How to Dedicate Hardware 4 Faders for Cubase Film Composer (Score, Dialogue, Temp, Click)

I think I know what you're asking. So I have the Monogram Creative Console with the 3 faders and 3 knobs. I use Digital Performer and a colleague pointed out to me that every single channel in the Digital Performer MIXER has a MIDI CC assignment. If I recall what matters is that my first three. channels where I park my Dialog/SFX track and Temp track and Metronome are all the first 3 channels from the left on the mixer in Digital Performer. For whatever reason, through trial and error, we determined that those were MIDI CC 105, 106, 107. If there was a 4th channel it would be 108. I then setup up the 3 knobs in the Mongram Creative Console to transmit 105, 106 ,107 and then I setup Osculator to capture that MIDI information and route it to Digital Performer. As long as those 3 channels stay the first 3 on my mixer, then I am good to go. Maybe Cubase assigns MIDI CC destinations to each channel in the mixer too?

I use Platform M+ for this exactly.

When working on film, games, trailers, I have all instruments on the master fader (main output, master bus basically), while my first channels in the project are for dialogues, sfx and temp tracks, that are routed to production output. They are on the first faders.

Stays like this whatever I do in the project and is not changed by track selection, saving, loading.

I can quickly turn up or down whatever element I need, check my music under the scene or solo the temp track for a moment.

- Piotr

Pietro said:

I use Platform M+ for this exactly.

When working on film, games, trailers, I have all instruments on the master fader (main output, master bus basically), while my first channels in the project are for dialogues, sfx and temp tracks, that are routed to production output. They are on the first faders.

Stays like this whatever I do in the project and is not changed by track selection, saving, loading.

I can quickly turn up or down whatever element I need, check my music under the scene or solo the temp track for a moment.

- Piotr

Click to expand...

Interesting. Are you using generic remote, or Mackie protocol ?I have a Midi Maker Sparrow 4B fader and it just doesn't seem to want to do this. Every time a file is rendered or added, it goes all sideways.

Yes, you should use generic remote, and the tracks must be always in the same place in the projects, because Cubase uses the number of track (I think). You can test it changing the order and looking at the generic remote page.

I use a synchronized second version of cubase at the same time with the video and dialog tracks, and those are the always first tracks (Love working this way and highly recommend it if you are scoring for films).

But using only one Cubase, you should do it as Pietro said, maybe have a template with those tracks at the top, using generic remote. I have used various hardware faders boxes and as long as you are sending midi and keeping the same order it should be fine.

(when you finish making the generic remote, you should export it to a file, and then re import them from that file, this was a bug in previous versions, where you lost settings, I think it is fixed now but not completely sure)

Platform M+ works on Mackie protocol in Cubase. It has 9 faders, one of which is always the main master bus.

For me the key was to keep the production tracks on the top of the project, so they are always tracks 1-4 or whatever, to which M+ can default the first faders.

I divide track list and leave video, production audio tracks, groups, fx and rulers in the upper section to never touch their order. I also keep production tracks routed to the production bus (a separate output - a master bus, but routed to the same channel on my audio interface), which makes the master fader on the Platform only affect the main bus, to which I have routed all of the music I'm currently working on.

Lower section is for the cue, that I'm working on - Instruments, Audio and stuff, everything routed to the main master bus.

I use similar setup for most of my work. Sometimes, it's just one production track, for example SFX - when I'm working on a game.

I think it's doable with another controller as a generic remote.

- Piotr

LAFilmComposerGuy said:

I've read that the S1 is capable of this, but given that it's Avid, could be iffy in Cubase.

Click to expand...

This does work fine in Cubase on the S1 (mostly - see below). You assign the faders you need then save as a layout and export the layout. The only mild PITA is that when you switch between projects or start each time, you need to import that layout from disk, it doesn't always just remember the last state for some reason.

Also you'll need to keep these track positions consistent between projects. If you always use the same first 4 tracks then you'll be fine. Except...

I just checked, and the one part I can't get working is the metronome though. You can route this to a physical audio output, you can even route that output as a channel input and set it to input monitor - however I couldn't make it pass the click through the Cubase mixer. Presumably this would affect any other controller in the same way, only a physical hardware audio mixer would work.