Cubase MIDI Devices Explained

Introduction

This is meant to be a supplemental guide to the MIDI Devices Manual provided by Steinberg for Cubase Pro v14.

Banks and Programs

Many people use VST plugins in Cubase, preferring to work with instruments and effects “in the box”. Some of us may own various pieces of hardware that do not exist as VST plugins, and thus we must mount them on a keyboard stand or rack, and integrate them with our DAW via audio and MIDI interfaces.

Cubase has MIDI tracks that we can use to record MIDI messages from our external instruments, and then of course transmit those same messages back to them. Included as part of the Routing controls for a MIDI track is the ability to select the MIDI Device and Channel to receive from and send to. Additionally we’re able to specify a Bank and Program number for the MIDI track.

Often working with Bank and Program numbers is not enough for a user. If you’re working with a synthesizer that has factory presets or patches that cannot be changed or overwritten, you’d rather work a list of names for your patches.

The “Patch Bank” configuration provided by the MIDI Device Manager makes it possible to configure your devices banks and programs, which then show up in a drop-down menu from the MIDI track inspector.

Device Panels

Device Panels can also be configured with various sliders, knobs, and buttons that send MIDI messages to your device when they are manipulated. This is very useful when your devices are mounted on a rack at more than an arms distance from your desk, and in some cases it’s more efficient than menu diving on the device even if it’s sitting on your desktop in front of you.

Here is a screenshot of a panel I setup for an AKAI AX-60 (with Tauntek modification for MIDI CC support).

You can see more elaborate examples of Device Panels in Cykong MIDI Device Panels.

Disclaimer

The MIDI Device Manager was introduced with the release of Cubase SX3 in 2004. Unfortunately the functionality of the editor used to create device configurations hasn’t been updated since 2004, and was not developed to be flexible, convienent, nor intuitive. You have to know how to use the editor and make the right choices to successfully create a new configuration. If you make any mistakes, or run into conflicts, you may have to start all over with a new configuration, thus losing all the data you’ve previously entered.

Exporting a Single Device

Unfortunately you cannot simply select a MIDI Device in the MIDI Device Manager window, click on the “Export Setup” button, and save a single device configuration to a file. When you perform an export, it is exporting all the devices you have configured or imported.

If you want to share only a single setup with someone, you’ll need to export all of your configurations first… then remove all MIDI Devices except for the one you are creating, then click on “Export Setup” again to save only the single MIDI Device configuration to a file.

Importing a Single Device

The good news is that when you click on the “Import Setup” button, and choose a backup file that contains configurations for several devices, it will allow you to choose which MIDI Devices to import.

Export Your Preset Often

In many situations you are not able to reconfigure or undo a previous action you’ve taken, thus making your configuration invalid and requiring that you start over.

I highly recommend that you work with only a single MIDI Device configuration at a time, and that you export that configuration to new files named using version numbers or dates/times, as you build it out. This will make it possible for you to remove all devices, and re-import a previous configuration that was saved before a mistake was made.

There are certain things you cannot undo with the MIDI Device Manager.

• You cannot undo an action you accidentally perform, such as deleting an entire MIDI channel
• You cannot delete a subnode that you’ve added to the first MIDI Channel (#1)
• If you delete the “Off” preset that exists in a bank, you will not be able to rename the other presets you’ve added.
• If you don’t create Panels under the certain nodes, or certain sub-nodes, they will not be accessible to open in the Track Inspector, or even in a new window.

There are likely other issues I have yet to note here, so heed my warning and backup your configuration with each step.

MIDI Device Manager

The MIDI Device Manager allows you to configure your presets, patches, or programs in different banks that can be easily loaded from your MIDI Track in Cubase, as well as Panels that can be used to manipulate your MIDI device settings remotely.

To access this feature, go to Studio > More Options > MIDI Device Manager.

Patch Scripts

Note: I don’t recommend this feature, but I wanted to cover it because it wasn’t covered in the documentation so well. Patch Scripts import into a new device configuration with all MIDI channels configured as individual, which can limit your panel configurations later.

From the MIDI Device Manager window, you can click on the “Install Device” button to add a new device.

In addition to the “Define New” option, you’ll see many other common MIDI device entries that you can use as a template for your device. These pre-configured devices are made available from the a Patch Scripts collection that comes with Cubase.

Cubase maintains a set of text files that use a certain syntax for communicating the patches/presets/programs, and also MIDI drum maps for drum machines.

You can create your own patch scripts using the Script Maker software for Windows in the Steinberg FTP Site (ftp.steinberg.net), under PC_Stuff/Patchname_Script_Maker. I’ve confirmed that it runs on Windows 10. You can also configure these scripts by hand instead using a text editor.

If you look at the manual for Cubase you’ll find a “Where are the Settings Stored?” section that lets you know the path to where Cubase stores configuration files.

• Cubase 14
  • Windows - \Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\Cubase 14\.
  • MacOS - ~/Library/Preferences/Cubase 14/

The Patch scripts are located under Scripts\Patchnames\inactive inside of the configuration folder.

I created a new folder named “moog”, and placed the “moog_little_phatty.txt” file I obtained from the RivetedStudios patch scripts collection inside of that folder. I clicked on the “Install Device” button inside of the MIDI Device Manager, and there the new patch script showed up.

The patches did show up when I opened the device and went to the Patch Banks section of the MIDI Device configuration.

This is a great feature for those wanting to be able to switch between programs remotely for their external MIDI devices.

Creating a New MIDI Device

From the MIDI Device Manager window, click on “Install Device” and choose the “Define New” option, then press the OK button.

Keep in mind that whatever you configure on this step cannot be modified later. You’ll have to start all over again if you choose the wrong configuration for a newly created device.

In this example, I’m creating a new configuration for a device that supports synthesizer parts on MIDI Channels 1-5, and multiple drum parts on Channel 10. The Synth parts use respond to identical MIDI CC messages, interpretted as indended for each synth part based on the MIDI channel used.

The Drum Parts on Channel 10 use a different configuration of controls, with NRPN messages used to change the controls.

To accomodate this, we leave MIDI Channels 1-5 set as “Identical”, and isolate Channel 10 as individual.

Channel Settings

The “Channel Settings” section allows you to select common parameters that are supported for most devices. I have selected “Channel Parameters” to enable the configuration of Channel Parameters, which is needed if you plan on configuring MIDI CC controls for each channel. I’ve also selected “CC07: Volume” and “CC10: Pan” because this device does support those MIDI CC messages per each channel.

Channel Preset Type

For the “Channel Preset Type” section, you can choose between “Preset Reference” or “Snapshot”. You want to chose “Preset Reference” if your device can switch between programs using MIDI Bank and Program Change messages.

If the device doesn’t support Program Changes, and only supports MIDI CC messages to manipulate individual controls, you may want to choose the Snapshot option. See the MIDI Devices Manual on Page 21 for more information on that feature.

Patch Banks

When I select to open the new device, I’m provided with a Device configuration window first. You have to use the drop-down menu at the top of the window and select “Patch Banks” to access the section where we can configure the names for the patches, and the Bank and Program Numbers that those patches correspond to.

In this example here you can see I have a patch select named “005 Squeaky Bells”. Included with this Patch configuration are 2 MIDI messages.

• Program Change - Value: 5
• Bank Select 14 bit - Value: 0

MIDI can send up to 128 different values, usually ranging from 0 to 127. A value of 0 in this case is specifying that the first “Bank” of patches or presets should be loaded in your MIDI device. The “Program Change” selects which patch inside of that bank to load.

If your MIDI device supports multiple banks, you’ll want to include the Bank Select message with an appropriate value for each patch you’re configuring, to avoid loading a program from a different bank.

After you’ve configured a couple patches, close the MIDI Device window and go to your MIDI track. For the Output Routing, instead of choosing the MIDI port to route the output of your MIDI track to, choose the MIDI Device that you’ve configured. In the MIDI Device Manager window you should have already associated your MIDI Device with a certain MIDI Port, and this MIDI port name should be shown associated with the Device when you choose it.

After you’ve chosen the MIDI Device, you’ll see that the Bank and Program number select form fields are gone, replaced by a menu that allows you to select the programs by name.

Bank Assignments

By default there is a single bank configured automatically when you open the “Patch Banks” section.

If your device supports a different set of programs on one MIDI Channel than the ones supported on another set of MIDI channels, then you’ll want to create multiple banks that can be assigned to each MIDI channel appropriately.

After you’ve created multiple banks under the “Patch Banks” section, close the window and then re-open it.

A new option from the drop-down menu labelled “Bank Assignment” will become available, offering the ability to assign different banks to different channels.

If this doesn’t apply to your device, I recommend using only a single bank named after the device, with multiple folders inside of that Bank created to represent the groups of presets you want to make available to choose from within Cubase.

If you create multiple banks for a device configured with identical MIDI channels, you’ll find that you cannot assign different banks to those channels, as they all change when any one assignment is changed.

Configuring Panels

This section of this article is still a work in progress as of 02/27/2025. Check back for updates as I make further progress.

When you add a new panel, you are provided with the option of choosing “General Size”, “Inspector Size” or “Channel Strip Size”. I created a “General Size” panel and resized it to fit in the Inspector or the Channel Strip, and still it was not available to load in those contexts. So you can only expect a panel created for a specific context to be loadable in the context that it was made for.

Nested Panels

In the MIDI Devices manual for Cubase 14, on page 19, the section titled “Creating subpanels” advises you to create a device with all 16 MIDI channels configured as identical. It then has you create a simple volume fader control in a panel in MIDI Channel 1, named “Channel”.

You want to add a panel under the “Channel 1” sub-node so that it is also owned by all the other channels (2-16), and thus that panel sends MIDI CC messages from the pannel on the channel that the panel is assigned to. The “channel” variable for each MIDI channel sub-node changes for each sub-node by convention.

The manual lets you know that you can drag-and-drop panels from sub-nodes into a parent node, to create an aggregate panel. In this example, the root/parent node that is above all the MIDI Channel sub-nodes has a panel named “MotifMixer”, which contains a “Channel” panel from each individual MIDI channel. This is a good example of a multi-channel mixer panel, which would be perfect for a mixer.

Honestly any multi-timbral device could have a General mixer that is very large in side that features a controls in a “Channel Strip” configuration.

It would be very useful to have not only Volume and Pan controls for each instrument in a device, but also common controls like “Filter Cutoff” and “Filter Resonance”.

Multi Channel Mixer Bug

I have tried to create multiple “Inspector” panels inside of a MIDI channel sub-node for different sections such as “Part Common”, “Oscillator”, “Filter”, and “Modulation”… along with a “General” size panel that combines them all for the channel. This doesn’t work.

You must create a sub-node for each sub-panel (e.g. “Oscillators”, “Filter”, etc.) under the MIDI Channel node, then create a panel inside of each of those nodes.

In fact, this seems like it’s desired because when you create the first panel inside of a sub-node, the panel uses the same name as the node.

I tried to do this like the example in the manual, with panels under the channel nodes, and then combining them into a multi-channel panel under the root node.

Every time I tried to drag a panel from a channel into a global mixer panel, a Parameter Assignment window would popup. It wouldn’t matter if I pressed Cancel or Added a New Parameter and assigned it, then pressed “OK”, the program crashes every time.

I even started with a new file just to see if I could reproduce this bug. I create 2 sub-nodes under “Channel 1”, named “Common” and “Oscillator”. I build a narrow mixer channel style panel for each using the “Inspector Size”, with a fader at the bottom, and knobs above it. Strange enough, the “Common” panel can load in the track inspector “Device Panel”, but the “Oscillator” panel doesn’t show up to load. Very buggy and inconsistent.

I create a new sub-node called “Filter” and configure and Inspector Size panel with “Cutoff” and “Resonance” knobs. This is available to show up under the Inspector. I create a new sub-node called “Osc” and configure a new panel within it. I try to delete the “Oscillator” sub-node that isn’t showing up, but that’s not possible. I remove the panel from within it, but even then I still cannot delete the parameters inside of it, nor the “Oscillator” sub-node itself.

I check to see if my “Osc” panel is available to load in the inspector, and luckily it is. But now I have a dormant “Oscillator” sub-node that I cannot get rid of.

I create a panel in the root node named “Mixer”. I try to drag the “Common” strip from Channel 1 into the root Mixer panel, again I get a mysterious Parameter Assignment window, then it crashes immediately after I press either “Cancel” or “OK” in that window.

I try it again after re-opening the software, removing the older Device configurations, and re-importing the last backup of the configuration I made. I try to drag the “Common” panel from Channel 2 instead, again the same behavior.

This causes me to conclude that the master mixer panel, named “MotifMixer” on Page 19 of the manual, is not possible with Cubase 14 due to a bug.

Composite Channel Panel

The question that remains now is, will it be possible to use sub-nodes for separate modules, such as “Common”, “Oscillator”, “Filter”, “Modulation”, each being an Inspector Size panel that can be loaded in the inspector individually, yet then combine these into a “General Size” panel under “Channel 1” named “Channel”, that mixes them all into a composite panel for the channel itself.

This too causes the mystery Parameter Assignment window to show, followed by a crash. I decide to run Cubase 13 for MacOS to see if I get the same behavior. Turns out I can’t open project files with Cubase 13 for some reason, my CPR files are greyed out and can’t be opened. I run Cubase 12, which appears to be running in Rosetta mode.

I have the same trouble opening a CPR file from the File > Open menu, but the software shows a list of “Recent” projects from 2023 that I can open.

I create a fresh Device configuration file. I notice that the form behaves differently in Cubase 12. The “Identical” MIDI Channels are not all selected by default. The Backgrounds editor doesn’t feature the rectangles with the rounded corners that you can apply names to.

I configure sub-nodes for “Common” and “Oscillator” just like before.

I create a new MIDI channel and assign it to my test device. I notice that just like the Cubase SX manual showed an “Open Device Panel” button in the track inspector, Cubase 12 still retained that button.

Under the root node I create a new “General Size” panel named “Mixer”. I drag the “Common” panel from Channel 1 into the “Mixer” panel. I get the Parameter Assignment window popup for the “Volume” fader, but the software doesn’t crash when I press the “Cancel” button. I inspect the controls from each sub-panel and they are respectively assigned to Channel 1 and Channel 2.

It looks like I’m going to need to create my panels in Cubase 12, then import them in Cubase 14.

I notice that I cannot reveal the “Mixer” panel from the Device Panel section of the Inspector. Only the Inspector size panels in the sub-nodes are available in Cubase 12. I use the “Open Device Panel” button from the primary section of the track inspector, and the editor opens, not the “Mixer” panel from the root node. Only if I go to Studio > More Options > MIDI Device Manager, then open my “Test” configuration does it open with the Mixer panel available for use, instead of the editor. I tested the Mixer panel with my MIDI Monitor application and it does properly send the MIDI CC messages on each individual channel as expected.

I created a “Channel” panel under the Channel 1 sub-node, and I dragged the “Common” and “Oscillator” panels into it from the sub-nodes under the channel. This worked without crashing the application.

When I tried to access it from the Device Panel drop-down, it didn’t appears as available.

I created another panel in the root node named “Composite” with the “Common” and “Oscillator” panels dragged within it. I dragged a label into this panel with the text “Composite” so that I could distinguish it from the “Channel 1/Channel” panel that has the same configuration.

Neither was available from the Device Panel section of the inspector, still. I did use the “Open Device Panels” button from the Inspector and the “Channel” panel was available from there. Success! I tested the composite panel and it did send messages to the MIDI Channel assigned to the MIDI track. I changed the MIDI channel from 1 to 2 and tested again, and it sent to the messages to Channel 2 instead. Success!

So if I use Cubase 12, I can configure a master “Mixer” panel for a device, while also still creating a channel specific composite of the sub-panels.

This is great because it means that a configuration can offer small sub-panels that are compatible with the “Device Panel” section of the track inspector, while still offering a master panel for each channel that combines them all, and if we need a big global panel that with multi-channel support we can also do this.

I exported this test configuration to an XML file, then opened Cubase 14. Again the Device Panel drop-down menu did not make the “Channel” panel available, but when I clicked on the Gear icon, which must be the new equivalent of the “Open Device Panel” button that was in the main track inspector button set, I was able to expand “Channel 1” and access the “Channel” panel.

To access the “Mixer” panel in Cubase 14, I still have to open Studio > More Options > MIDI Device Manager, then click on “Open Device”. It opens in the Mixer panel, rather than the editor by default. It must pick the first panel that exists in the root node to open in this case.

Cubase 13 Test

I decided to test the editor in Cubase 13, which is native to Apple Silicon. I load in the “Test” device configuration that was created in Cubase 12. This works the same as it did in Cubase 14.

I create a brand new configuration, with the Common and Oscillator sub-nodes that each contain a panel of the same name. I assign Volume and Pan to the Common panel, and I add “Type” and “Wave” knobs to the Oscillator.

I create a “Channel” panel under “Channel 1” node, then I try to drag the Common and Oscillator panels into it. The program crashes.

So my conclusion is that Cubase 13/14 crash when trying to create composite panels, however Cubase 12 does not.

Panel Disappearing from Inspector

I had a panel disappear from the list that you can load under the Device Panel section in the Track Inspector. It turns out that if you resize an “Inspector Size” panel to be too long vertically, that can invalidate it from showing up.

Unable to Remove a Sub-Node

If you’re working with multiple “identical” MIDI channel nodes, and you create a sub-node under one, it will show up under them all. If you don’t want that sub-node any longer, you’ll have to remove it from the other nodes that it copied to before you can remove the originating sub-node.

You have to do this from the ‘Device’ mode, not the ‘Edit Panel’ mode.

Multiple Command Messages

I was having trouble configuring NRPN messages, or messages that include an MSB and LSB value. It turns out that you just have to collapse the “Control Change” folder inside of the drop-down menu to reveal the “Multiple Command Messages” options.

After choosing the “Control Change 14 Bit” option, I was able to configure the MSB and LSB values that should be used.

I also needed to configure the “Max” value in the range to 16383 to ensure the proper MSB+LSB values.

Much thanks to this Steinberg forum thread:

Building a Device Panel but MSB, LSB are not working as expected SOLVED

Maximum Sizes

You can make panels larger than the default size they show up as. If you exceed these sizes, the panel will not appear in the menu for the context you’re trying to load it for.

• Strip Panels
  • 282 Pixel Height
  • 82 Pixel Width
• Inspector Panels
  • 370 Pixel Height
  • 155 Pixel Width

Section Panels and Sub-Nodes

I created a device configuration for the Electribe EMX-1 and ESX-1 grooveboxes, which feature controls for multiple drum parts, with each set of controls belonging to a sections (common, modulation, oscillator, filter).

I created sub-nodes under Channel 10 (required for drum parts by the device), for each part. I configured the parameters under each of these sub-nodes, and created Inspector and Channel Strip panels under each of those sub-nodes.

When it came time to combine all of these sections into a drum mixer, the panel ended up being huge. It would have been nicer to have a multi-part modulation panel, a multi-part common panel, a multipart filter panel, etc.

After entering in NRPN message configurations for every parameter across 9-13 different drum/sample parts, I don’t want to do it all over again just to make separate panels possible. The editor only allows panels to feature other panels from child nodes, you can’t share configurations with sibling nodes.

If I ever do such a configuration again, I would create sub-nodes for each section, and then sub-nodes under those for each part. This would enable multi-part sub-panels for each section.

Other Resources

It was helpful to get some tips from Cykong Panel Tips.

Here are some MIDI Device Configurations I’ve provided for you to download.

I created these without proper support for identical MIDI channels and Panels, so I’ll be updating these at some point in the future.

• Moog Sub-37
• Roland MC-303
• AKAI AX-60