Did only Studio One get the midi control learn thingie right?

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I love the way you set up your midi controller in Studio One 2 Producer. You set up your controller in an easy enough menu in the host options, set up all controls in a screen where you press "learn", and then turn all the knobs on your controller, save it, and you can then link those controls in the plugin windows, whenever you open up a plugin. You won't even need the midi learn functions which most of the plugins come these days then, and, especially, you don't have a hard time fiddling with the midi CC's when the plugin doesn't come with a midi learn function, like Waldorf Largo. (all the considering you don't have a controller supported out of the box by Studio On, then it's even easier, as you don't need to learn your controllers controls)

Whenever i open Cubase then, i wished i had such an easy method to map controls on my controller. The learn functions seem cluttered, there are 3 different ways to do it, and all those ways seem overly difficult to figure out. Or, when you do it with the quick controls. you only have 8 of those, and need to switch between layouts, which makes me wonder why you have those at all.

I know that Reaper seems to have an easy enough midi learn system, what about other hosts? I really think it's not such a big deal to have an easy system, wonder why it's so hard in some hosts, when others can do it so much easier. Note that most of my synth plugins to offer midi learn, but, for the ones which don't, it's quite a PITA to set it up.

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Any opinions? :P

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my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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Yeah, sounds pretty similar to Control Link in Studio One. :) Really wonder why it's such a mess in Cubase.

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Ok, let's approach this thing in a different way: Are you even interested in controlling your VSTi's via a midi controller? :D

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In Cubase 6.5 it really was a mess, Studio One handles this aspect much better. I'm surprised (or rather not) that it's still a mess in the most recent Cubase versions or are you using an older version? I consider the ability to use my Midi controller for controlling VSTs (eg filter cutoff) as essential.

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Well, they added the quick controls in newer versions of Cubase, but I don't find it very useful, because you can only map 8 controls at once, and have to switch through pages. I really didn't find a great way to map my VSTi's in Cubase, when they don't support midi learn, at least not in the way Studio One does it e.g.

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ACT etc make the simplest/naivest(*) kind of mapping easier, but unfortunately I kinda find MIDI to parameter mapping pretty primitive in general, especially given how long we've had plugins.

By now I'd have thought that DAWs should support using multiple devices to control a single plugin, a single device to control multiple plugins, controlling multiple parameters simultanously, nonlinear (inverted, scaled, etc) mappings, on-the-fly and programmed switching between different sets of maps, all that sorta stuff.

(* yes, it should be a word, goddammit)
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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I really like how Reaper does it (no wonder, hehheh). Just touch a control and you can insta-MIDI learn it. Simples.

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Bitwig does it quite nicely as well. There's the usual suspect for "Map to Controller or Key", which works for CC, notes and computer keyboard keys. A separate Mapping Browser Panel gives an overview of all assignments both as a list and as coloured elements across the interface and allows for just clicking on a control and turning a knob/pushing a button to make the assignment. One knob/button can control multiple things at the same time, such as soloing a set of channels by a push of a button.

There's also 8 assignable macros for each loaded device (plugin or native device). These allow for scaling the control (so that for example the full range of a physical knob only affects a filter on a range from 200 Hz to 2 kHz, instead of 0 Hz to 20 kHz) or for inverting the controller action.

Then on top of all that, there's the scripting API which allows for programming the behaviour of the controller, basically so that once you've got it working the way you want it, you don't have to give it a second thought. The kind of programmed switching between sets whyterabbyt mentioned is possible through the API. A common setup is for setting a keyboard's knobs to the primary device's (the first in the selected chain of devices) 8 macros, making hands-on control really quick.

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Aye! So it seems that Steinberg is in definite need to upgrade their system to something similar. :) As obviously, other hosts do seem to do it better.

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Yeah the way S1 does this is great, wish other hosts were as simple to setup for controllers.

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:borg:
Last edited by ontol on Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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What i really do find convenient is to map much used parameters to my 8 knobs and sliders on my midi keyboard, stuff like filter cutoff, resonance, filter env amount, amp env adsr, filter env adsr, and maybe unison detuning, and filter drive. It's quite handy for me to have those mapped, as, when playing around with a sound, those are usually the things i will mostly change on the fly. But, of course, there also will be occasional changes within the plugin GUI, when fiddling.

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in samplitude you select your controller as your midi device, in the vsti dialog box select easy learn or some thing like that, click what you want controlled on the vsti and then move the knob or fader, push the button you to assign to it and then move onto the next one. When you're done uncheck the learn. I do this with my Akai MPK49 all the time :)
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.

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