Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 MIDI Devices And Features Manual

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 21
Seasoned Cubase users may recall the MIDI Mixer, which allowed you 
to create similar control setups, called Mixer maps. Third-party devel-
opers created Mixer Maps for hundreds of popular devices at that time.
But in Cubase SX the concept has been taken to a higher level, offer-
ing a much deeper and more intuitive integration of the control fea-
tures in the program.
Overview (Cubase SX only)
Device panels in the program
In this section we shall take a look at a pre-configured MIDI device 
panel to illustrate how it can be used in Cubase SX. Several device 
setups complete with panels are included with the program.
•On the PC, these are located in the “Device Maps” folder inside the 
application folder. 
•On the Mac they can be found in the following location: (Startup Vol-
ume)/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Cubase SX 3/Device 
Maps.
Opening a device setup
Proceed as follows to open a MIDI device setup:
1.Open the MIDI Device Manager from the Devices menu.
2.Click the “Import Setup” button.
A file dialog opens, where you can select XML files (the file format 
used for device setups) for import by navigating to the Device Maps 
folder (see above). 
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 22 MIDI devices
3.When you select a device setup XML file and click Open, the Import 
MIDI Devices dialog appears where you can select a device for import.
A device setup file can contain one or several MIDI devices.
4.When you select a device and click OK, the device is added to the list 
of installed devices in the MIDI Device Manager. Select the correct 
MIDI output from the Output pop-up menu, select the device in the list 
and click “Open Device”.
The device control panel opens in a separate window. The Edit (“e”) button at the top 
opens the Edit Panel window, the main edit window, see page 31.
A device control panel representing an Access Virus synth.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 23
5.Close the Device panel and return to the Project window.
6.Select the device from the “Out” pop-up menu for a MIDI track.
Note that for some devices, you may have to set the MIDI channel to “ANY”.
Now the Device panel can be opened by clicking the Open Device button in the In-
spector or in the channel strip for the corresponding track in the Mixer.
•Note that [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking the Open Device button allows you 
to open a subpanel via the panel browser pop-up menu.  
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 24 MIDI devices
Showing panels in the Inspector
1.In the Inspector, open the User Panel tab and click on the User Panel 
icon.
A “Panels” folder is shown with the selected device in a node structure below it. If you 
open all the folders, you can select any individual panel from the device that “fits” into 
the User Panel space. 
•Select a panel by double-clicking it in the list.
The panel opens in the Inspector.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 25
Showing panels in the Mixer
1.Open the Mixer, and make sure the extended channel view is shown.
2.Open the View options pop-up for the MIDI channel connected to the 
device and select “User Panel”.
3.Click the icon shown in the extended section of the channel strip.
The Panels folder is displayed like in the Inspector, but with different available panels. 
Just like in the Inspector, the panel has to “fit” into the available space to be selectable.
4.Double-click to select a panel.
The panel is now shown in the extended section of the channel strip.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 26 MIDI devices
Automating device parameters
Automation works just like for normal audio and MIDI tracks:
1.Open the device control panel by clicking the “Open Device” button 
in the Inspector.
2.Activate Write automation on the device panel.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 27
3.If you now go back to the Project window, there will be a MIDI Device 
Automation track in the Track list.
If you click in the name field, all parameters in the device are shown and can be se-
lected for automation. You can automate the device by either moving knobs and sliders 
on the control panel itself or by drawing curves on the automation track for a selected 
parameter.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 28 MIDI devices
The main edit windows (Cubase SX only)
To edit device panels you use two main windows; the Device window 
and the Edit Panel window. In this section we will describe the main 
working areas of these edit windows, and what they are used for.
The Device window
1.Select a device in the Installed Devices list in the MIDI Device Manager 
dialog and click Open Device.
The Device window opens with a node structure in the left half of the window. In this 
example, the top node represents the device and the subnodes the MIDI channels 
used by the device.
2.Click on a node.
Now three areas appear in the main window: Device Node, Panels 
and Variables.
The Device window.  
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 29
Device structure
On the left is a hierarchical view of the device’s structure, which can 
consist of nodes, subnodes and parameters. By default, the structure 
of a newly created device (or a device with no panels added yet) will 
either be based on the MIDI channels that have been activated in the 
Create New Device dialog (see page 18), or as in this case, one of the 
preset devices, which all have the same structure (all 16 MIDI chan-
nels activated).
Device node
This shows the name of the selected node. You can rename some or 
all nodes, for example if the device is a typical GM-compatible synth 
you may want to rename “Channel 10” to “Drums”. 
Panels
In the Panels window area a list of panels assigned to the selected 
node will be shown (currently no panels are assigned). 
•The “Add Panel” button opens the Add Panel dialog, see page 30. 
•When an existing panel is selected in the Panels window area, the 
“Edit Panel” button will open the panel for editing in the Edit Panel 
window, see page 31.
Variables
•The “Add Variables” button lets you define variables. Variables are 
useful when you’re working with multiple instances of the same panel. 
A typical example is when you have a multi-timbral synthesizer with 16 
parts, where each part is identical in terms of features and functions, 
and all that distinguishes them are the MIDI channel numbers. So you 
create multiple subnodes where the variable is named “part” and the 
variable range is 1-16. This way you can repeat the same objects and 
parameters across all parts. 
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 30 MIDI devices
•The “Add Parameters” button opens the “Add Parameter” dialog where 
you define the parameters that will be used in the Panel. A parameter 
defines how the setting of the connected device can be modified, what 
the valid range is and what the current state of the parameter is. Param-
eters are assigned to objects (see page 32), i.e. knobs, faders, switches 
or data entry fields on a panel.
•The “Add Subnodes” button lets you create subsidiary nodes. This is 
useful when you wish to create multiple panels for one node. When 
you build a device panel you may want to break it up in several parts, 
or “subpanels” – e.g. one for the Envelope section, one for the Filter 
section and so forth. By creating all panel sections under separate 
subnodes, you can show the different sections in the Inspector or 
channel strip. From these subpanels you can later build a large main 
panel using the subpanels.
The Add Panel Dialog
Clicking the “Add Panel” button in the Device window opens a dialog 
where you select the size and enter a name for the new panel. You 
have three default sizes to chose from:
•General Size (352*352 pixels by default).
This is the largest view, which is to be used in a separate Panel window. The size is 
customizable, as you often need more than 352 by 352 pixels to fit all controls of an 
entire instrument into one screen.
•Inspector Size (157*342 pixels).
The standard size for a Panel to be used in the Inspector. 
•Channel Strip Size (84*322 pixels).
The standard size for a panel to be used in a Mixer channel strip.