Each Part Assign Knob will output a CC Number when turned *directly* (hands on the actual Knob) These can easily be redrawn with your pencil (draw) tool in any of the Cubase versions. That’s easy.

they can? well, didn´t even know that... I´ll try to find out how... can´t say it´s even easy to simply draw a volume automation in Cubase. nothing is easy nor intuitive, unfortunately..no luck with anything without looking thru 30 drop down menues and 50 icons.....but eventually after watching 10 videos on youtube I might understand...

Lots of ways to slice that pie. Here's one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxnDIuQiWzc

Lots of ways to slice that pie. Here's one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxnDIuQiWzc

thank you for the video!

holy cow, that is complicated..."extract automation", "show used"...I guess I´m gonna have to watch this a few times...baby steps here...

As Jason said, there are lots of ways to slice that pie. Cubase Pro is a very mature program used professionally by top film scorers, musicians and studios everywhere. There are both simple and detailed methods to work. You can design your own workflow.... example, say your doing a real-time MONTAGE “knob performance” where you are interacting with Parts via their AssignKnobs... directly using a Part’s Assign Knob will generate cc messages on the Parts MIDI Channel. You could setup to just record the cc movement on a separate track or view them on the Automation Lane. You can copy Automation from one track and apply it to another.

The thing is, their is no one way to work. So the thing to do is Start. Find out what is most comfortable for you. There is a Steinberg Channel on YouTube... some routines are advanced. I recommend starting at the shallow end of the pool and wade out into the deeper waters. But there is no real harm to just diving in.

But when you say “nothing is easy or intuitive”, I disagree. The fact that there are so many pull downs should reassure you that this is not a toy - if you ever use a program like Excel or PhotoShop both can do simple easy edits, but both are incredibly deep and can do “professional” editing. Nothing is necessarily easy or intuitive when its not your full time profession. But if you learn the basic stuff first, the more complicated routine actually DO start to seem very intuitive.

As long as you realize that “seeming intuitive” is just a matter of perspective and experience... dialing a rotary phone was considered easy, intuitive, but if you never grew up with rotary phones, it is far from easy and intuitive (saw some recent videos that make this point). It’s perspective.
...and your perspective is likely to change as you work more with the program and the synth.

You may discover, that “editing the synth” as I suggested earlier, is a more efficient way. That may not seem easy and intuitive right now, but I believe your view on it will change, if and when you start to customize controllers on your own Performances.

Take your time.
Recognize that your confusion will clear (as you have those ‘aha’ moments).
There is no shortcut to experience... your second attempt will, in all likelihood, be easier than the first. And as you do things a third and fourth time, they actually do seem easier. That’s called developing a workflow. If there were only one way to work everyone would work the same way... the good news here is, you can develop your own workflow — the software can help you be creative.

It's not rocket science or even that many steps. Very quickly you can get to the below picture I've captured from my Montage using Cubase AI 9.5

Here's the rundown - from Cubase:

1) Open up new empty project (create empty)
2) Add a MIDI track
3) Make sure Sysex isn't filtered (File->Preferences and MIDI filters) if you care about the Sysex part. You may not end up wanting to deal with Sysex.
4) Start recording (Cubase transport controls at the bottom to left of what I've labeled as "Cursor Position" - the classic record dot.
5) I generated this data by following this order (first, made sure [ASSIGN] button was lit and PART 1 selected):
5a) Spun Assign Knob 1 full counter clockwise, then full clockwise and back and forth 3 times until ending on full counter-clockwise
5b) Spun Assign Knob 2 in the same manner as 5a
...
5h) ... and so on through Assign Knob 8
5i) Spun superknob in the same manner as 5a
5j) Pressed scene buttons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 then back down 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (creating that step "triangle" type pattern)
5k) Pressed [PERFORMANCE] (HOME) to select no PART so COMMON Assignable knobs were active and spun common Assign Knob 1, then 2, ... 8
6) Pressed stop (the square) in the Cubase transport controls to stop recording. All of the events were documented in the MIDI track with no automation tracks shown.
7) Create the automation tracks by:
7a) Click on the MIDI track (shown as MIDI 01) to select it
7b) Cubase "MIDI" menu heading then -> "Functions > Extract MIDI Automation" menu item This is a menu heading like File, Edit, Project, Audio ...
8) If automation not shown like picture, right-click on "MIDI 01" (track name) and pick "Show Used Automation (Selected Tracks)"
9) To show sysex - at the bottom of the screen should be tabs "MixConsole, Editor, Chord Pads". Click the "Editor" tab then in the lower-left of this window is a plus (+) and to the right of that looks like a piece of paper. Click on the paper icon, then pick "Show Used Controllers". The "System Ex" (SysEx) controller should automatically be displayed. Since I didn't hit any notes - that's all that should be selected. I reduced the vertical area the piano roll takes so that Sysex information shows all bytes from F0 ... F7. Some general adjustments to other windows may need to be made to see this fully.

That's not many steps or menus to deal with.

thank you for the great instructions. I managed to see the superknob, but my assignable knobs that I turned are nowhere to be found.... see screenshot... why is this all so damn difficult?

If you followed the steps outlined exactly including the Montage side - I don't think PART assignable knobs have the option for SysEx like superknob (by turning CC off under utility settings midi I/O) so it should work. Make sure you followed the part where you touch a PART to select one or else you may not have any PART selected and Assignable Knobs will be common sending SysEx.

Common send SysEx and only SysEx so know your knob mode.

wow, it works now, thank you Jason, you´re a genius! I can´t believe this works with elements, I thought I needed pro and the famous sysex track... cooooool! I think it´s time to learn everything about midi messages....something I have dodged til now

Even though there is maybe a slight advantage to a SysEx track - you'd never really want to fool with SysEx as even with the Pro facilitators, it's still cumbersome to deal with SysEx. Thankfully, most anything you'd want to actually edit can be done at the CC level and Elements or even the lesser AI version allow for this. Pro does offer some better features so parts of this process can likely be better streamlined using Pro. I don't yet have Pro to rundown those. But there's a lot that even AI can accomplish. I'm a DAW novice so I generally think if I can figure it out, it can't be that difficult. Most of this I'm approaching without any previous experience, learning as I go.

I'm hoping 10 pro allows to relabel CCs as previous versions have this hard coded and do not allow changing the display width for track names. Having to hover over the automation tracks to see what cc is documented is a speedbump in workflow. I'd just assume name these shorter and after Montage like AKb1 or SpKb or Scne so both the short name and cc# would show in space provided.

Would be great if the automation track length could be defined too, but not really expecting either yet. We'll see. Both of these have been requested for generations.

I wanted to see if the cubase elements manual says anything about extracting automation data from midi files, like you have thankfully revealed to me, Jason. it doesn´t. I found absolutely no such instructions under automation, (they might be somewhere else in the 700 page manual, but it´s definitely not under automation)

they are describing a simple way to record the automation from a controller directly on it´s own tracks, simply by activating the automation R button. this does indeed create automation tracks when moving the knobs on the Monatge, which can then directly be drawn over with the pen tool.

problem thow: none of it is played back...absolutely nothing happens knobwise on the Monatge when midi is recorded that way.

ok, I realize there´s something about first dissolving the midi track into channels for any kind of automation editing to work. but it doesn´t work with a performance that has been set to midi output "single" either... why...not?

I gotta say I forgot the reason behind why one has to record all parts to one track and then dissolve them in all versions of cubase below pro. or rather: I never even really understood the reason...