Hi James

Welcome in the family here at VSL!

Your problem goes back to the birth of the midi protokoll. Even if the big companies (Yamaha, Roland and how they all are called) did a good job and also made a lot of agreements there is one point left.  Which key is C1 for example. So C2 can also be C1 or F3 can be F4. Some DAWs seem to offer the possibility to adjust this matter Logic? - but not Cubase (I believe you can choose between "Yamaha-mode" and "Roland-mode").

I've learned that VSL's C0 is C-1 in Cubase (F4 is F3,...) This fact is mainly important for the Keyswitches. The sound is controlled by the ears. For me it was never interesting whether a tone is called C4 or C5 in the midiworld...

The long and the short of it is that this is not a bug of VSL or any other company.

There are unfortunately two rules in the world about this matter. 

All the best and Happy Music

Beat

Hi Beat, thanks.

I understand that some companies start Middle C on 3 and others on 4, however I'm still not quite sure why my keyswitches won't work for the first octave.

For example, in the Violin section I'm using, it seems like VSL C2 = Cubase C2 because those articulation changes work, but when I lower it by one, VSL C1 = Cubase C0, so not sure why that's happening, there a reason why don't they remain consistent? Or if, as you say "VSL's C0 is C-1 in Cubase", then how come all those changes work (like for C2)? Are they technically incorrect if Cubases' is supposed to be an octave lower?


And I take it the sustain issue is unrelated? Because in my Violin section, I have it set to C#2, but I have to actually press C#1 to change it, even though all the other ones change correctly when I press the other Octave 2 keys (for example in contrast to Staccato, which I have set to C2 and pressing C2 works fine).

Another approach

Check out this image!

It shows my VI loaded with some articulations of the chamber strings.

If I want to select Staccato (C0 in VI) I need to set a tone C-1 in Cubase. So far so good. This I treated above...

Now if you have some further octave problems - just with some articulations

• - it could be that Keyswitches overlap into the range of tones.
• - it could be that not all articulations got the same octave value in VI (I recommend to let it on "0")
• - it could be that you anywhere else adjusted the octave value (for example in the daw's midi track).
• - ....

Please check all these things. I really recommend not to vary these octave matters (in any case not within one instrument). Better is that you decide to do those keyswitching things always the same way and that - even a bass plays A4 it sounds as A4 and not an octave lower just because it is a bass.

Keyswitching

I recommend a system where the same articulation always get the same keyswitch - independent of the instrument. So for example C~ (C-2 in Cubase) is always and for each instrument "staccato". Save those VI-collections for each instrument. No problem then to play the same midi track with another instrument later on without changing anything at midi (exept for transposing the melody if it is a bass😉). Read more about this matter here.

I hope you can solve now the problem together with my hints and the range-display in VI.

All the best

Beat

VSL Vienna Instruments by default does not match Cubase, so "seems like VSL C2 = Cubase C2" is a mystery.
It's not going to be inconsistent, it's fixed.

In the VI interface, the spanner or wrench icon reveals "General Settings"; here you'll find Midi Settings where you can set C3 as middle C. Now you're looking at the same number in both VI and Cubase.

And there are three conventions in place. MIDI note 0 for Yamaha is C-2; for Roland it's C-1; Sonar, I think, calls that C0. So middle C is, respectively C3; C4; and C5.

I don't have any issues with the keyswitching system design itself that'd I'd like to use, I have two setups I already worked on implementing: Octave 6 for Low Instruments like Double Bass and Bassoon, and Octave 1 for High Instruments like Violins, Trumpets, Flutes, etc., and I did set each interface to use the particular articulations (ie C for Staccato, C# for Sustain, D# for Legato, etc.) so that's not a problem in theory, the issue is none of the High Instruments work within Octave 1, despite not having any instrument keys in that low range.


And I did already try changing the MIDI Setting to C3, which didn't appear to make a difference, it only seemed to apply to the VI interface. I tried re-setting Middle C to C3 again and yeah, on my end VSL C2 = Cubase C2 still, along with VSL C1 = Cubase C0.

Why would it apply to anything else?? You only have to change one of the for them to agree!!
Set middle C = C3 in VI; middle C = C3 for Cubase, so they now agree. End of story.  C0 in VI is C0 in Cubase now. It is impossible for C0 to not agree if C2 agrees. You are confused in some way.

I did that, and Octave 1 keyswitches don't work.

• I went to the Violins' MIDI Settings and updated to Middle > C3.
• Then I changed the articulations to use keys in Octave 1.
• I try pressing Octave 1 keys on my MIDI keyboard, and nothing happens. I go to press keys in the 0 octave (only some as my keyboard doesn't go that low), and those change, so they end up being an octave lower than what I tell the VSL plugin to use.

What am I missing / being confused about here??

Well, you said that C2 matches but C0 does not. I don't know how you get that, but how does Cubase manage to screw that up? Bizarre.
C0 is MIDI note 24 in this, Yahama numbering; MIDI note 0 is called C-2. It looks like you believe note 0 = C0.

When that's true, middle C is C5. Middle C is note 60. 60/12 = 5. Note 0 is five octaves below middle C. So if C3 stands for middle C, C0 is three octaves below.

I use that bottom octave for keyswitches w. Upright Bass. In Vienna Instruments note 0 reads C-. Note 12 {C-1} reads C~.

@James L said:

I don't have any issues with the keyswitching system design itself that'd I'd like to use, I have two setups I already worked on implementing: Octave 6 for Low Instruments like Double Bass and Bassoon, and Octave 1 for High Instruments like Violins, Trumpets, Flutes, etc., and I did set each interface to use the particular articulations (ie C for Staccato, C# for Sustain, D# for Legato, etc.) so that's not a problem in theory, the issue is none of the High Instruments work within Octave 1, despite not having any instrument keys in that low range.


And I did already try changing the MIDI Setting to C3, which didn't appear to make a difference, it only seemed to apply to the VI interface. I tried re-setting Middle C to C3 again and yeah, on my end VSL C2 = Cubase C2 still, along with VSL C1 = Cubase C0.

I am confused like Civilization. I know this is frustrating and you're trying to explain it the best you can, but it's unclear precisely what is going on. VI Pro, once set to use C3 as Middle C as Civilization suggested, generally speaking works fine with Cubase expression maps. I just completely reworked my expression map for Strings articulations today.

The only other thing I can think of is conflicting assignments for some notes, where different keyswitches are assigned to the same note (say C0 was assigned to both the X Axis and the A/B keyswitch. But you'd have some graphic indication of that problem on the virtual keyboard in VI Pro.

I know I've had some frustrating moments working with these things, some that really tried my patience, but it always turned out to be something I hadn't noticed or understood.

Perhaps if you could take several screen captures that illustrate your problem we can be of more help. Hang in there.

Alright so I spent some more time trying to look into it over the weekend, and I believe I was able to fix it, but I'm unsure of what caused it to happen in the first place.

I tried creating a newer, blank, more recent project and set up the articulations again, and this time it worked fine, the keyswitches went to Octave 1 like they were supposed to. (Why I had to create a whole new project file, I'm unsure; as just creating new instrument tracks within the same project file didn't change anything, and I thought I tried this before and it didn't work, but now it did apparently, so that's what I had to do.)

I'm unsure if there was just a plugin corruption or something where I messed up a Cubase configuration to misplace keys. But it's weird though as this trouble spread across multiple project files with various instrument combinations.

So basically just had to spent time on recreating the projects that used the instruments and copying over the notes, settings, etc. that I had set up on the older versions, and now everything works the way it should.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to look into these problems and helping me resolve these unique issues.

Glad you were able to get it working.