MIDI Devices

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MIDI devices
Ö Therefore, even if you set up e.g. ten channels at first
with the Snapshots option activated in the Channel Set-
tings, once you manually add new channels, the Channel
Snapshots option is always deactivated for those new
channels.
If in doubt, select both snapshot options.
Using snapshots
If you activated a “Snapshots” option during the setup of a
new device (see “Defining a new MIDI device” on page 11),
an additional list field appears on top of the Device and
Panel windows, to the right of the Read/Write buttons.
Snapshots are much like presets but include the complete
parameter settings.
• To store snapshots, click on the Plus button.
• To select snapshots, simply click the field to open the
list of all available snapshots.
• To delete snapshots, click on the Minus button.
A useful case for snapshots is if you have a MIDI device
with internal presets that cannot be changed from the out-
side. In this case, you can use snapshots to emulate the
preset settings. Proceed as follows:
1. Define the parameters that are changed in the device
presets within the program.
2. Build the corresponding panel in the Panel Editor and
add the controls and parameters.
3. Activate the option “Test Template” so that you can
set the controls to different values.
4. Set the controls according to the settings in the de-
vice presets.
5. Store the snapshot for every setting with a name cor-
responding to the preset in the device.
It is possible to arrange the snapshots so that you get a
folder structure, see “Snapshot XML files” on page 46.
Building panels for VST Instruments
It is also possible to build panels for internal VST instru-
ments. The advantage of this is that instead of having an
extra window for your VST instrument, you can custom-
build panels for it and integrate them in the Inspector (see
“Device panels in the program” on page 14).
You can edit your panel as usual, see “About Device pan-
els (Cubase only)” on page 14. The main difference is
how to open the Panel window, as you can’t simply install
or import the VST instrument as a device. Instead, you
have to start from the Inspector.
Proceed as follows:
1. In the Project window, add a new MIDI track.
2. Select a VST instrument as output, e.g. “a-1”.
If there are no VST instruments available, open the Devices menu,
choose the VST Instruments option and install an instrument.
3. Now, instead of a simple click on the Open Device
Panels button to open the VST panel, press [Ctrl]/[Com-
mand] and click the Open Device Panels button.
A “Panels” folder similar to the one described under “Showing panels in
the Inspector” on page 15 opens.
4. Select “Setup”.
This opens a window similar to the Device window – however, no Device
structure is displayed on the left side and only buttons for panel editing
are available.
5. Click the Add Panel button to add a new panel.
This opens a window similar to the Panel window. However, as the VST
instrument and its parameters are pre-defined, you can only edit the pan-
els, but can’t add any new parameters or subnodes.
6. Now you can proceed with building a custom panel
and assigning the existing parameters of the VST instru-
ment as described in “Assigning parameters” on page 21.
(Existing snapshots/presets for the VST instrument are
also available from the pop-up list on top of the window.)