Akai mini plus and Cubase 13

M1ck

Can anyone walk me through setting up an Akai mini plus in Cubase 13?
I thought it would a good idea to set up a midi device primarily to get some drums going for practice rather than the click click click of a metronome, but if I can get keys going as well all the better.
Cubase doesn’t recognise the Akai but I can add it manually, and I can create a layout but that’s about as far as I can get on my own! So far I have been unable to assign any keys or get any sound from it. I have the manual but it may as well be in a foreign language, I’ve also searched for info online and forums but all I can find is for Cubase 12 and the interface has changed in 13 also there seems to be some programming involved (in the video I found).
My set up is - Steinberg interface, Cubase 13 (not sure if it’s Elements or AI) and an Akai mini plus. There is a DAW included with the Akai but I’d rather not use it if I can help it. 

Full disclosure - I am an absolute numpty with this sort of stuff so please don’t assume I know anything about it other than the above!

midiman1962

Starting with the basics, you don’t actually need the akai to create a drum track , I think you should have the groove agent built in? Does this make sense?

M1ck

Cheers @midiman1962 the drums were just part of it I was hoping to use other features too many seemed like they would be easier with a keyboard/controller. 

I registered the controller and got access to the free software - and immediately wished I hadn’t - it’s now all under my desk gathering dust where it will stay for the foreseeable!

blobb

It's just a controller, right? So it provides MIDI information to the DAW. In the DAW there needs to be some sort of 'sound module' - software synth etc... which can respond to those MIDI signals. It's not a synth, it doesn't make any sound without a sound module assigned. To add a sound module in cubase you would insert one (of your choice) to a MIDI track, tell cubase the controller is the MIDI source and the two should communicate. Then when you hit a key, a synth note is triggered from the module. Look up 'using MIDI tracks'. 

I haven't used cubase for a long time but this is generic way things work. 

M1ck

Cheers @blobb ;;

blobb said:

To add a sound module in cubase you would insert one (of your choice) to a MIDI track, tell cubase the controller is the MIDI source and the two should communicate. Then when you hit a key, a synth note is triggered from the module.

And that is the crux of the problem, Cubase doesn’t recognise the controller….I can add it, but before I’ve finished the I hit a problem where I get a choice for midi in and midi out, there’s only two and I’ve tried them both, I can get Cubase to ‘learn’ which controls are being used but I can’t get past that, I can’t seem to get the controller to map functions through to get it to do something, all works fine with the generic mapping that can be downloaded from Akai, though not through Cubase.

I’ll look up ‘using MIDI tracks’ as you suggest but I honestly think the issue (for me) is before that, happy to be corrected or proven wrong

Bezzer

Which version of Cubase are you using? What sort of thing do you want to control? 

There will be nothing "setup" for the Akai as standard except the keys and CCs for pitch and modulation within a VST instrument.

Anything you want it to control within Cubase itself will need to be setup under the MIDI Remote. It's fiddly but once it's done its done. There's some decent support on that on the Steinberg forums.

midiman1962

Just pondering your issue and thinking that I have Cubase 9.5 on a very low tech old laptop but what I do have is a powered usb 10 port hub which allows me to plug in multiple devices including keyboards and interfaces - are you just using your laptop or pc usb interfaces?