No midi in cubase 5

Installed cubase 5 plus the 2 updates on the steinberg website.
I am using a focusrite saffire usb 6 soundcard.
I have set it up and am ok getting audio via mixer desk but no midi is being triggered when i use my m-audio oxygen v2,i donā€™t use it with the usb connection,as there is no driver for it for windows 7 64bit,i have the midi out from the keyboard into midi in of soundcard,i can see no sign of midi being triggered when i press a key,a light should light up on front of the soundcard,i am new to cubase 5,does the transport show midi activity on the transport bar like it did in cubase vst?canā€™t see any lights showing midi activity.
Another issue,i have a korg ER-1 drum machine hooked up in my midi chain,i was able to choose an option in cubase vst to make the ER-1 play in sync along with cubase when i hit play,am getting no playback from it in cubase 5,how do i set cubase 5 up to send signals to ER-1 so it plays in sync with cubase 5 as it used to in my old copy of vst5.1?
I used the hiphop template and changed the tempo to 140bpm,rearranged the midi notes for the drumkit and can hear the midi playing back.
just no sign of any lights showing midi activity on the front of the soundcard or in cubase 5.,guess i am missing something being new to using cubase 5 64bit,will nee to do some reading of the big manual that came with it ,any suggestions on what i should be looking for would be appreciated.
Have since found out there is a driver for the m-audio oxygen 8 v2,just not for the enigma software for using and creating controller maps to use the pots on the keyboard to control midi software,vsti and fx etc.
Will try it out tomorrow but could still do with some answers to syncing the drum machine to play in sync with cubase 5.Any additional info on what to look for to check cubase 5 is receiving/transmitting midi would be helpful too.
thanks.

Your version of Cubase shouldnā€™t make any difference, as far as I know they all show midi activity on the transport bar. If youā€™re not seeing the midi LED light up on your interface, something is likely wrong at your keyboard or between that and your interfaceā€¦unless the LED is burned out(?).

Double check your midi cable going OUT of your keyboard and IN your interface anyway, Iā€™ve made that mistake before when I was CERTAIN!

Try another midi cable if you have one to test.

Make sure your keyboard is actually transmitting midi OUT within itā€™s own settings, Iā€™ve done this before too. While youā€™re at it, check to see which midi channel(s) youā€™re sending midi on.

Within Cubase, youā€™ll of course want the midi track youā€™re working with, to receive to the corresponding midi channel youā€™ve transmitted on with your keyboard.
Under ā€˜Fileā€™ within Cubase, thereā€™s a drop down menu for ā€˜Midi Filterā€™ settings, while youā€™re at it, you may as well make sure you donā€™t have any midi channels youā€™re using muted in there.

thanks for the advice sync,installed the updated driver for the oxygen8 v2 midi keyboard and midi is working now,barely any noticeable latencey.
A couple of questions-
1.How do i set cubase 5 up so my korgr ER-1 drum synth is sync to cubase when i hit play it plays in time with cubase?
I loaded the preset on start up to the Hip Hop kit,changed tempo to 140 and re-programmed the drum hits so i have a dubstep style beat.
I noticed that the bass sound is coming from Halion,when i look at vst instruments in the drop down Devices menu there is no vstiā€™s listed in the box that you would load a vsti into cubase,why isnā€™t Halion listed in that box.
I want to add some 64 bit vstiā€™s and vst effects into cubase,which folder should i be installing the vstā€™s in to?
This Cubase 5 is a totally new way of working for me after all those years working with cubase vst,finding it a bit confusing but i guess reading that big manual that came with it and checking out tutorials on the net will slowly help me get around to knowing how to use it easier.
Shame i cannot load my old .all files from cubase vst.
Guess i am going to have to mix down individual tracks from those old songs to .wav files then import them into cubase 5 and then go about arranging them.
I like the look of it and the option to load external hardware effects like my Zoom multi fx rack unit, Boss metal zone pedal and my Korg Kaos pad.
Only thing left to do now with my pc is install the Helix Phonic firewire mixer,have got a firewire card with a TI chipset in it after i was advised by someone as the firwire card i have at the moment is not recognising that i have installed the Phonic mixer.
Fingers crossed the TI chip Firewire card will recognise the phonic mixer and then it will show as inputs in cubase 5.
thanks again,will update when i have installed the firewire card.

Your questions are in uncharted territory for me for the most part to be honest, but Iā€™ll try my best with what I do know, or THINK I have an idea. I can say that to convert your older songs created within Cubase VST 5, you need to get a hold of Cubase SX3 to convert your .dll to the file system that all versions from SX3 up to Cubase 7 uses. Itā€™s a simple process. Then you wonā€™t have to do track by track export/import. You can get SX3 directly from the Steinberg siteā€¦you know, the BIG Steinberg LOGO at the upper left of these forum pages. Or obtain SX3 some other way, a used copy maybe someone is selling. Iā€™ve seen older versions selling for next to nothing, when I originally paid close to $600ā€¦go figure!

As for syncing your drum machine/synth, which Iā€™ve never done. From my own research & PDF manual reading (from memory here) there are various ways to sync various devices with Cubase.

I ā€˜believeā€™ youā€™ll want to choose the ā€˜Transportā€™ tab, and thereā€™s a drop down menu, then go to ā€œSynchronization Setupā€, which looks like this (donā€™t know what version this pic is from?) but Iā€™m sure among different version, this dialog box should at least look similarā€¦later oneā€™s no doubt may be more elaborate (?).

I THINK youā€™ll want to use MMC (Midi Machine Control)ā€¦ well this is what I think is the direction you need to go towards, and do further PDF reading on those specifics. I canā€™t imagine any other way to sync up a piece of hardware with Cubase, unless your hardware has some other form of capability to sync? older adat serial type sync port maybe?

I know what you mean about getting lost, the 1st time I saw Cubase SX3, what my buddy is using to this day, I was totally lost & clueless compared to Cubase VST. Seems like versions after SX3 or more like SX3 than any VST versionā€¦but I donā€™t the experience to say for sureā€¦it just LOOKS like it. Well, Cubase 7 looks fairly different.

i have a copy of cubase sx3 that came with cubase 5 that i got from ebay,the seller kindly threw that in,he had upgraded from that to cubase 5.
i have midi output coming out fine,only thing is the midi light on the focusrite saffire usb 6 shows no light,not a flicker but i get sound wih no noticeable latencey.
i also just installed a helix phonic 12 mk2 firewire mixing desk,that has installed ok now it seems,just totally bamboozalled by all the ways of routingoptions and attaching external hardware to it by creating buses.
Going to be a long learning curve.
The room where i have my setup is now an absolute maze of various wires and cables,i only have a couple of plug points in that room so i have a couple of extension boards crammed with various plugs for drum machine,pc,monitor,mixing desk,kaos pad,midi keyboard bass amp and god knows what else,i forget at the moment.
Def needs a good tidying up.

As for syncing the drum machine,iā€™ll try what you suggested and check in the manual book that came with cubase 5,no need for a pdf window to be opened.
I am sure in old cubase vst it was an option to do with midi timecode i think,canā€™t remember exactly at the mo but i always sussed out to get it to sync with cubase vst.
I am off now to install some additional 64 bit vstiā€™s and vst fx,got the manual on my lap so hopefully should be ok installing them.
Been a long day messing around putting everything together,downloading updated drivers for WIN 7 64 bit,with a hangover as well cos i was 49 yesterday,feel more like 59 after all this crawling about attaching cables etcā€¦lol.
Thanks for your help again,always appreciated,suprised there is not more input,there must be members here who used cubase 5 who know a bit about it.
Will update about any issues i encounter,hopefully should be ok now.
thanks again SYNC,your a star.

hangover as well cos i was 49 yesterday,feel more like 59

:laughing:

I think the reason why thereā€™s not a whole lot of activity here in the older versions forums is that many have moved on to newer versions, and just donā€™t have much interest here. As for you lack of receptacles in your room, multi-outlet strips are perfectly fine, just make sure you donā€™t overload them. They typically have about a 13 to 15 amps rating, which you should stay below that.

i got rid of the phonic firewire mixer as it was pretty useless,whenever i tried to use its asio driver in cubase or reason i just got a hell of a lot of clicks and pops.
Reverted back to my old Behringer mixer.
I followed a tutorial in computer music magazine for setting up ext hardware synths,i still have no sync with the Korg ER-1 drum machine,audio yes,midi activity in transport bar when i press my midi keyboard but no sound and no sync.
A friend also borrowedme his Roland SH-32,set that up,again,transport bar shows Midi activity when i play keyboard but no audio from it.
The only audio i get from it is when i press the Demo mode and get to hear it.
Have tried new Midi cables but still no sound and no sync for the ER-1,just glad i didnā€™t hit the credit card and buy the latest version of Cubase,would have been a total waste.
So i am just stuck using vstiā€™s and Reason rewired to cubase without any noticeable latencey,shame i canā€™t use the outboard gear with cubase,will keep trying to get it to sync,must be a solution somewhere out there surely?

You DO know that midi cables do not carry audio right? You need a separate audio connection/line to hear any audioā€¦you use the midi for midi information & your sync/machine control & I believe Word Clock to keep things tight.

As for sync, there are different wayā€™s to achieve this in Cubaseā€¦via a combination of midi, Word Clock, or digital audio which carries sync information on itā€™s own. I believe you need to go to the Project Synchronization Dialog Box & thereā€™s another drop down dialog fox for synchronization settings within Cyou ubase, and select the appropriate choices. If you havenā€™t already you should read the section about synchronization in your Cubase 5 manualā€¦thereā€™s a LOT of information on it. But I THINK you want MTC (I get MTC & MMC confused) for transmitting sync over midi cables, recheck with your manual for your particular needs though. You do have to make settings in each Cubase, and your outboard gearā€¦one of them set as the Master, and the other set as the Slave.

You donā€™t need the latest Cubase version to do what youā€™re trying to doā€¦which is something many past Cubase versions are capable of.

yes i know midi doesnā€™t carry audio,maybe i expressed it wrong in my post,i was saying that iā€™d tried different and new midi cables to check there was nothing wrong with anything else.
I can attach my outboard gear to cubase vst on my old pc and i get cubase as master with drum machine in perfect sync with cubase.
I have audio from the outboard stuff coming from my mixer with main output going to my amp then speakers.
the drum machine only accepts time code not clock,have it set to receive on midi channel 10,ivā€™e gone over the manuals section on syncronisation but canā€™t find a way of getting it to work,iā€™m at a loss as to why it doesnā€™t work,what i end up doing now sometimes is just recording sounds from the drum machine into cubase then doing any editing if needed,sometimes i use recycle to cut a loop into slices then import into reason rewired to cubase,not ideal but better than nothing .
The only thing i can think might be causing this problem is using win 7 64 bit bit,audio/midi interface installed with updated 64bit drivers but using cubase in 32 bit mode to get rewire to work(cubase 5 64bit doesnā€™t support rewire btw).
Saying that,I have Reason both 64 and 32 bit installed,i have tried adding midi gear in Reason 8 which you can do now but still get no midi sounds although transport bar shows midi input activity.
Thanks for the input anyway,always appreciated.

The 64 bit & 32 bit thing may cause some issues (so Iā€™ve read before) but I have no personal experience with using 64 bit anythingā€¦neither do I have any experience with using Reason or Rewire.

I DO think you need to break things down during your trouble shooting process, by temporarily simplifying thingsā€¦that is, while trying to figure things out, donā€™t use Reason or rewire, but just Cubase and your drum machine until you can get midi working.

However, you do say you have midi incoming activity in your transport bar, and thatā€™s a good thing, and a starting point. To me this gives me great reason to believe that you DO actually have midi coming into Cubase. Iā€™ve had issues myself of midi coming in ok, yet couldnā€™t get the rest of ā€˜whateverā€™ it was that I was trying to do, work. It came down to a routing, and assigning error on my part. So, if Iā€™m understanding things correctly, you now need to verify that YES, you are actually getting midi into Cubase (I think you are). What I would do at this point is to connect & have the drum machine play on itā€™s own (and forget sync for now), and just send the midi from it into Cubase. You should again see midi activity. While trying both midi channel 10 from your drum machine, and also midi channel 10 receive in Cubase and also try ā€˜ANYā€™ midi channel receive in Cubase, arm that midi track and attempt to RECORD that midi. You obviously need to have both the drum machineā€™s midi, and Cubaseā€™s midi set up correctly. And if something is foobared, you may need to re-initialize your drum machine back to factory default. If you can get Cubase to record that midi, youā€™re onto the next step of trouble shooting.
That next step that I would do would be to (again while keeping thing simple) get the audio from your drum machine into Cubase (which you said you were getting audio). The next step is to have Cubaseā€™s recorded/imported midi drum track to send midi to your drum machine, and verify that.

As I said, I have no experience with Reason or Rewire, but I would think youā€™d have the basic audio and/or midi I/O options that need to be followed throughout the chain. And to trouble shoot, you shouldnā€™t try to do the entire enchilada at once, but add in each element AFTER you have success on one aspect.

Hopefully if nothing else, this will give you a fresh mind-set to work with.

have copied and pasted this to a notepad file that iā€™ll put on a usb stick and transfer it to my music pc and go through the steps you advised doing.
will take out the roland sh-32 of the midi chain and just have the drum machine attached ,midi out of soundcard to midi in of drum machine,but,where does midi out of drum machine go to?
The midisportx2 midi interface(usb connected to the pc)?
I disconnected a while back after not getting anywhere with the sync problem,have to reinstall the drivers for it,as everytime it becomes disconnected it asks me to re-install the drivers.

Will report back at some point.
thanks for the input,never thought of approaching it in this way.

and will have to dig out the drum machine manual to find out how to just send the midi from it into Cubase.

You said you had a focusrite saffire usb 6 soundcardā€¦it has midi In/Out right? When I said break things down, I meant to the simplest form. Take midi out from you sound card, to midi in of your drum machine - take midi out of your drum machine into midi In of your sound card. Verify that everything is working as it shouldā€¦that is, your drum machine is sending midi properly, and into Cubase, and that you can record a midi track from it. Once you record your midi track, send it back into to trigger the drum machine, and hear itā€™s audio. If that all works, youā€™ve verified at least that!


I have/use Moto MTP 8X8 midi routers (models with & without USB) I often just connect my 8X8 midi routers in & out of my sound cards midi I/O rather than use itā€™s USB to my PCā€¦itā€™s just easier sometimes. You can use the USB if you like, I find USB for midi to be unreliable, hit & miss.

But Iā€™d leave you midi router out of the chain until you verify your drum machine is working in and out of Cubase, then add another device, and get that working.

If youā€™re trying to daisy-chain several midi devices You didnā€™t say you were?), youā€™re going to make things harder for yourself. So when you need to use several midi device to send & receive midi, a router makes that easier to deal with. When daisy chaining midi devices, often some of the midi from some of the devices doesnā€™t get passed through properly, if at all.

right,will disconnect the midi keyboard later as that is what is connected to midi in of soundcard,going to factory rest the drum machine as you said,i was using it for years with cubase vst so its been used to getting midi time code from that.
tried sending midi data to cubase from the drum machine last night,i think the manual tells you how to dump sysex(?) but when i tried to do that, the drum machine should do it in a minute or so usually but last night it just went on forever and nothing was received by cubase.

I meant, just ā€˜playā€™ the drum machine (some simple internal sequence) and have it set to send itā€™s midi out while playingā€¦ and have Cubase record that midi for several bars to test. Keeping on mind, not all midi devices transmit on the same channel by default.
(Just the other day, I had an issue with receiving midi on something (Kontakt I think) couldnā€™t hear anything from the VSTiā€¦DOH, it was sending by default on midi channel one, and I had my midi channel one in Cubase on midi channel 5. I could only get it to work by setting Cubase to receive on ā€œanyā€ channel or channel ā€œ1ā€. I found out ā€˜whichā€™ channel it was actually sending by selecting one channel at a time.)

In case Iā€™ve misunderstood, one of your problems was that you couldnā€™t get midi into Cubase from your drum machine, which was going through other device 1stā€¦you said you saw midi activity in the transport bar, but wasnā€™t doing anything more. Thatā€™s why I was suggesting to beak things downā€¦to confirm you can do that, by going directly without all the complications mixed in.

yeah i already tried that but no midi was recorded,later on i will restore drum machine to factory settings and plug it straight into midi in from drum machines midi out,i hope its not something to do with the midi ports on my soundcard,but,as i can see activity something in the transport bar indicating its receiving when i play the keyboard but something is blocking it from sending midi into cubase,i put in some midi notes manually last night(on the correct notes corresponding to sounds on the drum machine)and no sound and no activity from transport bar or the channel the midi notes were programmed into.
The drum machine is set to send/receive on midi channel 10 by default,double checked on its LED that it is on channel 10,that is the channel i have set in cubase to receive on midi channel 10.
Will let you know later either tonight are at weekend,have a few other things going on tonight and at the weekend so it might be a later update than earlier. Will update on how it goes when i get the time.In a rush at the mo so sorry about the short reply,
thanks once more for your time trying to help get this matter sorted out.

Hi Q-bass,
sorry for the delayed reply.
I finally got it to work,did what you said,plugged midi in/out to soundcard in/out and recorded the Korg Er-1 into cubase,it appeared in the drum editor ,recorded a drumloop from the ER-1 ,velocity included.
I also,unchecked filter out sysex in preferences,the drum machine now runs in sync with cubase:)
Am now just using the m-audio oxygen8 v2 midi keyboard to transmit/trigger midi via usb instead of the midi cable i was using.
At the moment the only thing iā€™m missing is the midi keyboards controller pots being able to control vstiā€™s or Reason synths.
Have just downloaded what is called Enigma for the oxygen8 midi keyboard that installs software that enables to use the midi controller pots on the keyboard,they were not available for win 7 64 bit when i set up my rig but since then i just discovered m-audio have released updated drivers that i hope work.
There is an .xml file for cubase that i downloaded from m-audio site,iā€™m not sure where to put that,any idea?

Also,i now have my mates Roland SH-32 synth sitting there doing nothing at the moment and wondered if you knew how i would connect it in a midi chain,the Korg ER-1 has a midi thru port as well as in and out.just not sure how to set up the chain and finally get the SH-=32 working.

Many,many thanks for taking the time to help me with this,i almost sold the drum machine at one point,glad i didnā€™t now,as well as using some of the sounds and patterns,i can also use it as a tone generator,i just had a really wicked reggae dub sounding springy type sound layered over a snare hit in cubase that i can record the changes in real time into cubase.
thanks again,if you can help with the midi chain question that would be a great help too.