Steinberg Cubase SX/SL 3 MIDI Devices And Features Manual

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 41
Once an object is selected you can adjust its size to your liking using 
the resize handles. 
6.Stretch this background so that it covers the entire Panel area.
All objects, both backgrounds and other, can overlap. By right-clicking/
[Ctrl]-clicking the object you can bring up a context menu with the items 
“To Front” and “To Background”. If you select an object and then select 
“To Front”, it will become the foremost object (while “To Background” 
results in the opposite). This is useful when you’re dealing with back-
grounds, labels and controls sharing the same panel space.
Now that the panel has a background, we can move on to control 
objects. 
7.Select “Knobs” from the Objects pop-up menu.
This brings up an assortment of rotary knobs.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 42 MIDI devices
8.Select one and drag it into the panel.
Once you have dropped a control into the edit area, the Control Pa-
rameter Assignment dialog will open. In this window you can define 
the parameters and other data pertaining to the control. 
9.Click the Create button in the bottom left corner. 
10.Enter a name.
Note that this is not the name of the control object itself, but the name of the actual pa-
rameter, an item which exists independently from objects. A logical and intuitive nam-
ing convention will help!
Now it’s time to select the Control Change number in the Transmis-
sion field. At this point it may be required to consult the MIDI Imple-
mentation Chart of the device you’re creating the panel for. 
In the case of Korg Triton, we find that LPF Cutoff corresponds to 
Control Change 74, “Brightness”. 
11.Select Brightness from the Transmission pop-up menu.
12.At this point we’re done with the Parameter window, so just click OK.
13.If the Knob type you have chosen has a text label, you can edit this by 
double-clicking on the label under the knob. Enter an appropriate Title 
in the window that appears.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 43
Now the Knob is finished, and we can use it as a starting point for ad-
ditional Knobs. 
14.Select the knob and select Copy from the Edit menu.
15.Select Paste from the Edit menu to paste in another instance of the 
knob. 
A pasted object will be placed at the same coordinates as the original object. Use the 
arrow keys or the mouse to move the new knob to an empty space.
Since the new knob needs a different name and a different parameter 
assigned to it, we need to do some editing:
16.Double-click on the copied knob to open the Parameter window.
Here you will notice that the assigned Parameter is LPF Cutoff (the only parameter 
we’ve created so far). 
17.Click the Create button again to define a new Parameter, “Resonance”. 
18.Enter this name in the Parameter name field. 
According to the Triton MIDI Implementation Chart, Resonance corre-
sponds to Controller 71 (CC: Harmonic Content).
19.Select controller 71 (CC: Harmonic Content) from the Transmission 
pop-up menu and click OK. 
20.Double-click on the name Label to edit the label text. 
21.Enter “Resonance” and click OK. 
Done! Now you have two knob controls with different parameters assigned to them.
You may find that the Knobs aren’t properly aligned, horizontally and/
or vertically. The Panel editor can assist you with this. 
22.Press [Shift] and click on both knobs to select them.  
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 44 MIDI devices
23.Right-click/[Ctrl]-click to open the context menu, and you will see a 
range of alignment and spacing commands. 
In this case we’re interested in vertical alignment, so we’ll choose Align Bottoms.
Now the bottom edges of the two Objects are aligned vertically.
We’re going to create two more control knobs, but this time we’ll de-
fine the parameters first. As stated earlier, parameters exist indepen-
dently from objects and can be created in a separate process, which 
is useful when you have the MIDI Implementation Chart in front of you 
anyway. 
In the main window of the Editor, below the Device “tree” (known as 
the Device structure), you’ll see an area called Variables. In this area 
you’ll find the Add Parameters button. 
24.Click this to open the Parameter window and create two new para-
meters, “EG Intensity” (CC 79) and “EG Release” (CC 72).    
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 45
25.When you’re done, duplicate the two existing knobs and place the 
copies in an empty space. 
You can select multiple knobs and use the alignment and spacing commands to get all 
the controls in neat and tidy rows and columns.
These four Knobs are known as “Realtime Controls A” on the Korg 
Triton. It might be a good idea to add a Title Object to this group, for 
easy identification. 
26.Switch to Labels on the Objects menu, pick a title object and drag it 
to the edit area.
27.Double-click on it, enter “Realtime Controls A” in the text dialog and 
click OK.
It’s starting to look good, but perhaps we should add some kind of 
frame around this group of controls to distinguish them from others.     
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 46 MIDI devices
28.Go back to Backgrounds on the Objects menu and drag one of the 
backgrounds to the edit area.
Since the most recently added object automatically ends up on top of all others, we 
must rearrange the order here. 
29.Select the object you just added, then right-click/[Ctrl]-click to open 
the context menu. 
30.Choose “To Background” – this will send the object to the back.
At this point the Object is no longer visible, simply because it ended 
up behind the large grey Background that we added in the beginning.
31.To solve this problem, click on the grey background to select it, then 
open the Context menu again and select “To Background” once more. 
Now the Objects are in the correct order, and you can go on to resize the additional 
Background so that it encompasses the Title and the knobs.
Now let’s create a second group of controls.    
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 47
32.Drag another Background like the one we just added and drop it in 
the empty space below the existing group.
33.To make the new background the same size as the first one, press 
[Shift], select both objects and then use the resize handles of the orig-
inal object.
The second object will assume the same height and width as the first.
The obvious thing to do now is to make the second group “Realtime 
Controls B”, but since we’ve gone over rotary knobs already let’s try a 
few other Korg Triton controls.    
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 48 MIDI devices
The Triton has a slider called “Value” (commonly known as a data en-
try slider), whose function is doubled by two buttons, increase and 
decrease. To mimic these controls we need a Fader and a Data Entry 
object. 
34.Switch to Faders on the Objects menu, then drag and drop a vertical 
fader into the edit area.
The Parameter window appears. 
35.Create a new Parameter called “Value” (CC 18, General Purpose 3).
To edit the “min” and “max” labels on the fader, double-click on each label and enter 
“0” and “127”, respectively. 
36.Select Data Entry from the Objects menu. 
37.Pick one of the objects featuring up/down arrows and drag it to your 
Panel.
In the Parameter window that pops up, don’t create a new parameter.   
						

							CUBASE SX/SLMIDI devices 1 – 49
38.Instead, click on the previously defined Parameter “Value” in the list 
and then click OK. 
When the same Parameter is assigned to two or more controls, the 
Controls become linked so that when you move one of them, they all 
follow.
We’re almost done. Let’s add a couple of switches as well. 
39.Select Switches from the Objects Menu and drag a switch from the 
On/Off subcategory to the edit area.
Unlike faders, knobs and data entry objects, the switches can only send 
two values. Normally, hardware controls that function like Switches only 
respond to 0 and 127, or 0 and 64. The Min and Max values in the Pa-
rameter window correspond to the two alternate states (on/off) of the 
switch. 
The Korg Triton’s realtime controls SW1 and SW2 respond to CC 80 
(General Purpose 5) and CC 81 (General Purpose 6), respectively.    
						

							CUBASE SX/SL1 – 50 MIDI devices
40.Define the two Parameters and assign them to the switches, SW1 
and SW2. 
Now we’re nearly there, but before we might want to test it. 
41.Activate the test mode by checking the “Test Template” option at the 
top of the edit area. 
This will make the Panel “go live” and transmit MIDI data over the output port when you 
move the controls.
If everything appears to be functioning OK, we can consider the Panel 
completed, and it’s time to start using it! 
42.Click the Exit button on the Panel Edit window, and click Save in the 
dialog that appears.
To use the new panel in the Inspector, go back to the main Project 
window, create a MIDI track and assign its output to the device the 
panel was made for, i.e. Triton.