DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

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MartinBaird
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DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by MartinBaird »

I'm in DP 8.07 and have Kontakt 5.4.1 as an instrument plugin. I'm creating vocal rehearsal tracks where each vocal part is played by a Kontakt Piano sound on separate MIDI tracks (One MIDI track for each vocal part). I'll bounce out 11 rehearsal tracks - one for each vocal part - but one part (such as Tenor 1) needs to be louder that the other 10 parts so the choir members can hear their part more easily.

When I pull the fader on a single MIDI track in the DP mixer it adjusts the Instrument volume fader in Kontakt which of course changes the volume of all the MIDI tacks being sent to Kontakt, not just the one I want to stand out from the rest.

How do I break that connection? Is there a way to tell DP to not send that volume data to Kontakt? Or is there a way to set Kontakt so it doesn't respond to incoming volume data?

Thanks for any assistance.

Martin
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by stubbsonic »

If you are only using one VI instrument (even if it is receiving on multiple channels) it might not be able to play at multiple levels the way you want. Pianoteq (for example) lets me run multiple channels into it, and it manages overlapping notes in this mode-- but it only has one level control.

You could load two separate pianos into Kontakt: a loud one and a quiet one, and route the tracks accordingly.

Another approach would be to use velocity scaling plug-ins on each of the MIDI tracks. You could make a velocity plug-in that you drag & copy to all your tracks that lowers the velocities by some percentage or fixed amount, then for the track you want to emphasize, you can bypass that plugin.
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by BKK-OZ »

stubbsonic wrote:You could load two separate pianos into Kontakt: a loud one and a quiet one, and route the tracks accordingly.
I think you will find this method will achieve what you want. Go to the mixer in Kontact to route different instances of your instrument to differernt Bundles/Outputs. (You will need to add another Aux or audio track to your project to catch the new ouputs.)
Cheers,
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…string theory says that all subatomic particles of the universe are nothing but musical notes. A, B-flat, C-sharp, correspond to electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and what have you. Therefore, physics is nothing but the laws of harmony of these strings. Chemistry is nothing but the melodies we can play on these strings. The universe is a symphony of strings and the mind of God… it is cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by frankf »

You need to:
In Kontakt, load the pianos as separate instruments and assign each instrument a unique MIDI channel. Make sure Volume control is enabled for each instrument.
In DP create one MIDI track for each of those Kontakt MIDI channels. Faders for these tracks will be available in the Mixer. Use an automation event in each track to set the volumes as you like them.
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

On a multicore machine, it is advantageous from the CPUs' standpoint to have larger and/or complex instruments on separate instantiations of any VI so threading distributes the load across cores. It is how DP was designed to work and also happens to solve the problem at hand, even if the CPU load is relatively small on each instrument loaded. You could route these to an AUX for control of the entire section at once and any "wholesale" processing (verb, etc).
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by bayswater »

Surely all you need to do is assign different MIDI channels to each of the 10 parts.
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by stubbsonic »

The OP said they were already on separate channels-- but not necessarily playing different instantiations of the VI.

Depending on how the VI processes incoming MIDI on different channels (tracking overlapping notes correctly), it might not be necessary to create 10 different pianos, when only two levels are needed.

I like to mention this whenever it would prove handy:

1. Select a MIDI track(s)
2. SHIFT-UP/DOWN ARROW to change output device/VI
3. OPT-UP/DOWN ARROW to change output channel
4. SHIFT-OPT-UP/DOWN ARROW to move selection to next track

Notice that you can select a group of tracks and change the device/VI and it will retain the channel setting. If you change the MIDI channel of multiple tracks it will nudge each channel setting up/down one-at-a-time
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by bayswater »

stubbsonic wrote:The OP said they were already on separate channels-- but not necessarily playing different instantiations of the VI.
Sorry not to be clear. By different channels I mean sources transmitting on different MIDI channels, and destinations receiving on different MIDI channels. Otherwise there's no point in having different channels.
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MartinBaird
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by MartinBaird »

Thanks for all the helpful replies. When I originally posted earlier today I was running 4 instances of Kontakt. Those four were being sent note data from 11 MIDI tracks which were playing the 11 vocal parts. Since each Kontakt instrument was receiving from 2 or 3 MIDI tracks I couldn't easily push up just one vocal part MIDI track to make it stand out from the rest - I needed to do this 11 times - once for each part.
I ended up doing what was suggested here and instantiate 11 instances (4 of Kontakt, 4 of SampleTank, and 3 of MachFive 3). It's been going well overall but I have had a couple of crashes. I probably should have tried stubbsonic's idea of using velocity scaling MIDI plugins but I think I can get all these bounced out tomorrow after some vocal mixing.
Thanks again for all the help. I really appreciate you all.
Martin

P.S. Another reason I needed to use so many instances of a VI was that there were many similar notes in all the vocal parts. So if the same VI was receiving the same note at the same point in time I was getting dropped attacks and phasey thinning of the sound.
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by Shooshie »

MartinBaird wrote:How do I break that connection? Is there a way to tell DP to not send that volume data to Kontakt? Or is there a way to set Kontakt so it doesn't respond to incoming volume data?
It's been said, but I'll throw in my support for it, anyway: you need 10 pianos, each as separate instruments, not merely one instrument, 10 channels.

Preferably, each piano should use different samples. That may not be possible, of course, so at least consider using as many different sample sets as possible, or perhaps a more practical method would be to adjust settings within each piano — lid height, sounding board reflection, etc. — so that each piano has a slightly different sound even if it's sharing samples with others.

Panning is important. Don't have them all coming from the same place! Distribute them like instruments in an ensemble or voices in choir.

Another trick is to use 5 to 6 foot pianos for lesser parts, and 7 to 9 foot pianos for more important solo parts. Anything you can do to distinguish the pianos from each other and to enhance the important solo pianos will help the overall output in the end.

Other things to experiment with, if you desire, include creating harmonics for some of the pianos to alter their sounds. Do this only for melody lines and single-voice parts. Sometimes you can get away with it in 3 or 4 part harmony for a bit, but it begins getting crowded on the keyboard to have several parts, each with a harmonic part playing, say, a 13th above or an octave and a 13th, or whatever. The harmonic parts must be reduced substantially in velocity, but you can play with them and find what works. The result will sound a little synthesized, yet it's all "piano." This gives unique voices to some of the pianos. I've used this extensively in concert with multiple Disklavier pianos, and it works fabulously.

You have basically the following (in no particular order) to distinguish the sounds:
1. Setup (sounding board richness, lid height, etc.)
2. Octave
3. Unacorda
4. Timing (one piano can be slightly early or late)
5. Timbre (harmonics)
6. Velocity
7. Sample layers
8. Sample sets
9. Entirely different piano brands (Yamaha, Steinway, ... )
10. Panning (very important! Should be first choice.)
11. Eq and effects

A curious effect happens when many pianos are playing together. The total volume of the sound creates what we might call "sea level," such that attacks and sustains no longer sound the same. Why? Because attacks are sounds leaping out of the sea, while sustains are the ramplike path they take as they plunge back into the water. The higher the sound level, the less of that ramp you hear. It reaches a point at which you're just hearing these "ping-ping-ping" attacks that don't sound very musical. Raising the volumes of them exacerbates the problem, creating more sound level for other attacks. The high notes are most profoundly affected by this, sounding like brief little bells with no sustain.

What can you do? My secret weapon was the Waves C4 processor. You can now use the C6 or the Linear Phase Multiband (which I call the C5). Program them as expanders, so that the sound is actually boosted more as it decays. This levels out the attacks and sustains just enough to hear a bit of that ramp, before it plunges back into the ocean of piano notes. Use it on the important solo lines, or anywhere that the shortened effect is troublesome.

Best of luck,

Shooshie
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by OLB »

MartinBaird wrote:How do I break that connection? Is there a way to tell DP to not send that volume data to Kontakt? Or is there a way to set Kontakt so it doesn't respond to incoming volume data?
Just to get back to this question, to disable incoming volume data in Kontakt:

Go to 'Edit Mode' in your instrument (wrench button). Then click Instrument options.
There you find the controller pane where you can disable standard controllers for volume and pan.
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by stubbsonic »

You can print each vocal track as an AUDIO piano track, one at a time. This way you can use any instruments you want, change the sounds as needed, and dial the audio tracks for your reference mixes as you wish. Won't break your computer.
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by MartinBaird »

Go to 'Edit Mode' in your instrument (wrench button). Then click Instrument options.
There you find the controller pane where you can disable standard controllers for volume and pan.
OLB, I tried this and it doesn't seem to work. In Instrument Options > Controller tab - there is a check box for "Accept Standard controllers for Volume and Pan". If I De-Select this (checkbook unchecked) moving the fader on a DP8 MIDI track still moves the volume fader in Kontakt.

Very strange.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Martin
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Re: DP mixer sends volume control to Kontakt - how not to?

Post by wonder »

if this hasn't already been mentioned ...

I do this all the time...but i've found the best way to do this is to do split tracks. Pan the vocal part hard Right and the rest of the tracks hard Left (or reverse these if you want).

That way there's no questions on which part is there's....and it can give a good rehearsal track by just panning to one side to just hear the band/other vocal parts.
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