USB Assignments where? When you say you have something setup for USB "assignments" - please delineate which device you're talking about. There's USB setup on Montage to do (each PART's audio output routing) and then there's setup in Cubase to do (device setup for Montage in general, each track's setup, etc).

My Cubase wasn't ready to do anything useful with audio recording. I think since I didn't have this setup - initially it was just using my PC's microphone or something since I could hear studio movement noise (my movements).

Let me rewind a bit:

1) I setup a performance starting with "Init Normal (AWM2)" which has a piano sound in PART 1 then added PART 2 as "FM SynLeadSubHarmo", PART 3 as "JB Flat Wound AF", PART 4 as "Modern Jazz Horns". I just selected these PARTs since they sound really different and would easy to tell what's what when playing a track by itself.

2) Then, I went to each PART and went to the "common" area "Part Settings" -> "General" menu and changed "Part Output" from "Main L&R" to various USB stereo pairs. PART 1 I set to USB1&2, PART 2 I set to USB3&4, PART3 I set to USB5&6, PART4 I set to USB7&8.

This is the Montage-side setup to play each PART out a different pair of USB channels.

3) In cubase, I loaded the thing up and picked to create an empty project. I know there are templates - but these often screw up, don't fit what I'm trying to do, are too "messy", or ... I just find it easier to work from the ground up rather than the sky down. To each their own ...

4) I added an audio track. Having messed with USB digital recording before - I knew I was looking for USB1&2 / etc. as audio inputs. I didn't see any of this as an option -- so I had to go back and fiddle with the settings. I deleted this audio track that didn't seem to give me an option to choose a digital (USB pair) channel.

5) Menu item (cubase) "Devices" -> "Device Setup ..." -> "VST Audio System" (on left-hand side "Devices" window pane). I noticed the VST Audio System (right hand side pane) ASIO Driver was set to generic. This isn't what I wanted. So I picked "Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO". That's one thing to check.

6) Now the left-hand "VST Audio System" has "Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO" under it - so I click on that and the right-hand side shows a list of USB inputs and outputs now showing all the digital channels for Montage. I made sure "Visible" had a blue "X" for all the inputs - they did. I noticed the "State" of USB1-USB30 were all inactive. I wanted at least 1-8 to be "Active" so there's something else to setup (not here) ....

7) Not sure if this matters or not - but under the left-hand window pane "Studio Manager" - I had "MONTAGE-1" In and Out as Active=No. So I clicked on the "No" to make this a "Yes". I also had some other screwy driver listed as "Yes" and made that a "No".

8) Then I got out of this (clicked the "OK" button) and went to a different menu. "Devices" -> "VST Connections". Looks like you can press F4 to get there as well. In the "Inputs" tab - I noticed there was only one bus: Stereo In with ports "USB Main L" and "USB Main R". This is why all the other digital channels were inactive - they were not setup as a stereo input yet. So I clicked on the "Add Bus" button and automatically the first bus added had "USB 1" as the left channel and "USB 2" as the right channel. That looks good. I pressed "Add bus" until I had 4 more buses (Stereo In 2 through Stereo In 5). Stereo in 5 had the last pair I used in my Montage setup (USB7&USB8). The default names are not great - so after doing this, I double-clicked on "Stereo In 2" in the first column - which turned it blue background to edit - then typed "USB1&2". I did the same sort of thing for the other 3 new buses so the label would make sense. You can name these anything. Maybe "USB IN 1&2" would be more clear. Then pressed the "X" to exit out of that window.

9) Now, my project still free of tracks - I can add an audio track and expect something usable to happen. After adding an audio track - it defaults to "Stereo In" - which is not what I want. So after adding the track, I go to the left-hand pane ("Inspector") and above "Inserts" is a section with what looks like a door with an arrow going into it (Audio Input Source) and below that a door with an arrow coming out (Audio Output Destination). The audio input source I changed to USB1&2 (this was my label I assigned to digital channel 1&2 stereo pair inputs). If you don't see the "inspector" pane, click on the audio track which should default to the name "Audio 01".

10) I do the same thing 3 more times, but pick USB3&4 for the input of the 2nd audio track ... and so on

11) I make sure the record button is red for all 4 tracks.

12) I press record on Cubase and go play some notes on Montage so it makes noise to record

13) I press stop on Cubase

14) Rewinding, I can now mute all but one track and see the first track is just piano (as expected) and next track only records the 2nd PART and so on.

It really doesn't matter what MIDI setup there is. I could add tracks for recording MIDI and use that instead of playing the keyboard manually to record the audio. It wouldn't conflict -- they're (MIDI vs audio) different things altogether. The audio domain is kind of a slave to the MIDI domain - but the two do not directly intersect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyuxEfDk_hA
at time (1:17) shows the Montage setup (for drums) - this is just about the same for AWM2 standard (non drum) PARTs

Looks like the next part covers setting up the USB1&2 / USB2&3 - etc stuff in Cubase.

This video (and others in the series) can get you on the right "track" as well.

This video shows some setup info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvT6zXOb5W0

5) This is where I am stuck.... I have the 7 midi tracks, and I mute the original and leave the dissolved tracks... which are showing in Tracks SysEx 1-6 and everything sounds perfect. I have the USB assignments ready for the corresponding 6 audio tracks and when I record... it sounds great.... but it seems the USB assignments for the audio tracks are not being honored and all the audio tracks are recording the USB Main as inputs but only 1 should be.... the rest should be recording the usb assignments, for the other keys, drums, bass, pads etc.... I can get the USB multi track recording working when I play the Montage performance myself... but if I have midi play it, I cant seem to get the USB channels recorded.... worst case, I probably can record them off the midi one by one.

Once you have DISSOLVED PARTS to separate Tracks there is nothing on that original track - all the data has been parsed out by CHANNEL - each to its own separate Track. (It becomes a 'ghost' track...)

Before we get into what is happening and why, we really need to know what version of Cubase you are using. Cubase AI 9 is the entry level unit which does not have the INPUT TRANSFORMER which basically eliminates the need to DISSOLVE PARTS - because it allows you to create a track for each MIDI Channel and only that specific MIDI Channel. Cubase Pro 9 is the full version (which includes the Input Transformer).

Initially, in all Factory Performances, the PART OUTPUT parameter is set to "Main L&R" for all 16 PARTS.
If you activate the QUICK SETUP Template in the MONTAGE labeled "Quick Setup #3: Audio Rec on DAW" that has a template that sets each PART to a separate stereo pair of outputs:

PART 1 - Main L&R
PART 2 - USB 1&2
PART 3 - USB 3&4
PART 4 - USB 5&6
PART 5 - USB 7&8
PART 6 - USB 9&10
PART 7 - USB 11&12
PART 8 - USB 13&14
PART 9 - USB 15&16
PART 10 - USB 17&18
PART 11 - USB 19&20
PART 12 - USB 21&22
PART 13 - USB 23&24
PART 14 - USB 25&26
PART 15 - USB 27&28
PART 16 - USB 29&30

Mister Mister, I have Elements 9.... have the trial for a few more days... but gonna buy the license....

I am very happy that I got the dissolve to work and have the ability to pick which track to quantitize.... gonna try now to record these as seperate audio tracks.... because what I am hearing when the midi is playing the board sounds great and I want to stack on top of it :p

Got it all working perfectly, my missing step was to create a new template project, copy in midi dissolved tracks, and use the quick set up per Mister Mister...., and I was off to the races.

I'm sure Ill adjust streamline the process, as it was probably user error along the way, but I am now able to take a performance split out the tracks and clean up the ones I want on midi... and commit to audio, and start stacking new performances on top....so sweet !!

Not sure why but the usb were all assigned but inactive on the project file I had, when I started a new one.... and copied the midis over they were all active. Not sure how or why they get activated..... maybe the template?

I have a flow that works great for me now!! I am stacking performances as I type 🙂