Cubase 10 <> MicroFreak control

[Bolle]

I am slowly making progress, connecting the MicroFreak to Cubase (version 13).
Cubase makes it a little cumbersome in my opinion. At least for a first-time synth buyer like myself, implementing MIDI control for the first time.

So far i have the MicroFreak synchronized with Cubase via MIDI (not USB). In Seq mode, the MicroFreak follows the tempo and starts and stops as it should.

Now what i want to do is get the MicroFreak to work with MIDI keyboard/Cubase piano roll input.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, i would be most grateful.

Greets,
Bolle

[matjones]

HI @Bolle

Long time Cubase user myself, so this shouldn’t be too difficult to walk you through.

First off, i take it you have midi cables, you’ll need one to send midi from the MF to Cubase and one to send midi back from Cubase to the MF.
If you don’t have two midi cables, then use the USB option instead. You’ll also need to specify on your MF whether you are using USB or ‘DIN’ midi in the MF’s ‘global options’. (discussed later in this post)

Make sure Cubase and the MF are both on the same midi channel.

I’ve highlighted where to change midi channels in Cubase in the above pic. We’ll use CH 1 in this instance.

Then you’ll need to assign the midi channel you wish to send/receive midi on in your MF.
This is in the manual, P 101/151 as below.

Note that if you want to use your MF as a midi controller too, you’ll need to turn ‘Local’ to ‘off’, this will stop the unit being double triggered and effectively causing a midi loop.

If you are wanting to record the MF’s audio with Cubase then you’ll also need to assign it an audio channel in Cubase.
As below…

I do not know what audio interface you have so you’ll have to assign whatever audio inputs you have plugged the MF into as inputs in Cubase.
If you want to monitor the incommoding audio, just hit the little ‘speaker’ switch that i’ve highlighted in yellow in the above pic, don’t forgot to hit that switch again if you want to hear what you’ve just recorded.

That should see you up and running!

HTH!

[Bolle]

Thank you very kindly for your reply, Mat!

Unfortunately, i didn’t get things to work yet.
Initially, i only had a MIDI cable going from my Focusrite Scarlett interface ‘OUT’ to the MicroFreak’s MIDI ‘IN’ and thought maybe that was the problem.

But now i’ve added the MF OUT → Focusrite IN MIDI cable and it’s not working.
I know there’s definitely a connection, as i’ve got the sync going, at least.

Here’s what i have going in Cubase: Created a MIDI channel with ‘1’ as its channel. Added a little piano roll to hear how things are going. Created an Audio channel for MF audio from the Focusrite audio input.

Here’s my Arturia MIDI Control Center setup:

And here’s my Cubase studio setup window, showing all MIDI connections:

The problem might be the Out ‘2- Focusrite USB MIDI’ being ‘inactive’ (Focusrite USB is the name of the device, i’m not using a USB connection for MIDI).

But then i should not have a working sync connection either.

Stumped!

[Bolle]

I got it!!!

Some time in the past, i hid the “Inspector” section in Cubase. Probably didn’t need it at the time.
I brought it back, and that is where i made the connection to the MicroFreak (by selecting the ‘Focusrite USB MIDI’ port for MIDI output).

Like so:

I am very happy.

Thank you again, Mat, for pointing me in the right direction.

Kind greetings,
Bolle

[matjones]

Hey @Bolle

That’s GREAT news!

Re, the inspector, i think as you’ve just seen that when in the tracking/composing stages it’s a VERY handy thing to have visible.

Time to go and have some proper fun for you now