What's new

The annual question... Who is using Cubase Expression Maps

That is most likely user error, not a bug. Direction expressions need to placed a few midi ticks earlier then the notes they are supposed to effect. Attribute style expressions don’t need that UNLESS you are trying to send cc switches to kontakt, in which case attribute shouldn’t be used probably, use direction a few ticks early, that’s a bug in kontakt.
 
It's not user error unfortunately, I sporadically have similar problems with 10.5 and expression maps, even with directions ahead of the note. In the case of attributes sometimes articulations randomly change.
Steiny needs to sort this out. And the disabled track problem, that one is a real bummer.
 
Well you say that but lots of people aren’t reporting that. I agree expression maps are fiddly to set up but that means it can sometimes be hard to set them up “properly”. Send us a cubase project you’re having problems with and maybe we can help.
 
Direction expressions need to placed a few midi ticks earlier then the notes they are supposed to effect.
Uh, are you sure about that?
When I'm writing everything is quantised and my direction expressions are aswell, doesn't cause any problems.
 
It's clearly a bug as far as I can tell. It doesn't happen on 10. And I always tend to put direction expressions a bit earlier. Maybe I'm gonna try atributes just for the sake of it. The weird thing is: often articulations get changed back to default in the middle of the phrase with no expression maps element even near. I mostly use BBCSO Pro with expression maps. So any chance that this is a bug with the new spitfire player / BBCSO?

EDIT: Then again, it doesn't happen with 10.0, so propably it is a Cubase thing unfortunately...
 
Yes they should be early if you want to be sure. There are a few forum threads in this topic if you search.

direction expressions should be thought of kind of like a cc automation lane except it sends switches which could be keyswitches.

They are not attached directly to any notes. They are entirely seperate events. So it’s not always deterministic which will be for sure sent first between notes and direction events when they are in the same timestamp. Numerous people have indicated that they had seemingly random problems solved by nudging the direction changes slightly ahead.
 
It's clearly a bug as far as I can tell. It doesn't happen on 10. And I always tend to put direction expressions a bit earlier. Maybe I'm gonna try atributes just for the sake of it. The weird thing is: often articulations get changed back to default in the middle of the phrase with no expression maps element even near. I mostly use BBCSO Pro with expression maps. So any chance that this is a bug with the new spitfire player / BBCSO?

I’m still inclined to say the problem is either related to BBCSO or accidentally you are somehow sending notes which happen to also be functioning as keyswitches or a cc that is, etc
 
I’m still inclined to say the problem is either related to BBCSO or accidentally you are somehow sending notes which happen to also be functioning as keyswitches or a cc that is, etc
I hoped so badly (and still do), that it's just me. But often I would play a phrase, the bug happens, play it again, happens again, play it a third time, everything plays as it's supposed to.
I guess expected behaviour in a DAW is that it plays everything exactly the same way every time (apart from randomization effects and stuff like round robins, LFOs etc. going on).
 
Just saw this thread. Someone apparently built a reproducable scenario.
So weird, that it does only happen to very few people...
 
Yeah, opened a ticket a few weeks ago, nothing till today. I was just wondering if anyone over here has come across this and even has some workarounds, as you guys seem to have a fairly good knowing of how expression maps work... seems like we have to wait what steinberg says. thanks anyways!
 
Just saw this thread. Someone apparently built a reproducable scenario.
So weird, that it does only happen to very few people...

I loaded the above project into cubase 10.5.20, plays fine as expected, no problems, I let it play in a loop for 5 minutes, no problem at all.
 
I tried it myself as well and hadn't issues with this specific project either. But turns out it is indeed a spec questions. I set up a similar test scenario with 120 Kontakt instances and the problems started to occur. Especially when I don't just let it run but stop and start quickly in between or clicking into another point in the timeline while playing.

Here's what I wrote over ot the steinberg forum, just if you guys wanna test it. I hope it's not against the rules to crosspost in this circumstance.

Ok. I tried it. First everything went without problems. But then I thought, what if my system is too fast for this and I built a modificated benchmark with lots of kontakt instances. The more kontakt instances I had, the quicker I ran into problems. I ended up with 120 instances, ymmv depending on buffer settings and system power. So at least in my case it is clearly system spec related. I don't know if it is more of a RAM issue, or a CPU issue, or whatever. An easy way to trigger the faulty behavior if it doesn't do it on it's own is quickly stopping and starting by hitting the spacebar twice while the test is running.
Anyways, here is my project, if you want to try it with an easily scalable test project that is bigger than the one by J Buckingham, but very similar. Just duplicate the tracks (some tracks) if you have a very beefy system or delete some. Requierments: Kontakt w/ factory selection.


Another propably related thing I ran into, when testing some of my bigger projects: sometimes the articulation wouldn't switch (because it already was on slot 1/default or no articualtion selected at all) but the sound would cut out for a moment on various tracks just to come in a moment later. Clearly something that isn't happening when on Cubase 10.0. Tried it kinda side to side.

My system specs: Win 10 Pro, i9 9900k, 32GB RAM, NVMe system drive, Samples on external SSD connected via USB 3.1.

Sorry for hijacking this thread this way. But I just can't believe there aren't many more people experiencing this and for me it makes 10.5 unusuable (or expression maps unusuable), so I am mybe a bit emotional regarding this topic :)
 
I tried it myself as well and hadn't issues with this specific project either. But turns out it is indeed a spec questions. I set up a similar test scenario with 120 Kontakt instances and the problems started to occur.

to me that implies a chase condition, and see my early comments about the DIRECTION's needing to be nudged early. In this test case, the DIRECTION expression is not nudged earlier and every time it loops around, hard to say what happens on that first note for sure.

Especially when I don't just let it run but stop and start quickly in between or clicking into another point in the timeline while playing.

Ok, that is somewhat interesting, I would reckon that is a chasing issue and its possible that DIRECTION expressions do not chase.

Sorry for hijacking this thread this way. But I just can't believe there aren't many more people experiencing this and for me it makes 10.5 unusuable (or expression maps unusuable), so I am mybe a bit emotional regarding this topic :)

I hear you that can be frustrating. Try switching to ATTRIBUTE style in any case.
 
Could be that it is somehow related to chasing. Directions do chase. The bug doesn't happen all the time, only sometimes and when under considerable load. Sometimes it reverts only some of the tracks and so on.
I tried it with attributes. Does happen as well, but a lot less. So it seems to be an improvement, but still not the ultimate solution unfortunately. But thanks a lot, anyways! And I think attributes really improve things. I'll see, if it improves things enough to let me work with 10.5. We'll see.
 
Top Bottom