A solution that worked for me to solve problems when importing Cubase .midiremote files with mismatching port names.
Context
Cubase MIDI Remote scripts, that have been exported as a file with the extension .midiremote on one computer can generally be imported on another – or the same -computer.
However, the saved Cubase .midiremote file, uses the MIDI port names of the exporting computer. And the importing computer may have slightly different MIDI port names:
- MacOS and Windows seem to have some differences in how they name MIDI ports.
- When using multiple hardware devices of the same kind, the MIDI port names change slightly to differentiate between the devices.
- On Windows, port names can even change when plugging the hardware device into a different USB port. Or simply when Windows still has some traces of a prior configuration that’s no longer in use.
The MIDI Remote (as of Cubase 13.0.41) can presumably handle this somewhat gracefully, when importing a new .midiremote file, when the port names in that file don’t seem connected. And it will prompt to assign the appropriate port names during the import process.
However, I recently experienced this not working on my Cubase 13.0.41 on Windows 10 22H2 system. The import process simply ignored the fact, that a new port assignment was needed.
I tried a variety of workarounds, but nothing worked, until I did this:
Make a new empty Cubase project to import the .midremote file
The solution that worked for me
- Quit Cubase
- Start Cubase and create a new empty project
- Import the .midiremote file
- change the MIDI port settings when prompted
- Save this empty project (name and folder doesn’t matter).
- Quit Cubase
Why so complicated?
When I had tried to import the .midiremote file with port names that were not present on my target system while in an already existing project file that had previously used the same hardware controller, but on a different port name, Cubase never prompted me for a port assignment, although it couldn’t connect to the port name listed in the .midiremote file.
Over the years I’ve experienced Cubase save some settings in project files, that could be considered general preferences and settings – and not just project specific. While this has some advantages in some workflows, it can also break some other workflows. – This seemed to be one of those breaking scenarios.
So, on a hunch, I closed Cubase and started again with an new empty project.
And to my happiness, importing the .midiremote file now prompted me to assign MIDI ports different from those in the .midiremote file.
However, when quitting my new empty new project without saving and opening my other project, there was no trace of the just imported MIDI Remote. It had vanished.
That’s when it struck me, that one of the many tricky things in Cubase is, that it seems to save some settings and preferences at the same time as it saves a project file. So when changing some global configuration type settings in Cubase, they seem to get get lost unless one saves the current project after making some global changes.