Cubase's Key Commands allow you to set up a MIDI keyboard to control sequencer functions remotely
I'm having a bit of trouble with one of the songs I'm working on in Cubase VST, running on a PC with Yamaha SW1000XG audio card and XG Edit. Whenever I play over a certain range on my keyboard, the keys I press stop making or controlling sounds and take control of VST's transport functions! It only happens on this one song and if I simply select 'New', to create a new Song, I can play fine in any octave; from this I deduce it cannot be the keyboard or any settings in XG Edit. I've looked for differences in various settings between the troublesome Song and the Default, or any other, Song, and can't seem to find any at all.
Nick Alexander
SOS contributor Derek Johnson replies: Something similar happened to me when I recently took delivery of v5 of Cubase VST for the Mac: just one key at the extreme right of my 76‑note master keyboard wouldn't play. I couldn't tell what it was doing, but no matter what I did, that one note was always silent. It definitely wasn't the keyboard, as it worked as expected with other sequencers and MIDI sound sources.
The problem baffled me for a bit, and then I had a look at the Key Commands sub‑menu under Preferences (in the Mac version, Preferences are found under the File menu), and I found that this one note was assigned as a remote control. I forget now which function it had been assigned to (it had no obviously visible, or otherwise audible, effect while the problem was happening), but I simply disabled it, and I got my key back. To do this, double‑click on the entry in the command list; a little dialogue pops up on screen, and you click 'remove'. Problem solved. There should be a similar strategy that you could follow on the PC; you'll have to search through the whole list to find the rogue assignments.
Otherwise, Cubase's Key Commands are one of the software's secret weapons: virtually any function can be operated remotely, and the user has almost complete control over which keys — from the computer keyboard or an attached MIDI keyboard — do the controlling. It's ideal for people using Cubase on stage, or working at the other end of a studio from their computer.