Pa4x - recording Song from Sequencer as MIDI in DAW

[Jaca63]

Hi,

I would like to record in Cubase 10.5 a song recorded in the PA4x Sequencer direct from Pa4x sequencer as or in Midi.
I have assigned all Midi In and Out channels in Pa4x under General>Menu>Midi and set Clock source to External Midi (because connected to Rme UCX).
I have synchronized Pa4x with Cubase successful, load the song in the Pa4x Sequencer and can play and listen to it from Cubase. But I can't record the song as desired (in midi). Does anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks for any hints!

[siebenhirter]

.. set Clock source to External Midi (because connected to Rme UCX). I have synchronized Pa4x with Cubase successful ..

Cubase supports sending MIDI clock to external devices but cannot slave to incoming MIDI clock and cannot be used to synchronize digital audio. It is only used for MIDI devices to play in musical sync with one another. Cubase does not support being a MIDI clock slave.

[Jaca63]

.. set Clock source to External Midi (because connected to Rme UCX). I have synchronized Pa4x with Cubase successful ..

Cubase supports sending MIDI clock to external devices but cannot slave to incoming MIDI clock and cannot be used to synchronize digital audio. It is only used for MIDI devices to play in musical sync with one another. Cubase does not support being a MIDI clock slave.

I asked the same question in the German forum and thank you for the answer. Maybe the topic is also interesting here, so I'll continue to post also here.

Perhaps I have expressed myself incorrectly. By "synchronize" I meant that after the settings made with Pa4x and Cubase 10.5. - according to this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRL6u-o9MR8 - I managed to start and stop the Pa4x with Cubase.
My problem is that I can play a song from the sequencer (Pa4x) after uploading (in Pa4x) with Cubase, but I can't record it in Midi (audio goes). When I'm in Style Play mode and play by hand, recording isn't a problem. That's why I wonder what I'm thinking wrong, or doing that this doesn't work with a song. My settings regarding Midi are identical to referred to in the tutorial above.
I thought that a song was also in Midi.

Any ideas?

[Jaca63]

I think I have it.
The problem seems to have been "in front of the screen". The midi settings at PA4x (Midi In and Out) must get the respective tracks 1-16. Instead, I worked with the channels from the Style Play mode (e.B. Acc1, Acc2 ... etc.) and after switching to the tracks now I can record the song in Midi
Actually, this is logical, because tracks are recorded in the sequencer ...

Sorry for the confusion and help! Maybe someone else will help.

Greeting

[korg1]

two solutions:
1) use Cubase vst for ATARI
2) use Cakewalk's Daw
they both can sync as Slave to pa4x....

or just export the midi and import on any daw for editing.

[Korghelper]

Most modern DAW’s can do flexible tempo manipulation and move notes around if you change tempo the right way.

Hence, unless your performance contains a lot of tempo changes (and I wouldn’t worry too much about a ritardando at the end, as being bar precise isn’t really very important by this point) syncing the two devices doesn’t really matter very much. It’s easy enough to just play one into the other, then ‘lock’ the data in the DAW to an absolute time, and hand adjust the tempo in the DAW until the notes end up precisely on bar/beat boundaries. There are even utilities with some programs that have the DAW ‘listen’ to unsynced music (usually audio, but it can also either be done with MIDI or you record an audio print at the same time you are recording the MIDI and use the audio to derive the tempo track) and it does it all for you.

So synchronization isn’t the issue it used to be. Particularly as modern DAW’s can run at very high resolution, not the 96 ticks a 1/4 note that it used to be, the necessity for synchronized clocks is much less. And you can always set the DAW to a very high tempo (like 240bpm) so the resolution of the wild sync is even higher. So, even without an Atari (I started serious sequencing with a MegaST and Cubase in the 90’s!) if your DAW won’t slave, there are perfectly acceptable workarounds…

Practice the workflow, and it’s just a few mouse clicks to line up a completely wild sync recording as long as there’s not too much tempo fluctuation. And that’s not exactly what arrangers do!

[Korghelper]

And one thing I point out time after time is, no matter how good your synchronization works, you get a FAR better transfer, with FAR less data drift by saving your style derived sequence to an SMF in the arranger and transferring and importing to the DAW via USB stick.

Although wild sync will work if you MUST play one into the other, you’ll save time and have a far better transfer if you simply copy the SMF to the computer…

It really is worth the extra steps.

[Jaca63]

Thank you all (Siebenhirter, Korg1 and Korghelper) for the valuable advice. As I said, I found out my mistake in the meantime and can now actually record in midi (and audio anyway) in Cubase from the Pa4x sequencer.
I also tried the export to USB from Pa4x and import into the DAW (Cubase) and it works 90% well.
Interestingly, neither one nor the other procedure does not work as well with Pro Tools Native (2021) as it does with Cubase. I think this is again due to settings in Pro Tools, but I can't find any good instructions (PT with Pa4x).

Another problem with Cubase and Midi from Pa4x is the assignment of sound changes after the part dissolution when there are several on a one track. Does anyone know a way to do this? I can only define one sound in the inspector, right?

Thanks!

[siebenhirter]

.. assignment of sound changes ... can only define one sound in the inspector ..

You can record MIDI data (also program change) into the MIDI part that is opened for record. Select Merge or Replace as a MIDI Record Mode and do not filter program change events, because only this will prevent changing sounds in MIDI parts.

[Korghelper]

I haven’t used Cubase for quite a while, but what I used to do was split a song up into separate channels (if recorded as a multi-channel song), and then go through each track looking for program change commands (you can set a filter in the list edit that hides notes to make this easier) and then split the track at that point and move it to a new track. It generally only occurs at Variation changes, sometimes for fills (especially on older styles).

If you drag each sound to one track (as this is likely to happen at each Variation change), you’ll now have each sound the song uses on its own track.

This will allow you to use the Inspector on each sound independently….

[Bill1983]

two solutions:
1) use Cubase vst for ATARI
2) use Cakewalk's Daw
they both can sync as Slave to pa4x....

or just export the midi and import on any daw for editing.

Are you saying that Cakewalk (aka Sonar, Sonar Platinum in my case) can now sync to MIDI Clock? I had to leave Cakewalk/Sonar 2 years ago because I really needed MIDI Clock Sync and Cakewalk just would not properly sync from an external clock.

Exactly where in the "Properties" options are you finding "External MIDI Clock Sync"? I absolutely love Cakewalk/Sonar and hate the Ableton user interface as it's more like a spreadsheet than a DAW in my opinion. Directions on enabling external MIDI Clock Sync would be greatly appreciated!

[ckobu]

Hi Bill,

Synchronization is in the menu
Edit > Preferences > Clock > MIDI Sync

Watch the video at the moment, admittedly, it’s about Yamaha but you might be interested.

https://youtu.be/vjqUzC4DqnI?t=250

[Bill1983]

Hi,

I would like to record in Cubase 10.5 a song recorded in the PA4x Sequencer direct from Pa4x sequencer as or in Midi.
I have assigned all Midi In and Out channels in Pa4x under General>Menu>Midi and set Clock source to External Midi (because connected to Rme UCX).
I have synchronized Pa4x with Cubase successful, load the song in the Pa4x Sequencer and can play and listen to it from Cubase. But I can't record the song as desired (in midi). Does anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks for any hints!

To the best of my knowledge, Ableton Live is the ONLY DAW that still fully supports MIDI Clock Sync. I honestly don't understand why as MIDI Clock Sync was originally the only Sync mechanism in 1983 when MIDI was released. I do a fair amount of recording and always record the MIDI in addition to the audio in Ableton Live.