Sending MIDI out of Audio Units plugins

[Louis Lafontaine]

I have been trying to send MIDI out of Audio Units plugins inside Digital Performer for some time, until I found a few things I want to share here.
Since the beginning, my DP is set to handle MAS and AU plugins, so each time I install a new virtual instruments I do not install the VST version.
Recently I tried to play with Scaler, Instachord, HY-RPE2 and many other patterns generators inside Kontakt and tried to send the data stream out to other virtual instruments thru dedicated MIDI channels. But AU doesn't support sending MIDI out of audio channels. And nothing worked. I read sometimes that the AU version 3 now supports it, technically. But As I understand, few AU plugins on the market have implemented that feature. At least, Digital Performer as it handles AU plugins has hard time dealing with it. So my advise is, if you want to use theses plugins and feed other virtual instruments, use the VST version (Kontakt, Hy-RPE2, Scaler etc). You can do so without reinstalling all your plugins if you use Blue Cat's Patchwork. This is a powerful wrapper and more.
Insert on the first slot of a row your MIDI generator (ex Kontakt+Riff Generation), send the MIDI out to a dedicated MIDI channel (ex: port A), and add any number of virtual instruments inside Patchwork and set their MIDI in to port A. If you want, you can send the audio out of each instrument to separate virtual channels and inside DP, create AUX tracks, each receiving a unique instruments, add insert or effect for each of them if you will in the mixer.
It works great.
Sadly, Ableton Live and Apple Logic can handle these type of plugins much more easily. I wish Digital Performer could handle MAS + VST + AU plugins at the same time and have what is now called MIDI FX. It is a shame that the MIDI inserts in the mixer are the same 12 or so since the last 30 years.
For example, I would like to have a MIDI FX to create a keyboard split. Live has it and it is very useful. Please MOTU, shake your...

[bayswater]

I wish Digital Performer could handle MAS + VST + AU plugins at the same time

It can. Just go to the plugin preferences and select those you want. They'll be examined and added to the list of available plugins. Surely you've used both MAS and AU at the same time? All you have to do is add the VSTs that are installed on your system.

[Michael Canavan]

^ What Bayswater said.

Logic has all the same shortcomings with MIDI out that DP has and then some, since it can't host VSTs at all. Mostly because of the popularity of Logic, manufacturers come up with solutions for it.

The obvious and honestly best solution for DP is to instal the VST version of any VST that can send MIDI. The MIDI outs for that VST get published like hardware in DP. From my experience the only real difference in DP compared to other DAWs when it comes to VST handling is that you need to set up three tracks instead of two, since DP doesn't publish MIDI to a Virtual Instrument track.

[darrell]

I had never heard of sending MIDI from an audio track til right now. Please, could you give a brief synopsis of how that does (can) work, and some examples of what it might do?

Thanks!

[cuttime]

I had never heard of sending MIDI from an audio track til right now. Please, could you give a brief synopsis of how that does (can) work, and some examples of what it might do?

Thanks!

An obvious use could be that of an arpeggiator or plug sequencer of which the likes of VST Reaktor has myriads of useful and bizarre examples. There is a massive sequencer called VSS that borders on AI that I really wanted to route to some string ensembles. The only way I could do that was to open up the Reaktor VST in DP and route the MIDI to some string tracks. I found the results fascinating. YMMV.

[Michael Canavan]

I had never heard of sending MIDI from an audio track til right now. Please, could you give a brief synopsis of how that does (can) work, and some examples of what it might do?

Thanks!

The most obvious example is virtual drum machines and built in sequencers in VST instruments. So it's not publishing MIDI from an audio track but from a virtual instrument track. Supposedly AU3 can publish MIDI To the DAW, but no DAW really does that besides Logic, so hardly any third party plug ins support it.

With VSTi's for instance Spark drum machine, you can send MIDI out to DP, it shows up as a selectable input in DP, Spark channel 1-16 etc. That way Spark can trigger another VSTi with whatever MIDI note is being published to it's MIDI out and DP's MIDI In.


At this point there are even virtual step sequencer instruments that do not make sounds they only Blue Arppublish MIDI to the DAW. There's a free one called Blue Arp that's pretty great.

[tunefool]

I was able to do this using a VST version of Kontakt 6 inside DP 11. I setup Kontakt to send MIDI out, as described above. I sent MIDI from a Kontakt instrument to another track which had EZ Drummer 3 on it. The track setup is: MIDI controller as input -->Kontakt ch. x. Then a second track: Kontakt ch x as input ---> desired virtual instrument (EZD 3, in my case). Try as I might to get this to work with Vienna Ensemble Pro, it would not. Too bad.

[Michael Canavan]

I was able to do this using a VST version of Kontakt 6 inside DP 11. I setup Kontakt to send MIDI out, as described above. I sent MIDI from a Kontakt instrument to another track which had EZ Drummer 3 on it. The track setup is: MIDI controller as input -->Kontakt ch. x. Then a second track: Kontakt ch x as input ---> desired virtual instrument (EZD 3, in my case). Try as I might to get this to work with Vienna Ensemble Pro, it would not. Too bad.

Funny I always wondered if Kontakt could do MIDI out, now I know!

Yeah, it's up to the developers to add in support for MIDI out, it can be disappointing to find ones that don't. VEp being able to do MIDI out would be cool, but It might not be all lost, you tried the VST3 version?