LFO & other modulation sources to drive automation

+1 from me too guys, automation is great and i love it the way cubase handles it but we need more movement and modulations. so all the above is super cool stuff for Steinberg to consider. the future of music is the modular approach.

Yeah, cubase sucks in Automation/Modulation field as hell.
What I would like to see is biding few controls to one macro. Some macro rotaries like in NI Massive, so I can bind few parameters to it. And than modulate it with something else.

Also this feature in FL is Fantastic: Envelope controller for a VSTi parameter. It’s awesome thing, and Cubase doesn’t have anything like that at all.

Also vector automation and Bézier curves controls would be nice.

But I think we should dream about it few more major versions While Yamaha/Steinberg are making money with other stuff: Dorico \ Cubasis \ etc.

+1
Cubase far beyond competitors in Electronic music.

It should be possible using a Generic Remote Device, a Virtual MIDI loopback port, and a standard MIDI track using the ‘autolfo’ MIDI insert. If the “autolfo” MIDI insert included with CuBase Artist/Pro isn’t enough, there are probably various free MIDI lfo VST pluins about on the internet. I personally use Bidule a lot to supplement and enhance all things MIDI/VST.

Have a look at this thread to get an idea of how one can route a MIDI track (via virtual loopback port) into a "Generic Remote Device’ map to automate just about ANYTHING in Cubase from a standard MIDI track. I.E. Automate arming/disarming tracks, muting/unmuting, mixer faders/pots, launching macros, changing cycle points, stopping the transport, all VST controls for loaded plugins, and more.

Furthermore, with something like Bidule at hand, you wouldn’t need to bother with the Generic Remote maps for the ‘automate via multiple lfos’ scenario. You’d just host any plugins you wanted to drive with MIDI or VST automation lfo inside a Bidule instance and build your sweeps and modulations in Bidule. One nice thing about a tool like Bidule, is you don’t have to keep waiting months and years to get simple logic implemented as a ‘new feature’. You just set aside a few minutes and build it yourself :slight_smile: It’s a tool that turns my dumbest DAWs (even the awkward scoring packages) and Plugins into an uber flexible powerhouse. It’s pretty dawg-gone cool to be able to mix and match multiple plugins into ‘one seamless instrument’ that can be driven via single MIDI or Instrument track.

1 Like

95 USD? FL Studio Fruity Edition is 99 USD. I’d better use it as ReWire. It also includes patcher and stuff.

But we are talking here that Cubase doesn’t suits for need of modern music producers with all that crazy automation routings and envelopes for VSTi’s parameters. More and more I need to switch to another DAW because I can not recreate some tutorial for sound design in Cubase. I stick with Cubase just because I used to it. But if I get used to another DAW why would I come back. I switched from Cubase 5 and I literally don’t see BIG improvements. It looks more like tones of make up on it. But nothing affected my workflow accept copy/paste VSTi preset, A/B compare, undo in Mixer and sampler track. Maybe other users found more funny stuff, but FL studio has more progress than Cubase from 2005 for sure to me.

I am suggesting that you CAN automate VST automation lanes with the MIDI autolfo insert. You can automate the entire DAW with a MIDI track if you make some Generic Remote Device maps.

I’m NOT saying the feature requests are bad, or that they shouldn’t be implemented, but you CAN manipulate VST Controls via LFO TODAY. You don’t have to wait for a future version.

You CAN automate pretty much EVERYTHING in the DAW using MIDI tracks, a virtual MIDI port, and a Generic Remote Device map. Simply explore the ‘Generic Remote Device’ portion of CuBase. Generic maps are not difficult to make and change at will.

I just mention Bidule because it goes well with all your tracking or scoring DAW hosts (including FL) and it often fills a lot of ‘missing feature’ gaps. It’s great for designing low level logic for both MIDI and Audio streams in ways that very few tracking or scoring DAWs allow period (or if they do allow, requires in-depth experience with scripting languages and OSC protocols). It makes it easy to bring multiple plugin types into host that don’t support them (AU, VST3, etc.). You can also elect to work in discrete processing mode. You can chain stuff when you’re all out of slots. You can design your own ‘instruments and effects’ from the ground up, mixing, meshing, and automating plugins anyway you desire, and then go about using them in ANY tracking or scoring DAW you like. I.E. You could design a sound that uses Kontakt at low key velocity, fades in HALion at mid velocity, and changes to ARIA with an inverted keyboard and a custom designed comb filtering audio processor, and 17 sweeping notch filters at high velocity; while also fading a Retrologue and PadShop effect in and out using the Mod Wheel. You can insert arp engines and such into plugins (or sets of them) that don’t have an ARP engine. You can also do ‘sample by sample’ manipulation of the audio stream itself. Really, if you can imagine it, there’s probably a way to build it.

Throw in the free Reastream (Or Audio, or SPDIF patch chords) and a RTP-MIDI driver, and you could even keep your instruments on separate computer form the DAW if you’re ever in need of that capability. Because people throw machines capable of hosing a few plugins on the trash heap every day…I’ve found it useful to be able to offload some tasks to a remote machine when my main DAW machine runs out of headroom.

If you are serious about ‘sound design’, Bidule is something in a class of its own. “Sound Design” is specifically what it was built for.

I don’t get should I setup something outside of Cubase? A virtual MIDI port? How to do that?
With current LFO modulation options I don’t see any chances modulate anything in a random VSTi plugin.

I understand the idea behind Bidule, I had some experience with PureData. It’s like visual programming language.
Honestly I just don’t want have some business with “Designed not in here” apps.

I had so much pain with migrating projects that used ReWire (Reason, FL Studio, dumb Windows and it’s errors with DLLs). One day I said f@ck it, and I will never make projects that depends on 3rd party stuff that can not be in one DAW saved as one file again.

FL is perfect in that way: keeps presets and plugins (Data) in understandable way (try to find something for Cubase, it’s spawned all over the system %)). Has a bunch of plugins and sounds for any prototyping and use case. To make quick ideas or experimenting I never use Cubase. It’s to heavy and doesn’t have everything needed. But I like it’s workflow in a long term. Big projects in FL is madness.

deleted due to edits…sorry about the double post.

Did you follow the thread I linked above? It has links to how to set up a Virtual MIDI port on Mac, and on PC.

On Macs you don’t have to ‘install’ anything to get a virtual loopback MIDI port. Windows doesn’t offer such a thing, but a simple free utility called loopMIDI can give you all the virtual ports you like. Really, its a pretty standard thing to have installed on a Windows DAW workstation.

  1. You can ‘remote control’ the ENTIRE DAW using a Generic Remote Device.
  2. You can record and play back these remote movements in a standard MIDI track if you route the controls through a MIDI track first (hence the need for a loop-back MIDI port).

It’s an old school way of dong things…but it’s been around for a long time. People have been running entire stage setups (including the light show) and studios like this for decades. It’s a different sort of work-flow, kept and edited in old fashioned MIDI tracks, but it does get the job done.


Then don’t use Rewire. Use the VST plugin version of Bidule. The last used state of a plugin gets saved with your project…just like with any other VST/i plugin. ReWire does have its advantages (I.E. You can hot swap plugins in the stream without CuBase glitching and losing sync, the VST version is better at this than working directly with CuBase insert slots as well) but, it’s not the only way to make use of Bidule.

Any time you load a VST/i, you’re using a ‘not designed in here’ process. Most advanced plugins give you ways to add LFO to anything you like, and also allow you to control those parameters with CC events (right click the control and pick ‘learn’, then set a controller for it). In most cases you can drive anything in a plugin using CC messages (In the case of HALion SE, you could be limited to stuff showing on the instrument Macro, and in the QC knobs). The only reason you’d need to LFO the actual ‘VST automation lane’ is if the plugin itself is playing a sound that cannot do it on its own.

Really, if you are porting the same sound design among several different DAWs, Bidule in ReWire or Stand Alone is really the way to go. You don’t have to reinvent the entire wheel just because you’ve changed to a different tracking DAW. Under these sorts of Scenarios, you could even throw back to a 1996 MIDI sequencer running in an Atari Emulator, or use the built in sequencer on a Keyboard Workstaion and be amazed at all the sound design and manipulation power.

If you don’t want Bidule (or anything like it), that’s perfectly fine, but you’ll be waiting many many years for any general tracking DAW to bring you that sort of sound design power. Since synth sound design is typically not the job of the Tracking DAW anyway…you might never get the sort of stuff a utility like Bidule can offer in a typical tracking or looping DAW (maybe someone will build one someday, but right now it does not exist).

I DO understand and appreciate feature requests for new and interesting workflow scenarios. My only point here is to show that until such time as the ‘features’ are added, you do have some EXISTING OPTIONS at your fingertips TODAY.

Thanks mate, I will study carefully what are you talking about! You showed me some interesting stuff and I am excited to try it out. Maybe that’s is what I was looking for :ugeek: Thanks!

No problem.

In many cases if all you want is a single MIDI driven LFO, you can right click the thing you want to automate in the plugin and assign it a CC, then use the autolfo MIDI insert right away. You won’t really need to bother with the whole Remote Map thing unless you’ve got a plugin that can’t ‘learn’ whatever CC you want the autolfo insert to modulate, or if you’re also wanting to control one of the autolfo parameters with another autolfo track.

I do encourage experimenting with the Generic Remote Device in small steps though. It’s really nice that you can drive most everything via remote control in CuBase, and using the loopback port, you can even automate a lot of higher level DAW features that do not have dedicated automation tracks available.

Some simpler examples of higher DAW commands I like to automate via MIDI track.

  1. I’ve created ‘organ stop’ like banks on my MPC pads, where I can easily arm/disarm tracks at the tap of a pad. In live setups, it’s nice to be able to automate punching in and out various sets of tracks while I’m playing along. I set it up to work in track order…so if I tap MPC Pad 1, the light goes on and track 1 gets armed. Tap it again, and the light goes out and the track is disarmed. I can record and playback my activity with these pads on a MIDI track if I like.

  2. Occasionally I like to move the cycle points around, and have that process automated. I have MIDI events set to launch macros that’ll automate the process of moving the cycle points.

  3. When doing live shows, I often like for the whole DAW to just ‘stop down’ at some point, and wait for me to manually start it again.

  4. Sometimes I just like to mess around while I’m playing…Moving all sorts of pots and faders (linked directly to the CuBase Mixer), and I can ‘record’ all of that automation into a MIDI Track for analysis and editing. I can freeze the stuff I like to real VST automation lanes (just hit write on the corresponding lanes and play a pass), OR, I can extract the CCs I like to the track’s automation lane, and ‘cut and paste’ it into a VST automation lane, etc.

So…the point is…if you’re searching for a way to automate anything in the DAW, and there’s not dedicated automation lane for it…going through a Generic Remote Device via MIDI track and a virtual MIDI port is often a way to get at it.

Wow, all that stuff you are talking about to me is totally another level of knowing Cubase. I thought I was good ))) But your story - sounds awesome!

Let me clear some english terms: arming and disarming means “REC on/off” on a track?

I don’t understand what do you mean here.
When I right click some “insert effect”, there is no anything about CC




In the key editor I have some stuff but I guess it’s some default MIDI protocol stuff and it has nothing to do with my VST intrument (NI Massive, for example). Changes here doesn’t affect VST plugin parameters.

So I still has no idea what to to with AutoLFO and what its purpose. To me it’s useless. I need some automated automation to be able modulate VSTi parameters outside of plugin possibilities.

For example I want modulate pitch of OSC 1 in NI Massive but not with help of Massive’s built in LFO.
Is it possible with AutoLFO? I don’t see how.
The only possible way I see now in Cubase is only draw its automation by hands using these tools.

But because Cubase automation is not vector, all “parabolas” has sharp edges and sounds wrong. That’s another issue. Meh… Maybe I don’t understand something though.

OK,

If this were using something like HALion that also has a built in duplicate of this plugin inside HALion itself, I’d use the built in effect instead of putting it in a Mixer insert of the DAW. That way you could drive it with any CC you like. If a VSTi plugin has internal effects, those are far easier to automate via MIDI without doing anything fancy.

In this case you are trying to automate a VST insert plugin rather than a VSTi, so there’s no ‘midi’ connection to the plugin…thus, you can’t use the autolfo MIDI insert ‘directly’; however, you can use it indirectly. You’d need to put it on a MIDi track, and drive the VST via Generic Remote map.

  1. In the device setup menu go to Remote Maps and add a new one of type “Generic Controller”. Make sure the plugins you wish to remote control are loaded in your instrument rack or mixer insert(s).

  2. Create a new Generic Remote Device and link controllers to specific items you wish to Automate in the DAW.

  3. Set your Virtual MIDI Port as the input for the Generic Remote Track.

  4. Create an empty MIDI Track, and enable the autolfo MIDI insert and set it up to LFO the CC that you linked up in your Remote Device Map.

  5. Set the input port of the track to whatever fader’s/knobs/etc. you’ll be using.

  6. Set the MIDI output to the same Virtual MIDI port you assigned for the Remote Map, and set the MIDI channel to “Any”.

  7. Arm the track for recording.

  8. Move the slider(s) you’ve assigned to various VST controls, and they should work as long as this MIDI track is armed for recording or monitoring.

  9. In the case of MIDI insert effects, if you want those to become actual MIDI events in a part on your MIDI track, then you’ll need to freeze the track to incorporate inspector/live mod output, or set it up the insert so its effects get recorded on the track during the pass.

You can record your movements in the MIDI track if you like, and they’ll play back. You could also freeze them into actual VST automation lanes later if you like (set the ‘write’ buttons for all the plugins you want to freeze and play the DAW for a pass), or extract the MIDI part to CC lanes in the track and ‘copy paste’ them to VST lanes. If you do ‘freeze’ things, be sure to mute/disconnect/clean out, or get rid of the MIDI track since you don’t really want a doubled set of automation controls.

1 Like

All very interesting

Insert non-existent virtual Thanks button here.

Yes, with Remote Maps you can assign a MIDI event to toggle the record or monitor buttons. You could make it a CC or MIDI Note event.

Remote Devices are pretty powerful. They were designed to do things like hook up a $50,000 mixing console with motorized faders and all sorts of status LEDs. In effect, making it possible to do just about everything in CuBase directly from the mixing console without having to touch a ‘computer keyboard’ or ‘mouse’. You can also use them for much smaller and more specialized purposes though…such as a single MPK2 keyboard, or a simple MPC pad controller :slight_smile:

I just use a simple AKAI MPK2 controller which has 2 different MIDI ports over USB on hand to send MIDI data through, and a cheap Akai EWI Wind Controller. I like to automate my DAW over the B port, and do everything VSTi related over the A port. That helps me isolate things a bit.

I have different presets in my MPK2 for different purposes. I have one that I can drive the Score Editor with. I.E. Tap a pad to set the note duration, play a key, tap another pad to change it, tap a key, etc. So, I can ‘step input’ in the Score Editor and never have to leave my MIDI Keyboard. I also have similar setups for other Editors…

I have a preset for controlling the CuBase Mixer…

I have a preset for doing ‘organ stop’ like track arming/disarming. I.E. Build a virtual pipe organ, with each rank on a track of his own. Tapping MPC pads arms/disarms tracks that I want to ‘hear/record’…even while the transport is going.

Note, if your MIDI controller doesn’t have lots of ‘presets’ for you to dial around handily, the Generic Remote Map’s themselves do offer software variants of ‘presets’. So you could have several different maps made for the same controller layout in a single remote map. You could even make a remote call to call up those ‘virtual presets’ as you need them :slight_smile:

You can also ‘stack maps’ and use them simultaneously. Use multiple virtual ports and MIDI tracks if you want them isolated for some reason. In cases where you want to move multiple VST controls with the same MIDI event, you actually MUST stack multiple maps with duplicate control links, otherwise it’ll only automate the first instrument in the Instrument Rack.

I’d already been using these remote device maps for over a year (quite a few years ago mind you), when one day it hit me…
“Hey, if I run this stuff through a MIDI track first, and then back into the DAW, I can record my control movements, and actually automate a lot of other stuff in CuBase that doesn’t have a built in automation lane…” I’d already used a virtual MIDI port for quite a few things over the years…so I knew that was one sure way to go from a controller, into a MIDI track in Cubase, then into the Generic Remote Device.

+1
LFO MIDI Plugin and similar stuff for CC automation. Not drawing in automation, not using 3rd party stuff (or bunch of them) as the same way I can simply use another DAW.
Sorry but Cubase sVcks for sound design for video games where i need multiple slightly modulated takes. No I have to draw by hand a lot of parameters and change and redo it so many times till it fits. Where instead I could turn one knob to get results in a second.
Steinberg is great with integration for Wwise (Nuendo) so you should understand sound designers needs.
Ableton have M4L and tools for that, Bitwig have them onboard… Time to look around Steinberg and catch up the competition.

maybe there’s another topic about automation tools but it’s the one that I found

+1

+1000

Hi there,

I appreciate these steps but they do not work

Compared to a well working LFO automation this has about 100 steps to hook up

a) there is a midi delay
b) automation is not sample accurate
c) you have to deal with multiple mute and solo and arm settings for 1 single parameter

Consider wanting to mix a track, and solo it

In cubase this means all your automation turns off when you solo the mixer track

So no it can not be done ( in Cubase ) and the amount of these steps shows only the beginning of a steep hill with plenty issues not even mentioned in the above posts

I tried these methods and

~ Midi delay ( that changes for every track if you change buffers )
~ Randomness of midi
~ Tracks not being able to be soloable
~ everything out of time and a house of cards

Is too much to consider this a working workaround for anyone who is used to

Ableton/Bitwig/FL Studio :

~ Sample accurate LFO Automation of all parameters in any synth
~ PDC with their automation ( that does not change with buffer size

Cubase has none of that

And the workarounds ( as much effort and intelligence they require ) do not work

In real context of making music there is no workaround to make anything similar happen in Cubase that is built in to other Systems

Cubase is great in many ways but behind 20 years in terms of studio tech

Only the devs can help on this one

Wellbassd,

I appreciate your quest for ultimate precision and I realize there may well be sound design needs that demand timing ‘that tight’. If the workaround doesn’t cut it for some user, then by all means move to a DAW that does, or get supplemental plugins and utilities that fill the missing feature gap, or ‘request then wait’ around for Steinberg to get around to adding it…

For ‘me’ a ‘proper workaround’ would be to use Bidule. In my case Bidule was an investment I made long ago to supplement any DAW I might need to be working with in a more universal way. It’s also a big player for any live keyboarding sessions I set up for myself. It fills in ‘missing feature’ gaps in pretty much every audio host/app I’ve ever used. I don’t have to learn the eccentricities of 4 different DAWs, and my complex effect chains or hybrid synth sounds are easily ‘portable’ among any sequencer or DAW I’m asked to use for a given project.

For situations like described in the post above (for someone that does not have Bidule, nor any interest in getting it, nor a desire to switch DAWs), I typically would recommend generating the LFO pattern on a MIDI track, as close as you can get it (using the ASIO/MIDI latency configuration options in CuBase settings) first, and then convert that into a true VST lane. From there I’d disable/hide/delete/whatever the MIDI version of the LFO generated sequence. Solo problem solved. MIDI delay problem solved. Yes, it’s still a workaround with a rather alternate work-flow, but it should get the job done for quite a few cases…without ‘waiting’ for Steinberg to add their own VST/LFO generator, or switching DAWs.

From there, if it’s still not as ‘tight’ as you’d like it (some ms delay) it can be nudged exactly where you want and it’d be well locked with the transport/sample clock. No, you’re not going to get a resolution of 48khz (or whatever project sample rate you use) in the initial MIDI LFO pattern (instead it’d be tempo locked with the transport), and again you’re limited to a parameter resolution of 128 unless you jury rig some fancy NRP stuff using multiple CCs and even more third party hacks, but it should be close enough for more than 90% of the cases out there where someone would want to oscillate a given parameter in a given VST plugin.

How often do you really need that precise of an LFO pattern with really high controller resolution though? The examples given above were to simply oscillate a knob in a VST a bit with a given pattern/amplitude over a given time envelope. My ears aren’t good enough to detect 1ms or less inaccuracies, and 128 is usually plenty of resolution for any effect my monitors are capable of translating, and my ears are capable of detecting.

Obviously YOU have situations where you DO need that kind of precision and resolution…so, for that kind of precision requirement I personally would not be using a plugin VST effect directly in a CuBase mixer’s VST slot anyway. My first inclination would be to design the sound in a virtual synth instead (HALion 6 in my case) using its built in LFO and effect features. If I really needed a hybrid mix of plugins to get the job done…with CuBase in mind, I’d wire it up inline in a bidule instance (or some other similar ‘host in a host’ tool).

Hey, I’ve got an old school work-flow. I don’t try to force the DAW to shape my sounds when all that stuff can be done in the ‘instruments’ themselves. I’ve been doing it that way so long that I really never missed, or cared that CuBase could not do it. Having said that, I do wish CuBase had more native automation lanes for more things…such as arming/disarming tracks. Transport controls. Etc.

Personally I’ve never needed to oscillate a parameter living somewhere in a CuBase Mixer effect slot via LFO on a long ‘audio track’. I can see the creative potential in doing so, but I’ve got plugins in my tool box that can usually do that sort of phasing/pumping/side-chaining by their own right (no need to pump a control via automation). I grab the right plugin that generates the effect I have in mind, instead of trying to force some other plugin to do something tricky. I tend to think of a mix from the subtleties of my instruments up, instead of from the host down, and I know I usually have a plugin at hand that can generate the kind of oscillating effect I might have in mind internally. Maybe it’s not the most efficient way in today’s cutting edge studios…but oh well…old habits die hard.

Using bidule is a bit different topic of course…as that’s a third party app that isn’t free, nor ‘cheap’, and has a pretty steep learning curve. In short, with Bidule I’d build a chain that includes the sample accurate LFO generator, the effect(s) plugin(s) I want to automate with it, and set up a real VST lane to drive it from Cubase if automated user tweaks are required for some reason.

Bidule is a staple sound design and routing tool for me (my favorite swiss army knife), with any DAW I use, simply because it fills so many ‘feature gaps’ that can be missing from any given DAW. It’s a powerhouse for intercepting the data streams (both MIDI and Audio) at almost any point in a system configuration, analyzing it, and manipulating it. It also fills alot of gaps in popular synth/sampler engines, and allows me to merge and meld any number of plugins into one massive ‘seamless instrument’. I can snoop and alter pretty much any audio or MIDI event in real time with extreme precision. Mix and match any assortment of VST or VSTi (ATX, AU, etc.) plugins I like, and automate any of it via VST, MIDI, OSC, etc. With a bit of practice, Bidule isn’t a bad little synth/sampler engine in its own right.

MIDI delay in a loopback that is detectable by the human ear? I believe you, but it’s not something I’ve had an issue with when running remote maps via MIDI track in this manner. It’s pretty dawg gone well in sync with the transport, and there are settings tweaks to match up live controller manipulation with ASIO driver latency. I’ve no need to ‘push’ such a setup to sample accurate precision since I have instruments like Bidule and HALion 6. For the types of projects I do in Cubase, it’s not often I’d want lfo on a VST effect control/parameter that lives in an effect slot on a CuBase mixer anyway, and why it would need to be ‘sample accurate’ to oscillate some virtual knob in a VST effect is a new one to me. For something that really needs that kind of sample by sample precision…I personally would design the sound in HALion from the top down (or with Bidule if I needed a hybrid mix of synths/samplers/effects) anyway…as one can pile on all the LFOs he likes (plus crossfade among them, and so much more)…could even drive them with side-chain audio signals etc.

Having droned on with all this…
I agree…Steinberg should add a simple LFO generator for writing its VST events on an automation lane. Should be simple enough to do right? Judging by this thread, a significant amount of users out there ‘want to do this’ for some reason.

+1

(but not just a simple sine based LFO: a complex LFO and ADSR/Envelopes)

1 Like