Been doing a lot of plugin bundle comps

I haven't used any of the Sideshow packs. Am I assuming correctly that Cubase must have given Sideshow more direct access to the underlying Cubase API code for this to work?

It would be the most robust way to do this sort of thing. Absent that, there are plenty of other ways to skin that cat with the sort of macros available in KM.

By the way, I am similarly using Keyboard Maestro to be able to launch a VI or a plugin from a single touch.

I'd be curious to see what all the Cubase Sideshow app can do. That said, I'll be done with my Luna profiles here pretty soon. You might like what it can do in Luna.

Luna is still slower for me than PTs...well, I'm slower in everything than PTs. That's really been the reason I can't quit her...

They’re making the most of the MIDI Remote Manager layer Cubase now has - I mean that alone puts Cubase ahead of the pack imho.

Literally anything with MIDI becomes a way of controlling Cubase.

sideshowfx have taken it a stage further with some complex macro programming beyond a thing I could do personally.

I get that Cubase has the MIDI Remote Manager.  I haven't used it, but it sounds like something that I would find myself wishing that other DAWs had as well.  I know that the lack of MIDI control in Luna is an area where it is lacking. However, there's more than one way to skin this cat, so MIDI isn't the only option here.

But the point I was making was not about Cubase (or any other specific DAW), but about Sideshow.  Having not ever read much about Sideshow, when I decided to read more about them yesterday, I came into it thinking they maybe had gotten access to the underlying API for those four DAWs that they sell packs for.  But after reading more about it, they're just cobbling various things together (macros, keystrokes, shortcuts, MIDI, UI control, Trevliga's plugin, etc.), no different than anyone else could do.  

That's why I mentioned the plugins from Trevliga.  I've been using those exact same MIDI plugins from Trevliga for months, as part of the Stream Deck profiles I've been working on.  So I was rather surprised when I saw that Sideshow was using those same exact plugins.  That's why I mentioned that I hoped Sideshow was paying Trevliga for use of those plugins, as he is the one who put in the actual work designing those plugins, and they appear to be a big part of the functionality in Sideshow for Cubase.  

The same could be said for use of macros.  When I watched the Cubase/Sideshow demo video, I noticed menu windows quickly popping up in succession.  That's a macro thing, and not an API thing, no different than what Keyboard Maestro does.  In other words, Sideshow isn't a built from scratch sort of custom from the ground up kind of product.  It's pieced together from other elements that already mostly existed.

I'm not sure what framework Sideshow is using for the macro portion, and that may be the most "custom" part of what they're doing.  But Keyboard Maestro does the exact same thing with its macro framework.  So there's not any real difference here.  If you go and read about Soundflow or Metagrid (Metagrid is more of a DIY thing), they similarly cobble various elements together to make it all work.  

It all comes down to what the various DAWs do or don't make available for third parties to access, to do stuff like this.  As many DAWs aren't inherently open access in a way that is readily available to third parties, via the API, you have to get creative with finding ways to make the DAW do things anyway.  That's where all of the various cobbled together elements come into play.  You manipulate the DAW any way that you can, with whatever control elements you have available to you (macros, keystrokes, shortcuts, MIDI, UI control, Trevliga's plugin, etc.).

To be clear, I'm not at all saying that there is anything wrong with cobbling things together.  It's what everybody is doing, whether it's a company with a commercial product like Sideshow or Soundflow or whether it's someone like me putting something together on their own.  All of the elements are out there and readily available for anybody to do this.  It's not anything particularly special. It just takes some effort to figure out how to make it work and to then piece it all together.