Articulation Switcher: Cubase - brainstorm

[MetaGrid_Admin]

In the upcoming 1.6.x release, we’re introducing grid and scene switching based on the selected track in Cubase. This is just the beginning of our journey toward creating a powerful Articulation Switcher for Cubase.

Our articulation solution for Logic, optimized for Art Conductor articulation maps, has been a game-changer. It avoids sending MIDI notes, relying instead on poly-pressure messages for seamless integration. However, Cubase presents a different challenge: its articulation maps are restricted to MIDI Notes or Program Changes. This limitation, combined with Art Conductor’s use of MIDI notes only for key articulations (leaving others empty), means remote articulation switching isn’t as straightforward.

Here’s our proposed solution for Cubase:

1. Set the Directory

Users will point MetaServer to their articulation map folder and hit “Rebuild Database.”

2. Database Creation

MetaServer will parse the XML files to create an internal database of articulation sets.

3. Track Assignment

Users will assign a track name to an articulation item from the database.

4. Dynamic Articulation Switching

When a track with an assigned articulation item is detected, MetaServer will notify MetaGrid. MetaGrid will display the articulations, enabling instant switching via taps.

This approach will focus on articulation items tied to MIDI Notes or Program Changes, as defined in Cubase’s articulation maps. While this implementation is technically complex (XML parsing, database creation, etc.), we’re confident it will enhance your workflow.

Now, we need your feedback!

• Do you actively use articulation maps, and would this solution benefit your workflow?

• Or is grid switching + track tracking enough for your needs? For example, you could create grids for each instrument and let track selection dynamically display the corresponding grid.

Your input matters! This solution represents hundreds of hours of development effort, and we want to ensure it truly meets your needs. Let us know in the comments or via our community—your voice shapes the future of MetaGrid Pro!

[dragsquares]

Part of the beauty of MetaGrid Pro is that in addition to doing articulation switching, one can also have specific controllers that affect the sound of an instrument. Unless I’m mistaken, what you were describing sounds like every time you select the track that has an articulation map, that information is sent to MGP and populates it with names and switches. That means that the way it’s laid out would not be up to me. I’ve built a great number of grids that are laid out for ergonomics and to be able to see things at a glance, sometimes with embedded pop-up menus for things that are better switched that way, for example - a diverse group of layouts that vary greatly per instrument. That’s why I think I’d prefer the process of converting expression maps to grids to be on request only and a more offline process, and perhaps with some preset layouts to be defined by you and the user. One might be a big grid of buttons, one might be four pages with articulations groups on each page and pre-made buttons to switch between them, one might be 24 buttons and 8 faders.

[MetaGrid_Admin]

@dragsquares that a valuable insight. Do you think of any ways to streamline the grids for articulation switching? The downside of your approach is that you have to create individual grids for each instrument, which is time consuming - most users would rather avoid this.

[dylanmixer]

Amazing. Thank you for your work on this. This is the missing puzzle piece for me.

I will agree with the above that being locked to a pre-made Articulation grid may not be best, so I would suggest maybe a separate object that we can insert on to any grid we want? That way we keep the flexibility of switching to our homemade grids but have the convenience of an articulation switcher that populates when paired with an expression map?

[MetaGrid_Admin]

That’s the plan - to use the already existing Art Conductor object we currently use for Logic and extend it functionality to Cubase. Not entire grid - an object you can add to any grid.

[dragsquares]

I haven’t used the Art Conductor object for a couple of reasons, one being that their articulation sets are often incomplete and the other being what was mentioned above - that I want things where I want them.

In the Berlin Violins I exampleI’m attaching, which is pretty simple, things are grouped as I want them rather than just in whatever order they would show up in. Some articulations are in pop-up lists because I wanted to have it all on one page. I have others for VSL libraries that are spread among multiple pages - they have buttons on each page in the same spot that when tapped open a different grid that is laid out the same but represent shorts, longs, ornaments etc.

I think this is an argument for the process not being an every-time querying and instead being an “import Expression map” command that does so in preset forms - because then one could use all of the cool new moving-things-around features and end up with what one wants to see.

The Nashville Strings one is an example of what might be useful for a lot of newer libraries with only a few articulations and controllers.

The SampleModeling Strings one is a mild example of being somewhat more eccentric but also shows some buttons that are in a switching group showing the last selected for some of them, and some showing the on-off status for others, because some expression map art types that are of the “direction” variety are overall modifiers like “accent” here. If this were done in an automated generalized fashion I feel that users would miss out on a great deal of flexibility.

[dylanmixer]

Apologies, I guess I misunderstood dragsquares’s issue with it then.

I’m for any and all implementation.

[dragsquares]

It would all help, but I feel like doing it automatically will just sort of put buttons inside a rectangle any old way. One might be able to sort via groups and/or some text in the articulation names, but that means renaming everything in an expression map. That’s why I feel like we should be able to say “I want to import this map into my grid. And use all individual latching switches. And also organize the latching switches by articulation group.” Or “use this template and make me 8 faders assigned to these CC’s”. And then in the editor one could organize things any way they wanted and resize and so on. And some renaming will be needed regardless, because many articulations need long names that wouldn’t fit on a button; and if one had just buttons for everything automatically then one couldn’t use a master switch group button to go from longs to shorts or the like.

Maybe if you could import specific articulations to the object and use multiple objects it would be a little better but still hard to control.

[MetaGrid_Admin]

Beautiful grids @dragsquares - totally impressed!

[Rhenn]

Not sure I have any value to add to this discussion, but I am also super impressed with @dragsquares grids. They display a sophistication far beyond my crude efforts. I have an increasingly out-of-control collection of ugly key-switch grids, designed for a matching out-of-control collection of expression maps.
I do yearn for “a faster/better/simpler way”, and hope that MGP will be the next game-changer, as it already has been!
Huge fan, and look forward to watching this develop…
Many thanks @Przemek!

(Win 11, Cubase 14, Art Conductor 10)

[dragsquares]

Thanks for the kind words, folks! (Can you tell it’s dark in my studio?) This cool software makes it possible for controllers to evoke a vibe, which makes the whole thing more fun, but also makes it possible to emphasize some things via placement and color that assist in use at a glance. And it’s why I feel like an automatic process as opposed to one that I can edit would be limiting. That’s the main thing, I guess - that I want the import but also the ability to edit, rather than choosing between either accepting an automatic grid or building it from scratch. Making all of the individual buttons is a bit tedious.

The other thing that would be really useful is the ability to enter in devices and parameters off-line, such that you have maybe a spreadsheet-like list where you select “button”, “latching”, assign a switching group, a macro and so on- with copy-paste capability for the things that would be mostly alike, making it easier to modify lots of things at once - and then hitting “generate” at the end and getting a grid with the objects on it just in rows, ready to be moved around.

I confess that sometimes I wish the grids could be a little higher resolution for symmetry (Nashville Strings is an example of that, but I’m spending just enough time on them to move on), or if objects were by default snapping to a grid but the grid was optional; and that I could also use round objects - but I also like the constraints that keep things unified in appearance.

And I would use horizontal faders a lot more in designs if they worked for me, but their response is inconsistent - sometimes they don’t respond to touch - and you can’t do horizontal gradients on them.

[dragsquares]

@MetaGrid_Admin

you have to create individual grids for each instrument, which is time consuming - most users would rather avoid this.

I imagine you’ve done your market research on this. To me if what I’m describing can be done with a few clicks and look fun - with available cool preset grids that get generated - people would embrace the process and customization. But that’s just a guess on my part. Still - if the user could automatically generate something similar to that Nashville grid or the Berlin violins grid and then be up and running right away, that would be pretty amazing. And then if someone wanted to edit that, that covers everyone.

[dylanmixer]

To me it’s obvious what has to be done. Hire this guy to make some sweet templates!

[dragsquares]

First off - I would do that night and day!

Second - seems like if there were preset templates matching the most common libraries and formats - like VSL Synchron and Studio, EW SO, OT Berlin and so on - and then a few generic ones to go with libraries like Nashville Strings or any of the many new ones that have fewer articulations, and a few to go with unspecified libraries with tons of articulations, and wouldn’t that get it? If we had the ability to edit and color-code and so on I feel like that would be so much better than a box of buttons.

So maybe the process described above needs a few intermediary steps - and maybe the automatic import to a template gets the user 90% where they need to be, and a few little tweaks does the rest. I feel like those new drag-and-drop editing features would make it easy to get things where the user wants, and maybe an extra feature would help - a multi-edit focus on color that lets you select a column of buttons and then select a color, and then it would apply a gradation of that color to the column. Or that could just be the job of the template.

[EmmCeeSq]

Completely agree. I’m not sure of the utility of ‘auto-populating’ tbh.
What might be a better solution is some way of allowing users to share grids.
I’d happily share mine, in fact I do
https://www.michaelcryne.com/resources

And then we could customise them to our own needs.

[dragsquares]

I love your site. Good advice to follow there. And great music also!

I will add that the giant game changer for me - possibly the greatest timesaver for my workflow - was making a visibility panel in MGP that corresponds to a generic remote in Cubase. So I have a template with who know how many tracks, all disabled and all invisible except for a sketch piano; and if I want to start with Afflatus strings, I just tap a button on the MGP grid for visibility and I see the tracks there. No scrolling through options. Then I want some VWinds, so I tap their button on the visibility screen. And If I want to still hear the strings but don’t need to look at them, I tap their button and I’m not having to scroll past them.

[Edit: I should add that I use Logical editor presets that toggle visibility based on phrases in the track name, so if I want to look at CSS, since all my CSS tracks begin with "CSS ", I have a preset for that that’s triggered by the Generic Remote. And if I add a new track that I want added to a visibility button (like, I do’t know, second Violas or something) , it’s just a matter of making sure that track starts with "CSS ".]

For someone like me who has a clear strings library problem, it’s terrific not to have to wade through them any more. Also, for those moments when you are hearing a thing at bar 49 and can’t tell where it’s coming from, there’s a button for hiding all tracks and then showing only those tracks that have MIDI events at the cursor. That was a big one.

This attached picture of a visibility page is an early grid of mine and looks like it was made by someone is a hurry to add something and move on - I haven’t made it look good yet (so don’t share this one, good Metasystems people - let me make it look cool first!) but it has a great deal of my template available. If I wanted to use smaller buttons I could maybe get it all in there and also have some for ensemble combos for certain types of work. Maybe some pop-up menus would do it, though they break up a sleek vibe a little bit.

(As an aside, I first started doing this in ProTools when I was scoring an animated series. Markers in PT are cool because they don’t have to just be positional presets - they can also be groups of visible tracks. The template was 400 tracks at that point that I condensed into 9 visibility presets on the number pad - so dot-7-dot have me brass and dot-2-dot gave me strings and dot-9-dot gave me mix stems. Really handy. Made PT a dream to work with - and PT still has my favorite tempo-handling of any of them.)

[EmmCeeSq]

Thanks for the kind words, glad you like the site and music.

I actually use Keyboard Maestro for so many things like this in Cubase. MGP is a brilliant tool but I’m just as fast using the command palette in KM to do things like this. I have a bunch of macros like you to focus on visibility configurations (although I don’t actually go as granular as focusing on individual libraries, just instrument families). ‘Show tracks with data’ is probably my most used. I mainly use MGP for instrument control, although if I had another couple of iPads lying around I’d probably use to it to do more DAW control.

[MetaGrid_Admin]

@EmmCeeSq Can I link your download page with the grids in our forum in User Creations section?

[EmmCeeSq]

Of course! I need to add some more grids to that folder as well.

[JTB]

Ummm… I’ve had MGP automatically displaying track specific grids for like 2 years. I’ve also been able to assign articulations to MIDI events in the Key Editor with a tap of a button for 2 years. It’s called Bome MIDI Translator Pro in case anyone is interested.