It’s a pretty widely reported issue, that using the Cubase MIDI Remote in bi-directional MIDI mode (send and receive) with endless encoders operating in absolute mode causes a problematic “jitter” effect. When recording it as VST Automation, it looks something like this:
This isn’t easy to solve for all affected hardware controllers.
But we can configure NI Komplete Kontrol S series MK2 or MK3 keyboards and the Cubase MIDI Remote using a different mode to communicate when using the 8 physical hardware knobs.
STEP 1: Configure Hardware
NI Komplete Kontrol S series MK2 configuration
To change the MK2 keyboard’s MIDI configuration, use the Komplete Kontrol software and change each knob to use Mode: Relative:
NI Komplete Kontrol S series MK3 configuration
Changing the MK3 keyboard’s MIDI configuration is done right on the hardware itself, and we need to configure each knob to use Mode: Relative:
Step 2: Configure Cubase MIDI Remote
Cubase MIDI Remote Configuration
- Use the Cubase MIDI Remote editing page to configure each knob to use Value Mode: Relative Two’s Complement:
p.s. The name that Cubase uses is one of those technical computer science kind of terms, but we won’t let that stop us!
Step 3: Leave all of the edit modes and configure the Cubase MIDI Remote assignments as normal.
If everything worked as it should, recording a Cubase VST automation now should not have the “jitters” anymore:
P.S. This approach does not seem to work with NI Maschine, since it seems to have a faulty implementation of receiving MIDI data in Relative mode.
For Maschine knobs and touch strips, I’ve made myself a much more laborious work-around.