Set up your DAW

Cubase & Nuendo

Jude talks to Cubase and Nuendo two ways at once. A set of Mackie Control devices in Studio Setup — one for every eight channels, which the DAW combines into one long console — carries the transport, the faders, the meters and the state of every track in the project. A small MIDI Remote script that Jude installs for you handles what a control surface can't: adding and naming tracks, inputs, instruments, positions, tempo, the click and the count-in. You wire the Mackie Control devices once; the script takes care of itself.

Setup

Automatic setup. In Cubase 15 and Nuendo 15, Jude can configure Studio Setup for you automatically — the Mackie Control devices, their ports and their order, and the "All MIDI Inputs" column (steps 2 to 5 below). After step 1, click Set up control surface config in Settings → DAW. Jude asks you to quit the DAW first if it's open, keeps a backup of the DAW's settings, and changes nothing that is already right. If both Cubase and Nuendo are on your Mac, Jude asks which one you use. If you change the number of channels later, Jude offers to update the setup. If Studio Setup also has a Mackie Control of your own, such as a hardware controller, Jude leaves it to you, because Cubase and Nuendo chain every Mackie Control together.

  1. In Jude, open Settings → DAW and choose Cubase / Nuendo MCU XT. Set Number of channels to cover your project — 32 is the default and creates four port pairs: Jude MCU 01-08, Jude MCU 09-16, and so on. Launch Jude before the DAW so its ports exist when the DAW looks for them.
  2. In Cubase or Nuendo, open Studio → Studio Setup → MIDI Port Setup and untick every Jude MCU port and Jude Remote in the "In All MIDI Inputs" column. Cubase ticks every port there by default, and an armed MIDI or instrument track would otherwise play and record the console's button and fader messages.
  3. In Studio → Studio Setup, click the + button and add one Mackie Control device per port pair. Careful here: Mackie Control, not Mackie HUI — they sit next to each other in the list and HUI won't work.
  4. For each device, set its MIDI input and MIDI output to the same Jude MCU port pair. Never Jude Remote — that port belongs to Jude's script, which finds it by itself.
  5. Order matters: the bottom-most Mackie Control in the Studio Setup device list must use Jude MCU 01-08, the one above it 09-16, and so on up.
  6. Click OK. The DAW light in Jude's header turns green when the DAW starts talking. Then check the wiring: play the project and watch Jude's channel strips light left to right across the whole panel. A dark stretch of eight means that port's device is missing or wired to the wrong pair.

If you accidentally add Mackie HUI, Jude notices the wrong dialect on the wire and tells you exactly that — remove the HUI device and add a Mackie Control instead.

Jude's MIDI Remote script

When you choose Cubase / Nuendo MCU XT in Settings, Jude places its script in the DAW's own scripts folder (Documents/Steinberg/<Cubase or Nuendo>/MIDI Remote/Driver Scripts/Local/Okachobi/Jude). There's nothing to add or assign — the script connects to the Jude Remote port on its own.

  • The DAW loads the script when it starts. If Cubase or Nuendo was already running when Jude installed it, restart the DAW once, or open Studio → MIDI Remote Manager → Scripts and press Reload Scripts.
  • macOS may ask about your Documents folder the first time — allow it, since that's where Steinberg keeps scripts. If it was refused, allow Jude under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders and press Reinstall in Jude's Settings.
  • Check it in Settings → DAW → Track management (MIDI Remote script). The row says whether the script is installed and loaded, and what to do if it isn't.
  • Naming a new track and answering the DAW's own prompts (like "change the channel configuration?" when a track goes stereo) can use the macOS Accessibility permission — Jude asks for it at launch.

Good to know

  • The click, the count-in, tempo and time signature all work by voice through the script — "click on", "turn on the count-in", "set the tempo to 96". The count-in's length stays in the DAW's Metronome Setup.
  • Lost the connection? If Jude was restarted or updated while Cubase or Nuendo stayed open, the DAW light goes dark: relaunch the DAW, or open Studio → Studio Setup and click Reset All Devices (the unlabeled button at the top of the device list, next to the trash-can icon — it looks like a rewind button).
  • More tracks than channels? Jude still reaches every track when you ask for it, a page at a time, and tells you when a higher channel count would put the whole project live at once.
  • Markers by name. Jude finds your markers live and reads their names from your project as last saved or auto-saved, so a marker you add or rename by hand shows without its name until the next save. Markers Jude adds are named through a small Project Logical Editor preset it places in the DAW's preset folder; Cubase and Nuendo pick it up when they start, so restart the DAW once after installing or updating Jude.

Next: Talking to Jude — what to say, and what the engineer can do for you.