally, but instead sends a MIDI event to Cubase. Cubase then forwards the MIDI event to where it ultimately triggers a sound. A MIDI track could send that sound back to the MX to play a sound, or it might send it to some VST plugin instrument that is set up in the ‘instrument rack’ of Cubase.
MIDI can be a bit confusing if you’re brand new to it. For now, the standard is that each MIDI ‘port’ is capable of transmitting 16 independent ‘channels’.
A ‘multi-timberal’ instrument like HALion Sonic can host 16 different sounds at a time. The one that plays depends upon the MIDI channel a track is set to broadcast over. If a track is set to broadcast over channel “Any”, then it will faithfully pass through on whatever channel your MIDI Controller-Keyboard is set to transmit over.
I suspect and instrument like the MX is also capable of serving as a ‘multi-timbral’ tone generator. I’d suspect that you can trigger at least 16 MX instruments at a time over MIDI (One 'patch/program/instrument for each MIDI channel). I’m not sure about the MX, but these days, some keyboards can do more like 48 MIDI channels (but over two different MIDI ports…16 per port)!
When ‘recording’ MIDI events on an instrument or MIDI track, the original broadcast channel is always remembered in the recording (even if the track is set to transmit over some new/different channel). Cubase always records ‘exactly’ what comes into it. Even if you have track insert modifiers to real-time ‘humanize or qantize’ and ‘compress’ the input…the actual ‘recording’ is EXACTLY what you played in (processing happens post recorded events unless you toggle a special button). If you ever want to ‘freeze’ things so a track forgets what you played in, and only remembers the ‘modified/processed version’, then you can do that via MIDI options. Freezing a MIDI/Instrument track makes all those last insert settings permanent, and clears their settings.
I.E. Say you recorded a lick from a keyboard that was set to transmit over MIDI channel 3. In the track insert area, you might have changed the output to Channel 1, and set some options to auto-quantize what you’re playing a bit. If you look at the data on the track in an editor, you might see that it’s saying Channel 3, and the events might look to be in a different spot than you are ‘hearing’.
Freeze the track, and now all the events are hard coded to Channel 1 as was set in the track insert/inspector. Events got permanently ‘moved’ to the quantized spots on the grid. Etc. Whatever MIDI Mod settings you had in the inspector got ‘permanently’ applied. The original recording is now gone. All the track inspector MIDI Modifiers are ‘empty’ or back at defaults, the channel now says, “Any” (but is broadcasting over channel 1 now), etc.
Instrument Tracks are similar to MIDI tracks, except they connect directly to a VSTi plugin. Instrument tracks typically do NOT loop any events back to the MIDI Controller’s onboard synth (if it has one like the MX does).