What's wrong with Virtual Keyboard (Alt+K)?

Man, I’m very disappointed that Cubase Pro 9.3.0 still has this major flaw. Really, what professional level (Cubase Pro 9) are we talking about, Steinberg? Hm? Are you blind or just lazy?

Here, if I want to use it I must:

  1. Enable it via mouse in the Transport bar (F2).
  2. Any track(s) I want to use it with also must be set to “All MIDI Inputs”.

Problem 1 isn’t that big of a deal for me. When I need a VK It typically stays on the whole session anyway so I can live with this.

Problem 2 is super annoying though, because I automate the DAW itself from some ports, and also use lots of virtual ports on my system for all kinds of stuff, and it’s a major PITA to have to temporarily enable/disable MIDI ports in the Device Setup when I need a track to be isolated.

I either need the VK to be listed as a MIDI Device/Input, or better yet, to just work with any track that is armed or open in an editor when it’s open/topped.

Not to deny your problem, but I can use it fine.

I empty out the floating transport entirely, just keeping the virtual keyboard. Then I press Alt+K to pop it up.

Gave it a try, and now the VK steals all kinds of keys (like stopping and starting the transport with the ten-key o and enter keys).

That is by design (it might even have been described as such in the old .pdf user manual), and has been that way for as long as I can remember. I guess maybe it reduces key conflicts or something, I rationalized it’s being so at one time, can’t remember the details now.

It does block too many keys, yeah.

I also wish the virtual keyboard used

Q W E R T Y U I O P

instead of stopping at P.

I understand a need to block a lot of keys when VK is up and active. I honestly don’t use the VK keyboard all that much so never noticed until I wanted to do some stuff while my MIDI keyboard was down for servicing, but I seem to remember the ten-key stuff was left alone before version 9. Stopping and starting the DAW is something that needs to be ‘handy’ at all times. It might be that I had the num-lock set wrong…I’ll check that out closer later.