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Bome's Mouse Keyboard and Cubase are a perfect combination,
especially if you don't have an external keyboard, or when
you are on the move with a laptop. Bome's Mouse Keyboard
is a help to play melodies into Cubase.
This tutorial explains how to connect Bome's Mouse Keyboard
with Cubase SX, and how to play VST instruments with it.
1. Get and install a virtual MIDI driver
There are several virtual MIDI drivers available.
I suggest one of the following drivers:
Install one of them. Follow the installation instructions provided by the
respective author. After successful installation, you'll have a set of
virtual MIDI devices.
Virtual MIDI port drivers allow MIDI data to be sent directly from Bome's Mouse Keyboard to the MIDI IN port of a
MIDI enabled application. Normally, Bome's Mouse Keyboard will accept the direct input of a connected MIDI device,
while outputing to the virtual port driver. It is also possible for Bome's Mouse Keyboard to accept input from
one virtual MIDI port and output on different virtual port to allow Bome's Mouse Keyboard, e.g. to translate the
MIDI communications between two software programs. Bome's Mouse Keyboard may NOT have the same virtual
MIDI port driver specified for both input and output, as this will cause a MIDI loop.
| Note: The next version of Bome's Mouse Keyboard will
ship with built-in virtual MIDI support, so that you can select
Bome's Mouse Keyboard directly as MIDI INPUT in, e.g., Cubase. |
2. Set up Bome's Mouse Keyboard
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First, select a virtual Midi cable as
Midi Out in Bome's Mouse Keyboard like you see in the picture.
Your virtual MIDI
device may also be named "MIDI Yoke Junction: 1" or "LB1",
depending which virtual MIDI cable you installed.
| Note: Select none as MIDI IN. If you selected the same
virtual MIDI port as MIDI IN, it would be reserved and Cubase could not
access it!
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| A good idea is to put Bome's Mouse Keyboard
in Always On Top mode, so that it's always visible on your screen.
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3. Set up Cubase SX
In Cubase, I open a new project:
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For this example, I choose an empty project:
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Bome's Mouse Keyboard sends MIDI messages.
So I create a new MIDI track which will receive everything that is
played in mouse keyboard:
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| By default, Cubase opens all MIDI IN ports
for the MIDI tracks. I still like to verify, so let's have a look:
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Here you can see Cubase's Device Setup screen.
Make sure that it says Yes at MIDI Yoke NT
(or LB1 for Hubi's users). This will ensure that our MIDI track
will receive the MIDI messages from Bome's Mouse Keyboard.
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Now let's set up a software synthesizer!
Cubase ships with 3 VST instruments, and you can add as many as
you like... To use a VST Instrument, select that menu
item from the Devices menu:
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| The VST Instruments console opens.
Click on the first empty slot to choose a VST Instrument.
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| In the menu, choose the instrument
category and then the instrument. For this tutorial, I select
the vb-1 - a virtual eletric bass guitar.
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| After selecting the VST Instrument,
you can see it in the console. Pressing the e button
will invoke the user interface of the virtual bass; pressing the arrows will
browse through the patches.
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Now all that is left is to connect our MIDI track
the the VST Instrument. For that we open the Mixer from the Devices menu:
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Here you can see Cubase's Mixer. Visible are
2 channel strips: The first is for our MIDI track, the other controls the
vb-1 instrument.
In order to send the MIDI messages from the MIDI track to the VST instrument,
select it at the bottom of the channel strip - where it says Not Connected.
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Important:
There is an option in Cubase that you need to disable to hear anything when
playing Mouse Keyboard:
In the menu Devices|Device Setup|VST Multitrack,
uncheck the option Release ASIO driver in background.
Otherwise you'll not be able to hear anything when focus is on Mouse Keyboard.
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4. Make music!
Now playing on Bome's Mouse Keyboard will
play the vb-1 VST Instrument in Cubase! There's nothing anymore
that stops you from recording great music!
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Many thanks to the people at Steinberg, who were very friendly
in making available Cubase SX so that this tutorial could be created.
Go back to Bome's Mouse Keyboard Tutorials.
Go back to Bome's Mouse Keyboard. |
