Hi,
I have 3 controllers
- Novation Impulse, 2.Novation LaunchControl XL mk2, 3. loopback midi(which i am using with Tablet) and unfortunately they cannot work simultaneously. Always one of them not working in when “Use device ‘WinRT MIDI’” is checked in Studio Setup.
The only way i can make it work is to pull out cable from novation controllers and put them back while in project, it somehow lost connection while is in WinRT. And have to do that on every Cubase run. The same happens with my backup system (win10)
Here is my MIDI Port Setup
WinRT MIDI mode works normally on my Cubase 12 with all controllers, but somehow I couldn’t manage to make it work in C14 Win11 
Please Help!
I was in a similar situation a while ago.
What solved it for me was to run the MMCSS fix
Run this and set the threads to maximum and think you’ll be fine.
It took me 6 months of pulling my hair out to eventually get to the bottom of the problem.
Funnuly enough I updated to windows 11 24H2 and it reset this around the same time I installed C14 and I had the same issue again…
I ran the fix and set it to maximum threads and everything working well again.
M
3 Likes
Thanks so much, this worked right away, i put on 64 threads with SetMaxMMCSSThreads.exe and all is good now.
Interesting that on C12 all worked as is, from article you posted probably C14 uses more MMCSS threads than C12…
Thanks again <3
1 Like
something changed around C12 time as that’s when midi remote divices were introduced and it messed up things under the hood IMHO on windows midi.
C11 was as solid as a rock for me but 12 was a nightmare and I was so busy I didn’t have time to trouble shoot.
C13 came along and I had similar issues but I had time to really get to the bottom of it.
Eventually it was the MMCSS fix and windows RT midi that sorted things. I was just getting crashes and freezes all the time but never got an MMCSS message like the knowlege base states , hence me not even thinking about it.
It took Pete from Microsoft and Vin froom DAW bench and myslef putting our heads together to work out the fix.
Vin always ships his windows DAWs with the fix .
Glad it helped.
M
2 Likes
This helped me too, but unfortunately my korg nanokey 2 simply disappears when using winrt. I have to use winrt or cubase crashes, but does anyone know how I can get my nanokey back in cubase? I have read about renaming the midi port but I don’t understand what that actually entails.
Cheers
Don’t use the Korg drivers. Uninstall them completely and reboot. Use the in-box Windows MIDI 1.0 class driver.
Pete
4 Likes
Interesting, on the other hand my novation impulse keyboard cannot work without novation drivers, it simply turns off and doesn’t light at all (winrt or not)
Also thank you for your contributions to the scene Pate 
Cheers
Thank you, but how do I go about this? I have to find and install a driver, or it is there by default?
Cheers!
The in-box Windows MIDI 1.0 Class Driver is installed in-box in Windows, by default 
It’s just there. You don’t have to download anything.
But you need to disconnect your keyboard and then completely uninstall the Korg drivers first and then reboot. It should be under Settings->Apps-Installed apps.
Pete
1 Like
To verify the device is using the in-box class driver, right-click the start button, choose Device Manager, and then find the Korg keyboard in the Sound, video, and game controllers section.
Right-click it, select properties.
You should see “(Generic USB Audio)” as the manufacturer. If you do not, then the Korg driver was not uninstalled.
If the Korg driver was not completely uninstalled for some reason, you can go to the driver tab, choose “Uninstall Device” and then select the option to completely remove the driver. This is not usually necessary if the vendor uninstall works, however.
Pete
2 Likes
Thanks a whole bunch! I will try this. It is not a keyboard, but a controller (just knobs and fades and buttons) and I haven’t managed to get it to work before without the korg midi driver, but I will try this solution. The nanokey does need its own driver software (not midi) so I will keep that I guess? I will experiment and see what cubase can do
Cheers!
Update. This unfortunately doesn’t work with the nanokey 2 at all. With RT it just doesn’t show up in cubase with or without driver. And it is impossible to use the windows generic driver. It just shows up as korg no matter what you do, even if the drivers are completely removed. In any case it makes no difference.
Too bad. Does anyone know of a functional unit that does similar to what the nanokey 2 did?
Cheers!
Both the nanokey2 and the nanokontrol2 work with an iPad, so it is class-compliant, and so should work with our in-box MIDI 1.0 USB driver both with classic WinMM APIs and with the WinRT MIDI 1.0 API.
Not sure what is happening on your system.
I don’t have one here to verify; I’m going by the info on the Korg site. I’ve double-checked on various forums and it is USB MIDI 1.0 class-compliant.
The app is a different story. But if you’re using this just as a MIDI controller, it should be working for you.
Alternatives: Folks in vi-control recommended the Studiologic Mixface. It’s more expensive, however.
Pete
1 Like
Well, it doesn’t show up in cubase as long as WinRT is selected. If I turn it off, its there.
When using WinRT, did you run the mmcss fix mentioned earlier in this thread?
Pete
I had similar issues when trying WinRT with various midi devices just not showing up at all. It drove me crazy for months until my friend Vin and @Psychlist1972 mentioned for me to run the MMCSS fix. I’d not seen any errors or the like, I was having freezing at the Hub issues and then trying trying to run WinRT my devices weren’t showing up so I was caught between having my Midi devices showing but freezing and WinRT not freezing but devices not showing.
As soon as I ran the MMCSS fix and set my threads to the maximum amount everything then appeared in my WinRT/Cubase devices list and from that moment on Cubase has been rock solid.
M
Is there difference to set MMCSS fix to maximum in comparison to “next working/stable value” as it’s recommend in kb article?
I mean is there possible downsides to set it on max?
For something like Cubase, there’s really no disadvantage to raise the per-process limit.
MMCSS threads are threads with priority just barely lower than kernel OS threads. The reason there’s a limit is because MMCSS threads are a system-wide limited kernel resource, with real performance implications, and there are apps out there which create these threads without any need to (some aren’t even media-focused apps), and overall slow the system down.
When running Cubase, you’re not likely to be running a bunch of other apps, services, and drivers which may use the threads. But your average user may run them and slow their system to a crawl. For those reasons, the kernel team won’t just globally raise the limit. But there’s a registry entry which does that, after a reboot. The reg entry is cleared on a Windows reinstall (upgrade, not update). Steinberg has created an app to set that easily.
Realistically, there’s no real advantage to having more MMCSS threads than processors support (1 per core) if all apps use the thread pool, but WinRT MIDI 1.0 uses them and creates one for each opened MIDI Input, and also ASIO drivers and Cubase use them for other processing, with none of them using the pool… So they run out before you can get all your devices listed and in-use. Increasing the limit avoids this.
Pete
3 Likes
I’ve just been corrected by some folks here (Microsoft) who know better than me.
There is some risk to having your MMCSS thread limit set too high, because there are processes (primarily audio, and primarily audio that you’re not actively using if you use ASIO) which use MMCSS threads if they are available in the pool. Setting the limit high means they’ll grab more of them and it will ultimately end in system slow-downs if too many are used at once.
So it seems the 2x number of logical cores is the recommended limit. If you need a few more than that, then go ahead.
FWIW, the new Windows MIDI Services does not use MMCSS threads at all. That’s in part thanks to feedback from the Steinberg team.
Pete
5 Likes
Hi Pete, can you give us some insights when that will be available approximately? Or is there some way to check and be informed when those new MIDI services will be part of the operating system. Since I plan to reinstall DAW system(offline) in near future
Thanks
