MIDI Devices

14
MIDI devices
About Device panels (Cubase only)
On the following pages we will describe how to use MIDI
Device panels and the powerful MIDI device panel editing
features of the MIDI Device Manager.
Ö We recommend that you first configure the patch
banks, then export the device setup before editing the
panels. This way, most of your settings will be saved in
case of panel configuration problems.
The panels are saved in XML format. For more information,
see “Panel XML files” on page 45.
Basic concept
The panel editing features in the MIDI Device Manager
can be seen as a separate application or entity within
Cubase. It allows you to build device maps complete
with control panels, with all parameters controllable from
within Cubase. Building more complex device maps re-
quires that you are familiar with SysEx programming (see
“SysEx messages (Cubase only)” on page 34). But you
can also create simpler panels by assigning MIDI Control
Change messages to control objects, which does not re-
quire any programming skills.
Although these powerful editing features are there if you
need them, you do not have to use them to use MIDI de-
vices.
Seasoned Cubase users may recall the MIDI Mixer, which
allowed you to create similar control setups, called Mixer
maps. Third-party developers created Mixer Maps for hun-
dreds of popular devices at that time.
But in Cubase, this concept has been taken to a higher
level, offering a much deeper and more intuitive integration
of the control features in the program.
Overview (Cubase 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 Cu-
base. Several device setups complete with panels are in-
cluded with the program. These are located in the “Device
Maps” folder inside the application folder.
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.
3. Select a device setup file for import by navigating to
the Device Maps folder (see above).
The Device setup files are saved in XML format; for more information
about them, see the section “Device setup XML files” on page 44.