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Exporting Tracks from Logic to Cubase

Prockamanisc

Senior Member
I stopped using Logic ~5 years ago and jumped to Cubase, but there are some tracks that I'd like to open up again and make some tweaks. Is there any easy way to export my tracks from Logic and get them into Cubase? I can't export just the MIDI, because I want the instrument preset to come along with it. I can't use AAF because that only involved audio tracks. I can't use OMF because Logic doesn't support it anymore. What can I do?
 
One thing you can do for the MIDI is to name the MIDI event/region by the instrument and preset name (regardless of whether it’s a factory or custom preset, both would have a name). I do this as a standard practice for the exact reason as what you are encountering, so that it’s always known what sound belongs to that MIDI region / track. The resultant audio tracks carry the same name.

Then just export the MIDI tracks and load them up in Cubase. The names will tell you what synth and preset to load.

In Logic, if your regions are cropped to edit out the silence, just join/glue each track’s content into one continuous region, and drag the left ends to make all the MIDI regions start at bar 1 so that you don’t have to figure out where to place them in Cubase. Then after they are exported, if you want the short clips to stay in Logic, then either undo the glue or just don’t re-save the project.

Alternatively if you absolutely don’t want full length regions, you can add the bar start # to the name of each region and manually place them. But to me, it’s easier to import them as one length starting at bar 1, then crop them out later.
 
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You’re welcome. The only hitch regarding your own custom presets is that Logic is AU and Cubase is VST, so if you made and named custom presets in Logic (AU), the VST plug-in version in Cubase won’t see them. (The VST version will of course have the same list of factory presets as the AU version.) IIRC a couple of my plugins with its own preset format did work though (I think I remember that, not 100% sure)...you’d need to use the plugins own save preset function rather than Logic’s though, if the presets work. Or use Bidule to run the AU versions in Cubase which also support the AUpreset format that you used in Logic.

You could also make screenshots or notes of the settings.
 
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This is probably stating the obvious, but if the tweaks you want to make are eq or changes in single note parts, might be better to bring them over in audio with their effects change intact.
 
You also can't export the midi because MIDI doesn't export accurately in any DAW using greater than 480ppqn (which both Cubase and Logic do)….not to mention how MIDI is sync'd with audio, while doable, gets really sketchy really quickly if you're unclear about how SMPTE offsets effect such things.

(panned back) Lesson is MIDI is liquid language for building a part--once you have it where you want it, you render it as audio...I can have an audio multitrack I recorded in a long defunct hardware unit in 1998 sample accurately imported to "name any DAW in 2019"...I literally have some Cubase and Logic MIDI from LAST year that's somehow f'd up.

On the workaround (which is also the only way I'm aware of FWIW)--most third party VIs don't care AU or VST--you just want to make sure you don't save as LOGIC preset...but, save it inside the third party VI's UI itself. That should (IME) follow it to the VST in Cubase and visa versa. I would add that you want to render the audio in the original app ALSO for a reference to make sure you're getting the MIDI/VI set up transferred properly.
 
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