Switching sequences without loading VIs

[richford]

If I have three or four cues for a film in DP likelyhood is I'll be using the same track listing, or most of it.

The annoying thing s that everytime I want to switch between the cues (or sequences) it loads the entire VI resources for each sequence.

Is there a way to avoid it doing this ?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Look up V-RACKS in the manual. Done!

[Gravity Jim]

Yep! Thanks to this forum, I finally just started using V-Racks and it's now one of my favorite features of DP. Load your VIs once and rock on.

[richford]

Thanks -

I haven't got into V racks because it's been suggested that there are issues like not being able to automate them in a mix. Is that the case?

I guess I'll just dive into them and try.

Thanks again

[bayswater]

Thanks -

I haven't got into V racks because it's been suggested that there are issues like not being able to automate them in a mix. Is that the case?

I guess I'll just dive into them and try.

Thanks again

You can't automate the channel strip that is in the V-Rack. So instead, route the audio from the V-Rack channel strip to an audio channel in the general mixer and apply automation to that.

[Shooshie]

Thanks -

I haven't got into V racks because it's been suggested that there are issues like not being able to automate them in a mix. Is that the case?

I guess I'll just dive into them and try.

Thanks again

There are different kinds of automation. Audio automation, the kind that is turned on or off at the mixing board, will not work in V-Racks, which is a MIDI instrument. It's not a big deal. If you want to automate the audio from a V-Rack, you route it through an audio or Aux track, which are automatable. I see nothing inconsistent about that.

As far as MIDI automation — that is, the automation of MIDI controllers, such as volume, expression, breath control, sustain, pan, and so forth — that all takes place within a MIDI track, and that has nothing to do with V-Racks or DP for that matter. That's entirely up to the maker of your MIDI instrument, real or virtual, and it works within V-Racks. That depends, of course, on the MIDI instrument's maker's choices.

Many of my virtual instruments are 100% automatable. That is, every parameter can be controlled via MIDI, and it uses MIDI Learn to assign a parameter to a control. Command-Click a control, then send MIDI, and the first controller it receives becomes its master. Again, this works within V-Racks. Why wouldn't it? It is transmitted through MIDI. There is no way MOTU could prevent it from working!

When you hear that V-Racks does not accept automation, it's a little like saying that your Kurzweil 2600 doesn't accept automation. Try automating your Kurzweil from DP's internal automation, the way you would automate plugins or audio parameters. See? A virtual instrument does not need automation any more than your rack-mount instruments do.

So why does everyone complain? Because they may not think about using separate outputs for each instrument that route through audio or Aux tracks. If you want to automate a Kurzweil 2600's audio or plugins used to modify its audio, you will first route that audio through either an audio track or an Aux track. There, you can automate anything. V-Racks works the same way. So why doesn't that satisfy people? Maybe because they don't like to route the audio from their V-Racks into separate audio channels. If you have 5 instruments in Kontakt, that means you have to set up 5 outputs and send them to 5 audio tracks. Looking at it from the surface level, it would seem easier just to have Kontakt routed to the Main Outs, and not fool with individual outputs. Then you could mix the audio within Kontakt, using Kontakt's own mixing board. Those parameters would be automatable through MIDI, which works 100% within V-Racks.

But if you want to apply different plugins to each of those instruments, you're going to have to route them back into the DP domain, and that means individual audio or Aux tracks. Or it may even mean using separate instances of an instrument, each with its own output to an audio or Aux track. And once you're in a track in DP, you've got automation.

So, it's not that V-Racks cannot be automated. V-Racks works for the most part just like your rack gear. You don't expect those to be "automated." MOTU has given us the convenience of adding plugins directly to the instruments in V-Racks. Those plugins cannot be automated. But if you want plugin automation, you simply route the audio out to a track, and add the plugin there.

In other words, those who say that V-Racks cannot be automated just don't want to take the extra step, even though they'd have to take that step if they were using a Kurzweil or a Roland. Are we clear? V-Racks is MIDI-Automatable, but that depends on the maker of the virtual instrument, not MOTU. V-Racks' audio output is automatable if you route it through one or more audio tracks, and don't just dump the VI into the Main Outs.

Since the introduction of V-Racks, this has been a problem for me exactly ZERO times. I've automated everything I have wanted to, via MIDI controllers or via audio or Aux tracks. Those who make a big deal out of V-Racks not being automatable are being either uninformed or short-sighted, perhaps a little lazy in a few cases, and are not fully appreciating how V-Racks models real MIDI racks, operating exactly the same way, but with some added conveniences.

Shooshie

[frankf]

The word!

[stubbsonic]

I'm curious if there is any processing difference between automating parameters (like filter cutoff or pitch bend) using MIDI CC's in a MIDI track, vs. vector automation (as can be done with plug-in automation in some settings. Is there a difference in the "smoothness" (resolution), and response?

[Michael Canavan]

I'm curious if there is any processing difference between automating parameters (like filter cutoff or pitch bend) using MIDI CC's in a MIDI track, vs. vector automation (as can be done with plug-in automation in some settings. Is there a difference in the "smoothness" (resolution), and response?

The main advantage of Track based automation VS MIDI is that most host DAWs use 500 steps for Track Automation and the regulation 128 for MIDI. This has not real effect on writing automation with a controller though as they generally send out 128. Another reason why the abandoned Kore from NI was pretty cool was it sent 500 steps, so some pretty smooth sweeps etc.

[Shooshie]

I'm curious if there is any processing difference between automating parameters (like filter cutoff or pitch bend) using MIDI CC's in a MIDI track, vs. vector automation (as can be done with plug-in automation in some settings. Is there a difference in the "smoothness" (resolution), and response?

Yeah, if you want a very smooth change, you'll want to do that in audio, not MIDI. Again, the VI's are MIDI instruments. Their output is audio. They only respond to MIDI, but the output, when routed to a track, can be automated till the cows come home. And super smooth!

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Opinion:

• I think that the reason this subject comes up a lot, and the reason many people are so adamant about it, is found in Apple's Logic. The way that the functions of tracks, MIDI channels, and instruments are all blurred into one "thing." A track that serves as both MIDI input and virtual instrument, as well as audio output makes some things easier for beginners, but it can make complex approaches very difficult for the advanced user. Plus, it gives beginners a kind of stunted internal view of what these things are doing. A MIDI channel is not to be confused with an audio output, and a MIDI instrument has got to be recognized as a device with MIDI input and audio output. But in Logic, as in Garageband, they are all one and the same! There's no question that it makes quick work of setting up a template for the first-time user. But someday they've got to learn what those things are and how they work in the rest of the world, and that means for each one of them a post in a forum somewhere asking why this all doesn't work seamlessly the way they want for it to work.

Just my opinion. It may be wayyyy wrong. But that's what I think every time we're asked those kinds of questions again. Not that I mind answering them. Just that sometimes I wonder why this other view is so prevalent. Logic is probably the most popular MIDI DAW on the planet. Surely that has something to do with it.

Shooshie

PS: no slight intended to the original poster. This is obviously about a lot of history that predates this thread. I'm just thinking out loud.

[bayswater]

It's odd what was done with MIDI in Logic. On top of integrating the MIDI and Audio elements of a VI, they separated external MIDI from VIs. By doing so some interesting possibilities are there, including developing an improved or new control protocol for VIs -- something like MIDI but without the 7 bit limitations, unlimited channels, a set of standardized controllers for synth parameters, effect parameters, articulations, and so on. But they never did anything with it.