How I got my KORG Opsix and Minilogue XD to work with Cubase

While thinking about the next few tracks I want to produce for the Single Synth Project I decided to hook up a couple of KORG synths to get a feel for their sound. First I set up my Opsix Module. I launched Cubase and imported some boilerplate MIDI to send to the Opsix but… the synth didn’t play anything! I spent some time double-checking my MIDI settings and connections, but couldn’t figure it out, so I unhooked the Opsix and set up the Minilogue XD Module instead- and that one wouldn’t play any MIDI either! Were both of these synths broken?

Minilogue XD module (left) and Opsix module (right)

Symptoms and troubleshooting steps

With both synthesizers I found I had the same problem: They each powered on, and I could get audio out of them by playing their internal sequencers or switching their bottom row of buttons to keyboard mode (so I could use the buttons like a virtual MIDI keyboard), but when I tried to play any MIDI into them from my DAW, I saw no evidence that they were receiving MIDI, and they certainly weren’t playing anything.

Things I tried:

• I plugged the audio and MIDI cables from a known-working synth (a Roland XV-3080) and connected them to the KORG synths. Playing the same sequence with the same settings that worked on the Roland had no effect on the KORGs. No joy.
• I tried using both the DIN MIDI and USB MIDI inputs for each synth. Nada.
• I checked and double-checked that my DAW was sending to the correct MIDI port and channel and that the synths were set to the same channel as my DAW. Bupkis.
• I performed the factory reset sequence on both synths to ensure they didn’t have any weirdo custom settings causing problems. Nope!
• Then I took my PC out of the equation and ran a MIDI cable from my Arturia Keystep 37’s MIDI OUT port directly to the Minilogue XD’s MIDI in- and that worked!
• Next I did the same thing with my Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S49 (I had to do a little configuration with MIDI-OX in order to set this up) but that worked too!
• Finally I fired up Ableton Live 11 Standard and configured it the same way I had Cubase set up- and that also worked. Was Cubase the problem all along?

Special note about the KORG MIDI drivers

Here’s a little sidebar. While doing my web searches I ran across a number of posts and videos that talked about issues with KORG’s own USB MIDI drivers. I am a Windows user, and Windows has historically been kind of notorious for having audio and MIDI support that simply didn’t meet professional standards. Steinberg created ASIO to make up for Windows’ sub-par digital audio support, and many MIDI device manufacturers (like KORG) wrote their own MIDI drivers to provide features such as multi-client support to make up for Windows single-client limitations. But over the years, Windows has evolved. Recent major Windows releases have incrementally improved both the audio and MIDI support, and in a recent Windows 11 update, Microsoft has actually surpassed the technology available in a lot of these third-party MIDI drivers (including KORG’s).

I am running Windows 11, and now both KORG and Microsoft are urging users not to install the KORG USB MIDI drivers on their systems. So, my problems were not related to the KORG drivers, and I was fairly confident that installing them would probably make things worse.

Fixing the Minilogue XD problem

Once I knew that the problem was Cubase-specific that allowed me to narrow my web searches, and I found this post, by a person having the same kind of trouble with a different KORG synth. This was where I learned about the “Project Synchronization Setup” dialog box in Cubase. I’m not entirely sure what it all does (it’s not even documented very well in the Cubase documentation), but it was there that I discovered what I needed to do in order to fix my Minilogue XD.

From the Cubase project window, go to Transport > Project Synchronization Setup > Destinations > MIDI Clock Destinations and select the MIDI port connected to your Minilogue XD (whether you’re using the synth’s USB connection or a DIN MIDI connection). After I clicked OK, I was able to play a sequence from Cubase into my Minilogue XD with no problems.

I don’t understand why it worked. I just know that it did. But even after making this change my KORG Opsix still wasn’t working!

Fixing the Opsix issue

Despite being a bit crestfallen upon discovering that the Project Synchronization change didn’t fix my Opsix, after some more specific web searching I learned about the Opsix’s “Rx Transport” feature.

The factory default settings enable Rx Transport, so I had to disable it in order to play MIDI from Cubase into the Opsix. On the Opsix, press SHIFT + GLOBAL, then select the MIDI page, locate the Rx Transport setting, and set it to Off.

Once I did that, Cubase worked fine with Opsix. Also, the “Project Synchronization Setup” change didn’t affect the Opsix one way or the other. If you own both synths, they will both work with it in place.