Need help with MIDI output on Cubase LE4

S

scooter79

New member
I've just set up a studio here at work using a Presonus Firestudio Project and Cubase LE4. Both Audio and VST instruments are running perfectly but I'm having trouble with basic MIDI.

I have a generic MIDI controller connected to the Presonus interface via a single MIDI cable. When I create a new MIDI track in Cubase I can visually see both midi input and output signal on the transport bar. I can even record a MIDI track and see the dots but no matter what I do I cannot hear any output from the monitors or headphones.

I have checked all settings within Cubase. Presonus ASIO driver selected, Presonus selected for both MIDI input and output within the track. I just can't figured out whats going on.

Now the interesting thing is I thought I had a good grasp of MIDI. At home I have a Presonus Firepod with a Casio CTK style keyboard connected to the Firepod via two MIDI cables (one in and one out) and I can monitor my MIDI through the monitors with zero latency.

What am I doing wrong here at work? :confused:
 
You need to assign the midi track to a instrument, it wont make sound on its own. At home you have the midi out going back to your casio, hence you have a sound source..
 
altitude909 said:
You need to assign the midi track to a instrument, it wont make sound on its own. At home you have the midi out going back to your casio, hence you have a sound source..
Click to expand...

Altitude, thanks for the reply. At least I know it's not a hardware fault. You'll have to excuse my ignorance with MIDI but I consider myself to have a good understanding on the audio side of things.

So when you say I have to assign an instrument what steps to I need to take to do that? At work I found an old Edirol SD-20 midi module in storage. Could I possibly use that? If so, how would I go about hooking it up to work with the Presonus Firestudio?

On another note I had a play around with Sibelius 5 at work this today and was able get MIDI sounds from that after playing around with it. I assume that Sibelius has it's own sound engine built into the program?

Thanks again
 
A MIDI track in Cubase LE4 won't make any sound on its own. You'll have to assign it an output instrument (like HalionONE) in order to hear anything. HalionONE isn't great, but there are some passable sounding patches in there for strings and whatnot.
 
scooter79 said:
Altitude, thanks for the reply. At least I know it's not a hardware fault. You'll have to excuse my ignorance with MIDI but I consider myself to have a good understanding on the audio side of things.

So when you say I have to assign an instrument what steps to I need to take to do that? At work I found an old Edirol SD-20 midi module in storage. Could I possibly use that? If so, how would I go about hooking it up to work with the Presonus Firestudio?

On another note I had a play around with Sibelius 5 at work this today and was able get MIDI sounds from that after playing around with it. I assume that Sibelius has it's own sound engine built into the program?

Thanks again
Click to expand...

The midi output has to go to either a physical midi output on your Firestudio (i.e. to the SD-20), or to an internal midi instrument select via your VST rack (F11 in windows)

When routing to a physical instrument, you will need to create an audio track for the audio output of that device to hear/record it and it will need to be connected to your audio interface accordingly

When routing to a virtual instrument, an audio out track will be created automatically. This is a source of confusion for a lot of ppl since that track behaves a little differently than a normal audio track since you dont have waveforms to look at and it is located under VST instrument output in the inspector window. It is vital you understand that beyond the lack waveforms, it has all the properties of an audio track so the meters, automation, insert slots, sends etc all behave have EXACTLY like an audio track. It is the exact same thing as if you were to record the midi devices output track to an audio track except that you can continuously make changes to that audio track by changing performance in the midi track (hence no waveforms)
 
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