Hello everyone,
using the MIDI Remote Control Assistant I stumbled over the Mouse Pointer (AI Knob) functions in Cubase 13 Pro. My question would be: Does anyone know, what’s the difference between “Value at Mouse Pointer” and “Value at Mouse Pointer in Lock State”? The first one seems obvious and works as expected … Unfortunately I couldn’t find any sort of documentation or hint for the latter. Tried to find it out by experimenting but failed. Any ideas? Cheers … 
yeah - I think the label of that one got a bit “lost in translation” 
This parameter is an on/off switch, that allows you to move the mouse away from that control, but still have the mapped hardware control stay with that control until that switch is turned off.
Not sure if I explained that any better, though
But maybe try the following to see it in action:
- Map a hardware knob to Value at Mouse Pointer
- Map a hardware button to Value at Mouse Pointer in Lock State
- Hover the mouse of over a Cubase fader
- Turning your hardware knob should now move the fader.
- Press the hardware button mapped in step 2, so it’s in “on” mode.
- Move the mouse pointer away from the fader.
- Turn the hardware knob - it should still control the prior fader, although the mouse was moved somewhere else.
- Press the hardware button mapped in step 2, so it’s in “off” mode.
- Turn the hardware knob - it should no longer control the prior fader, since the mouse is now somewhere else and the lock has been turned off.
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@Nico5 Thanks so much for your excellent answer! 
That was really driving me crazy. 
Makes perfect sense. I somehow assumed that the “in Lock State” function needed to be assigned to a knob/slider as well. 
P.S.: Tried mapping it to a button (as explained) but still no luck. I move the mouse pointer to a value, change it (using a knob), lock it (using a hardware button) - but when I move the pointer away from the value field, the knob does not control that value anymore. 
Does it work as expected on your system?
Maybe you haven’t set your button in Toggle mode? Working fine here in both CB12.0.70 and CB13.0.50.
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@m.c Thanks for your reply. 
It was set to toggle but still did not work. But it seems like I just found out why it wasn’t working: I am using a knob on my master keyboard (Nektar GXP61) to control the “AI Knob” function. As I didn’t have any unassigned buttons left on the same keyboard, I had assigned the “Value at Mouse Pointer in Lock State” function to a button on my Korg NanoPAD 2 (another hardware MIDI controller). And that seems to be the problem. Putting the “Lock State” function on a button of my master keyboard instead solved it. 
Not sure if that’s a “bug or a feature?” situation.
P.S.: Seems like it’s more of a feature than a bug. Turns out that each hardware device can have an independant AI Knob + Lock State. Cubase remembers multiple AI Knobs and their individual lock states separately for each MIDI controller. Which actually seems like a very nice bonus (although I guess it can easily lead to confusing results).
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Side note: The Focus Quick Controls have a similar parameter, allowing those 8 Quick Controls to stay locked to a plugin window, even after that window isn’t active anymore.
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Right! Been using the Quick Controls a lot more often since they reworked them in V12 (?). That - together with the whole new MIDI Remote section - was a massive improvement for Cubase. And I’m pretty sure I will be also using the AI Knob stuff a lot from now on. One thing that could be improved though is the lack of any visual feedback when the AI Knob is locked - and which field is currently “under control”. I think some coloring (like a colored rectangle around the active control) would probably make it perfect.
Thanks again for your help! And from now on, whenever someone will ask Google about this topic, your answer will be hopefully waiting here to get discovered. 
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Yeah, it would be nice, but the thing is that the AI knob is designed as a function that any VST can implement (though there are plenty that don’t for now), it is not specifically aiming Steinberg’s own VSTs. This means that by today’s VST standard, it would be impossible for the DAW to know the “rectangle” of the parameter under control, especially in a third-party VST.
Other than that, we do know which control we decided to lock, don’t we?
As as side note - workaround, if your controller has a display, using scripting we can always make it show the locked parameter and its value right there.
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That’s actually also a very important reminder. A VST has to specifically implement it - and as you mentioned - not all VSTs are implementing everything that’s available.
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@m.c Yepp, that is a good and valid point regarding the colored rectangle idea. Guess I was thinking too much “inside the box” as I was currently just playing around with the most basic Cubase controls (like MixConsole and channel strip stuff). Haven’t dived too deep into MIDI scripting in Cubase yet. Aaand … I’m probably better off trying to remember which control I have locked on to with that little brain capacity of mine that is left - instead of getting totally lost in that rabbithole. But thanks a lot for pointing to that direction. Maybe some sunny day I will feel overly confident and try to get my hands dirty with that as well.
@Nico5 One promising “AI Knob Workflow Thing” I have already tried out today was to control the Quick Control Knobs of a VST instrument using the AI Knob. I usually switch the mappings for my MIDI mixer back and forth from MixConsole to Quick Controls. Using the AI Knob I was able to leave the mappings for my faders and knobs set to MixConsole mode - and still have access to the Quick Controls using a hardware knob. Not sure if that will be something I will do a lot in the future - but it’s possible.
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