MIDI Devices

6
MIDI devices
Background
The MIDI Device Manager allows you to specify and set up
your MIDI devices, making global control and patch selec-
tion easy.
But the MIDI Device Manager also features powerful edit-
ing functions that can be used to create MIDI device pan-
els (Cubase only). MIDI device panels are internal
representations of external MIDI hardware, complete with
graphics. The MIDI device panel editor provides all the
tools you need to create device maps where every para-
meter of an external device (and even an internal device
like a VST instrument) can be controlled and automated
from inside Cubase.
For descriptions of how to create device maps and the
powerful device panel editing features, see “About Device
panels (Cubase only)” on page 14. For additional informa-
tion on how to create panels for VST instruments, see
“Building panels for VST Instruments” on page 33.
MIDI devices – general settings and
patch handling
On the following pages, we will describe how to install
and set up preset MIDI devices, and how to select
patches by name from within Cubase. This section also
describes how to create a MIDI device from scratch.
About program change and bank select
To instruct a MIDI instrument to select a certain patch
(sound), you send a MIDI Program Change message to
the instrument. Program Change messages can be re-
corded or entered in a MIDI part like other events, but you
can also enter a value in the Program (prg) field in the In-
spector for a MIDI track. This way, you can quickly set
each MIDI track to play a different sound.
With Program Change messages, you are able to select
between 128 different patches in your MIDI device. How-
ever, many MIDI instruments contain a larger number of
patch locations. To make these available from within Cu-
base, you need to use Bank Select messages, a system in
which the programs in a MIDI instrument are divided into
banks, each bank containing 128 programs. If your instru-
ments support MIDI Bank Select, you can use the Bank
field (Bank Selector) in the Inspector to select a bank, and
then the Program field to select a program in this bank.
Unfortunately, different instrument manufacturers use dif-
ferent schemes for how Bank Select messages should be
constructed, which can lead to some confusion and make
it hard to select the correct sound. Also, selecting patches
by numbers this way seems unnecessarily cumbersome,
when most instruments use names for their patches now-
adays.
To help with this, you can use the MIDI Device Manager to
specify which MIDI instruments you have connected by se-
lecting from a vast list of existing devices or by specifying
the details yourself. Once you have specified which MIDI
devices you’re using, you can select to which particular de-
vice each MIDI track should be routed. It is then possible to
select patches by name in the track list or Inspector.
Opening the MIDI Device Manager
Select MIDI Device Manager from the Devices menu to
bring up the following window:
Cubase:
This is the list of MIDI devices you have
connected. The first time you open the MIDI
Device Manager, this list will be empty.
These buttons let you manage the list of installed devices.
Here you specify to
which MIDI output
the selected device
is connected.
This button opens
a selected device.
This button
allows you to
import Mixmaps.
These buttons are used
to import/export XML
Device setups.