Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 MIDI Devices Studio Manual

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MIDI devices
Defining SysEx messages
Some devices can be edited by MIDI channel messages 
like Control Change, RPNs or NRPNs. In that case you’d 
only have to select the desired message by clicking in the 
MIDI message field next to the Create SysEx button and 
browse for it. But that is not true for the JV-1080. You 
need to define the MIDI sysex message that allows you to 
access these parameters, therefore:
1.Click the Create Sysex button.
The Create Sysex dialog.
In the MIDI definition part of the MIDI device’s manual, you 
should be able to find sysex message definitions. Look out 
for messages that allow you to set individual parameters 
according to the tables mentioned earlier. In case of the 
JV-1080, you’ll find this definition 1 or 2 pages before the 
tables. The message is called “Data Set1 (DT1)”, which is 
a message that is used by many, if not all, of Roland’s MIDI 
devices. 
The next step is to translate this definition to the Create 
Sysex dialog.
2.Type in “Roland JV-1080 DataSet1 7Bit” in the Name 
field and select “C5 Roland Checksum” from the Check-
sum pop-up menu.
Now the number of bytes necessary for this message have 
to be evaluated. Looking at the table in the JV-1080 man-
ual, do not be confused by the entry “...”. It means that it is 
possible to transfer more than one MIDI byte (7bit) in the 
message in one go by sending multiple data bytes. But 
right now you don’t need this because about 99% of the device’s parameters are in the range of up to 128 states, 
which can be transmitted with one data byte. So if you 
count the bytes, when using only one data byte you get a 
count of 12.
3.Enter “12” in the Length value box.
ÖIt is important to set “Length” and “Checksum” at the 
beginning, otherwise you may need to do the additional 
steps again.
If you look at a sysex definition table, you’ll notice upper 
and lower case letters in the Status column. Upper case 
letters stand for static hexadecimal numbers (indicated by 
the suffix “H”). Lower case letters stand for variable num-
bers that depend on the context. In the Create Sysex dia-
log, “Values” are used for these variable numbers. For the 
static ones, there is no need for values, so you can enter 
the respective number.
All SysEx messages always begin with F0H and end with 
F7H, with an arbitrary number of bytes in between. This 
cannot be changed.
4.In our example, the first byte after that is “41H”, which 
is static. Therefore, delete “Value 1” by selecting it and 
clicking on “Remove Value” and click in the position 1 field 
in the “Hex” row.
5.Enter “41”.
You see that the number is automatically converted to decimal and binary 
format. You can also enter decimal or binary numbers by clicking into the 
appropriate rows.
6.Next is the “device ID” which is a dynamic value (de-
pending on what is set as the “device ID” in the receiving 
JV-1080). Double-click on “Value 2” in the Values list and 
rename it to “DevID”. 
						

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MIDI devices
7.Reduce the number of bits to “4” and enter “10” in the 
Hex row at position 2, because the device ID ranges from 
10H to 1FH.
8.Next, remove Value 3 and Value 4 and enter the right 
Values (6A and 12) in the Hex row.
9.Finally, rename Values 5 to 9 according to the Sysex 
definition table. For this, double-click on each value name 
and enter the new name.
The dialog should now be set up like this:
10.Click OK.
All the values that have been defined now appear in the 
Add Parameters dialog and can be assigned to a so called 
“Formula”.
Editing the Formula
1.Click in the Formula column for the DevID and enter 
“DevID”, to set this value to a variable called “DevID”.
As there is no “DevID” variable defined yet, you get “error” 
as a result. For now, this can be ignored. We will define 
the “DevID” variable later.
2.Now you need to set the right addresses. In the Scale 
Tune table of the manual, “Address1MSB” and “Address2” 
are set to 0 for all parameters of the “Scale Tune” nodes. 
Therefore, leave them as they are: already set to 0.
“Address3” indicates the part which is affected by each 
Scale Tune and ranges from 10H to 20H. Remember: you 
created the 17 Scale Tune nodes by using a variable called 
“Part” which ranged from 1–17, so if you add 15 to this 
“Part” variable, you get the desired range of 10H–20H, 
which is 16–32 in decimal. To achieve this, simply type in 
“Part+15” in the “Formula” column for “Address3”. 
3.Finally, enter “index” in the Formula column for 
“Address4LSB” because this variable will be used to cre-
ate multiple (12) parameters at once, as set in the “Vari-
able” section of the “Add Parameters” dialog. Again, 
“error” is displayed in the Result field, because there is no 
such variable defined yet. In fact “index” is no real variable, 
because it simply will be replaced by each of the values in 
the defined range after completion of the dialog.
The dialog should now be set up as follows: 
						

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MIDI devices
As you may have noticed, the variable “x” is automatically 
assigned to the “Data” value. “x” stands for the value that is 
represented by this parameter and is always defined indi-
vidually by each parameter. If you later assign a control like 
a fader to this parameter, this fader will control and modify 
“x”. “x” is automatically assigned to the last value of the 
message, but can be freely assigned to any other value.
4.Click OK to close the dialog.
In the Device window, small plus symbols are now dis-
played next to the Scale Tune nodes, indicating further 
content.
Before looking into these nodes, you should add the miss-
ing “DevID” variable to the root of the device, because this 
is a global value that affects the device as a whole. 
5.Select the “Roland JV-1080” node, click the “Add 
Variable” button and rename it to “DevID”. Normally, you 
can keep the default value setting of “0”, except if your 
hardware device is set to another value.
Editing Scale Tune 1
1.Let’s look into the Scale Tune 1 node by clicking its 
plus symbol.
You can now browse the parameters to verify that the cor-
rect MIDI messages are transmitted. You can of course 
also do this for any of the other nodes.2.The next step is to rename the parameters according 
to the “Scale Tune” table of the device’s manual by select-
ing each of the 12 parameters and entering their correct 
name in the “Name” field.
Now, the parameters should be displayed as follows:
If you open any of the other Scale Tune nodes now, you’ll 
see that the names of the parameters have also changed. 
This is what was meant by “alias copies” in the beginning. 
Furthermore, you will notice that if you add a panel to one of 
the Scale Tune nodes (see “About Device panels (Cubase 
only)” on page 14), it will be added to all of them, making it 
much easier to create panels with repeating sections.
Adding parameters to another node
1.Now you need to add parameters to another node, 
“System Common”. In the list to the left, select “System 
Common”.
2.Click the Add Parameters button and select the Sysex 
message “Roland JV-1080 DataSet1 7 Bit” you created 
earlier.
3.Now set up the DevID as described before.
…to display the parameters 
for the node.
Click here… 
						

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MIDI devices
4.Activate the Create Multiple checkbox and enter a 
range of 0–81, because the System Common table in the 
manual of the JV-1080 contains 82 parameters, starting 
with an index of “0”.
Address1MSB, Address2 and Address 3 are all 0 for all System Com-
mon parameters, so leave them as they are. Enter “index” in the Formula 
column for Address4LSB to address each of the 82 parameters sepa-
rately. The dialog should now look like this:
When you click OK, you will notice that 82 new parame-
ters have been added to the System Common node.You can now set the Names, Min, Max and Default values 
for each of the parameters according to the specifications 
in the System Common table, as described earlier.
You should now be familiar enough with the basic proce-
dures to continue with other parameter settings and ad-
justments and to finally create your own specific devices.
Important files
ÖFor information about in which folders the files are 
stored, see the section “Where are the settings stored” in 
the Customizing chapter of the Operation Manual.
Device setup XML files
Device setup files as well as panel definitions and other 
configuration files are saved as XML. These XML files can 
be opened in text editors or some browsers, e. g. the Inter-
net Explorer.
Device setup files can be imported and exported by using 
the corresponding buttons in the MIDI Device Manager.
Exporting a single device
As the button “Export Setup” generates an XML file over 
all installed devices, you have to use a little workaround to 
export a single device setup:
1.Export all installed devices as backup.
2.Remove all installed devices that you don’t want to ex-
port right now.
3.Export the last device again under another file name.
This creates a file for this device only.
4.Import the first backup again to get back all installed 
devices. 
						

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MIDI devices
Excerpt from a Device XML file
Yamaha XG Drum FX.xml
The code has to end with , otherwise it is 
incomplete and cannot be imported. 
The value of the variable “DeviceNode Name” is the name 
of the device given in the Installed Devices List. 
Object classes have unique IDs, which are important in 
case you want to merge XML files (see below). 
Editing the device setup XML files directly
It is possible to “merge” XML files, e. g. in these cases:
You have created a panel for a device and now want to 
add the patch banks from another patch name script.
You have created a MIDI Device from a patch name 
script. Then you want to add a panel, but new parameters 
appear only in one channel node and not across all 16 
channels, because the default setup during import is set 
to individual channels.
The general approach is: 
 Generate two device setups that differ mainly in one aspect 
(e. g. patch bank details).
 Compare the two files.
 Create a combination of the two device setups.
For example, what you would have to do for the second 
case is the following:
1.Open the original device (without identical channels), 
note down the patch banks and their structure, and export 
the device setup.
2.Create a new device with 16 identical channels, re-
build the main patch bank structure and export the device 
setup.
This leaves you with two files, so that you can copy the patch banks from 
the original file into the new file. 
3.Compare the files and copy all original patch bank 
contents into the new file. Take care that you use the 
unique IDs from the new file, not the ones from the old file. 
Panel XML files
Panels are saved as an XML file of their own, with a name 
consisting of:
.xml
To save the panel file, you need to leave the Panel Editor, 
at which point you will be asked if you want to save the 
panel file. 
ÖNote that the panel file can’t be saved under another 
name.
Excerpt from a panel XML File
The device name is given in the first row. 
						

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MIDI devices
Bitmaps are included with the tag , in this ex-
ample the Bitmap “virus LOGO.bmp”.
Controls have their own tags . Templates 
are encoded in sections that are tagged with .
Snapshot XML files
Snapshots are saved as separate XML files under the 
specified name, e.g. “Blues.xml”.
You can arrange the snapshot files in subfolders. 
Example for Windows
This way it is possible to e.g. rebuild the preset structure 
of your device, which results in a corresponding folder 
structure in the snapshot list.
ÖTo make this structure visible in the Snapshot list, you 
have to restart the program.
Patch name script text files
Patch name scripts are .txt files that e. g. are generated by 
the additional tool “Steinberg Scriptmaker”. In them, the 
banks and patches of a device are encoded. 
Excerpt:
ÖThe variable “device name” is the one that will show 
up in the list of devices (with the manufacturer in brackets 
behind it). 
Patch name scripts are the files that are installed when 
you choose “Install Device” in the MIDI Device manager. 
If you want to make new patch name scripts / devices 
available, you have to copy the files into the right folder, so 
that the program will find them (see the section “Where 
are the settings stored” in the Customizing chapter of the 
Operation Manual).
For better overview, the patch names scripts delivered 
with the software are sorted in folders by manufacturer.
For further information about the patch name script struc-
ture, check out the file “script documentation.txt” in the 
Patchnames folder.
ÖNote that once a patch name script is installed as a 
new device, manual changes in the original text file will not 
be reflected in the installed device within the program. 
You have to install the script again to update the device 
information.  
						

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MIDI devices
About Studio Connections 
(Cubase only)
Studio Connections is the name of an initiative led by 
Steinberg and Yamaha. The initiative intends to create in-
dustry standards for totally integrated system environ-
ments using software and hardware products.
First implementation stage of the Studio Connections 
open standard is the integration and support of Yamaha’s 
Studio Manager 2 (SM2) and Total Recall for compatible 
hardware devices. 
For further information about Studio Connections, please 
visit the website http://www.studioconnections.org.If you have a SM2 component installed, there is an addi-
tional menu item in the Devices menu. 
						

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MIDI devices
Total Recall
Total Recall means that you can save and recall all set-
tings of your hardware and software products by opening 
one integrated file in a DAW such as Cubase or Nuendo. 
Also you will have instant and organized access to hard-
ware editors.
When you load a project or switch to another active project 
that contains SM2 data, the Total Recall Synchronization 
dialog appears:
This dialog can also be opened any time from the Studio 
Manager’s Synchronize menu. Click OK for the Dump to 
start.
Virtual MIDI Devices
If you have a new OPT component (e. g. the DM2000) 
which uses a new special interface, you can access these 
components as virtual MIDI Devices in the MIDI track’s 
output routing (if the output of the OPT is configured).When a MIDI Track is routed to such a device, the “Open 
Device Panels” button becomes available.
Click the Open Device Panels button…
…to open the editor window for the device.
ÖPlease also refer to the separate documentation for 
the Studio Manager 2 and the OPT components. 
						

							Index 
						

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Index
B
Bank Assignments 8
Bank Select 6
C
Control Parameter Assignment 21
Copy
Panel elements 29
Create Multiple option 13
Create new MIDI channel 13
D
Definable values 36
Device panels
About 14
Edit windows 17
Editing 20
Device Setup XML File 44
Device structure 17
Device window 17
Double value Sysex message 37
F
Formula 36
I
Identifying nodes in panels 31
Import bitmap 22
M
Mathematical operations in formulas
36
MIDI Device Manager 6
Device window 17
MIDI devices
Defining new for patch selection
11
Editing patches 9
Installing 7
Selecting patches 9
N
New MIDI channel
Create Multiple 13
P
Panel
Creating 20
Panel XML File 45
Panels
Complex editing 30
For VST Instruments 33
Patch Banks 8
Prg field 9
Program Change 6
S
Snapshots 32
Studio Connections 47
Studio Manager 47
Subpanels
Combining 31
Creating 30
Sysex
Assign message 35
Double value message 37
Edit message 35
Value type 35
Sysex device
Creating 34, 39
Sysex Messages 34
T
Transmission 21
V
Variables 18
X
XML files
Device Setup 44
Panel 45