| Bad_Mister
Total Posts: 36620
Joined 07-30-2002
status: Legend
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Re: Loading Sequences from Cubase into MO8
There is no method other than SMF to transfer sequences done on computer to hardware. While a lot of work has been done by Yamaha and Steinberg for the opposite direction. SMF have been working for most people for quite some time.
For example, the new top-of-the-line Motif XS, has the ability to when you save an ALL data file (.X0A) you can save that file directly on your computer via Ethernet. Cubase at version 4.1 and later can then open that Motif XS ALL data file: it can extract each MIDI track to a Cubase MIDI track, it can extract each Audio (Sampled) track to a Cubase Audio track, and finally the Studio Manager with the Motif XS Editor can extract all User Voices and the current Mix setup from that same file.
This is the direction that most folks want to work. You’ve started a project on the hardware synthesizer and you want to take that work and move it to the computer where you can transport to larger systems, larger rooms, add additional musicians, tracks, effects, etc., etc., etc.
The other direction, taking something you have done in a DAW software and moving it to the hardware (presumably for a gig) is very nicely done by the good ole SMF… That is not broken, no need to fix it. Besides there are too many different keyboards out there for software designers to customize a mix setup for each… the standard method of transferring a MIDI sequence is a TYPE 0 format Standard MIDI File.
I like to say like TYPE “O” blood is the universal donor, Type 0 Midi file is the universal donor of MIDI data - every sequencer usually can export it, and every sequencer can usually import it.
You will have to STORE the Voices and Mix settings in the hardware. and relink them with the sequencer data… as SMF only deal with what is actually in the track events.
Can I use Cubase to set Mixing settings on the MO8 for each sequence as well?
Again if you have Studio Manager and the MO Multi-Part Editor running on your computer it is a simply matter to setup the MO - but recognize that the MO is really three devices in one (that is what a workstation keyboard is, 3 devices);
1) it is a controller set of keys
2) it is a synthesizer tone engine
3) it has a built-in sequencer.
The Tone Engine interprets the MIDI data in the sequence track
The Sequencer is simply MIDI data that must be interpreted by a tone engine.
A Standard MIDI File only contains the MIDI data, it does not usually, unless you manually place the Bank Select and Program Changes, the controller settings for Volume, Pan, Effects selection, Effect send, etc., etc., etc. into the file. Usually you would bulk dump that information to the tone generator.
With later versions of Cubase you can - as I mentioned - much of this has been addressed but in the opposite direction… A keyboard synthesizer workstation is seen as a music production tool… where you move from it to a larger world. Many movie scores, television shows, album projects get their start in a a synthesizer workstation, and then the tracks are moved to a software DAW like Cubase 4.5.2 where they add singers, guitars, the London Symphony, etc. etc.
But going from the DAW to the keyboard… SMF. Still the one. Besides when you think about software like even Cubase AI4 it can control as many as 256 MIDI tracks… the typical keyboard synthesizer workstation is 16 PART multi-timbral… a very few are 32 PART but that it. It would be simply not possible for software people to make that work. By the time you get to the top-of-the-line Cubase 4.5.2 you have unlimited tracks… yikes how would you export that to the generic keyboard workstation? SMF file is the best (only way). Type 0 will take all tracks designated MIDI channel 1 and merge them… all tracks desingated MIDI channel 2 and merge them, and so on… so you end up with 16 MIDI channels (one port of data). It simply is not broken.
Hope that helps.
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