Articulation Maps: route CC data to MIDI channel

[manup]

Hello everyone,

I'm on my trial period of Digital Performer 11, trying to get my feet wet. It's an INCREDIBLE software, i don't think I'll be able to even scratch the surface in just 30 days.

However, i'm trying to replicate my small cubase orchestral template. All of my instruments are hosted in VEP7 so it was just about setting up the VRack, outputs and MIDI tracks to get it going. Awesome. The problem arise with the newly implemented articulation maps. They don't seem to route CC data correctly.
I have, for example, Cinematic Studio Strings Violins 1 receiving on VEP port 6. I duplicated the instrument 3 times (MIDI channels 1,2,3) to allow separation of longs, shorts and pizzicatos while stemming. CSS Violins2 are on another Kontakt instance, same setup, same VEP port (6) but those three now use MIDI channels 4,5,6. Rinse and repeat for the other sections. So i have something like this:

- Kontakt Instance 1, VEP port 6, CSS Vln1, channels 1, 2, 3
- Kontakt Instance 2, VEP port 6, CSS Vln2, channels 4, 5, 6
- Kontakt Instance 3, VEP port 6, CSS Viola, channels 7, 8, 9
..... etc.

After setting up the articulation maps to route the data to the appropriate channels i realized they DON'T route CCs, only notes. Cubase does route CCs correctly, so no problem. In DP i can only use CC1 (which i send with a korg NanoKontrol2 on channel 1) on Violins1. The other instrument don't receive it.

Is there a way to overcome this without having to rethink the whole VEP setup?

Hope i explained myself well
Thanks a lot
FM

[dewdman42]

I don't think Cubase used to do that either in some previous versions, but I see now that it does in CB11. That is great news for Cubase users for sure.

Unfortunately currently DP does not, make sure to send feature request to motu; they missed that detail.

I am working on a plug-n-script script to handle thet job for you but its not finished and no ETA. I made one for LogicPro Scripter but I have to convert it to PNS angelscript in order to use in other DAW's such as DP.. well it used to be that I thought I might need it in Cubase, but it sounds like Steinberg rectified that, let's hope MOTU can get this rectified also.

[mrwhites]

Maybe I don't understand correctly but can't you change the MIDI channel in the output section of the Articulation Map Setup window?

[dewdman42]

The articulation map only affects notes...not CC, PitchBend and Aftertouch.. So if you setup an articulation map that will "channelize" notes to different MIDI channels where different instruments listening..it will do that job fine, but when if you draw in a CC curve on that track..it will just go to the original MIDI channel of the track and not to the other MIDI channels where the notes are being channelized to...thus those instrument plugins won't receive the CC data...well...only one will...the one listening on the same MIDI channel that the track is set to.

[Altauria]

If it's not already, what if you set the MIDI track's output to "any"? That is: [VEP Instance/Port] --> [Kontakt/Instr Name] --> "any". It's at the top of the drop-down menu, when choosing individual MIDI channels. This is new in DP11.

I haven't tested DPs new articulation maps yet, and planned on this week, so this is just a guess.

[dewdman42]

Unfortunately no. The MIDI track does need to be set to ANY for the "channelizing" of notes to happen properly from the art map, but still; CC, PitchBend and Aftertouch are not being channelized regardless. MOTU simply overlooked this requirement, in my view.

[Altauria]

Wow, that’s a good to know!

[Michael Canavan]

Unfortunately no. The MIDI track does need to be set to ANY for the "channelizing" of notes to happen properly from the art map, but still; CC, PitchBend and Aftertouch are not being channelized regardless. MOTU simply overlooked this requirement, in my view.

IMO you're right in calling it overlooked, because their MPE implementation does all three of course.

I would encourage anyone half interested in them fixing this to send in the request here:
https://motu.com/en-us/suggestions/

[dewdman42]

when you say their MPE implementation, what do you mean exactly? How is that related to the articulation manager?

[Michael Canavan]

when you say their MPE implementation, what do you mean exactly? How is that related to the articulation manager?

Their MPE implementation does what it's supposed to do, send separate pitch, CC, aftertouch, and channel pressure to each MIDI channel in the same MIDI track in DP. So a single track in DP11 can recievce and send that information on all 16 channels, it's just implementing it with Articulation Maps that needs to be done I would guess? i.e. it's not a stretch they could implement this pretty quickly.

I would even try to look into using DP's other multiple MIDI channel support that came along with MPE, for things like MIDI guitar recording, so basically getting the track separate out pitch etc. I might be totally off base with that though, I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of mapping multiple MIDI channels in Kontakt multis to Articulation maps etc. So hopefully I'm not clouding the waters with my suggestions here.

[manup]

Thank you for all your replies!

I am working on a plug-n-script script to handle thet job for you but its not finished and no ETA. I made one for LogicPro Scripter but I have to convert it to PNS angelscript in order to use in other DAW's such as DP..

If i understand correctly, DP has a scripting language similar to Reaper?

would encourage anyone half interested in them fixing this to send in the request here

I sent a request to the link you provided. Still testing DP and don't know if i'll be able to switch in just 30 days, but i think it's something all existing DP users could find handy.

In the meantime, i created 3 MIDI tracks for every instrument, assigned a different Art map to each one and routed the output to the correct channel. So i have:

- Vln1 Long --> Long Articulation map
- Vln1 Shrt --> Shrt Articulation Map
- Vln1 Pizz --> Pizz Articulation Map

- Vln2 same thing
- Vla Vc Cb same thing

This works, and it might be a good way to reduce the track count to have a more manageable template. As an outsider, i see it's common for DP composers to have the 1 track per articulation method, so this might be helpful.

Anyway, while CC channelizing for articulation maps is definitely a must, it has to be said that if the library in question supports internal routing of articulations then it's not an issue. With Spitfire Albion for example i'm able to route the longs to out1 and the shorts to out2, so everything's fine, i can create the art map and have a single track for it. CSS doesn't support this, you can only set routing for the different mic positions.

Furthermore, while i was RTFM, i found this:

(Page 333) (...) The Channel setting causes the Articulated notes to be redirected to the specified MIDI channel.

So it seems this is BY DESIGN for now.

[dewdman42]

No dp doesn’t have built in scripter like reaper but make sure to ask for that too!

I am using plug-n-script from bluecataudio

[manup]

No dp doesn’t have built in scripter like reaper but make sure to ask for that too!

I am using plug-n-script from bluecataudio

I can't believe this exists. Thank you !

[dewdman42]

Their MPE implementation does what it's supposed to do, send separate pitch, CC, aftertouch, and channel pressure to each MIDI channel in the same MIDI track in DP. So a single track in DP11 can recievce and send that information on all 16 channel

you can do the same thing with regular non-MPE MIDI...that's not really related to articulation map behavior. You can certainly go into the event list and manually program CC's, aftertouch and Pitchblende to be any explicit MIDI channel you want....all in the same track and if the track is set to ANY, then those MIDI channel assignments should be respected

but that is not what we're talking about here.

The articulation map is a mechanism that dynamically channelizes MIDI notes on the fly. The input MIDI notes in the track are on whatever MIDI channel they happen to be (usually CH1), and then based on the articulation assignments, can dynamically re-channelize the notes to different MIDI channels according to the articulation map setup.

Fine so far...

The problem is that when notes are being re-channelized, expression events are not being channelized. This has to do with the fact that articulation definitions are not really assigned to expression events. (nor would you want to). We go in the piano roll and we determine which articulation should be assigned to each note. So those articulation-assigned notes are routed by channel, if configured that way. But meanwhile the track has some expression MIDI data (cc, pitchbend, aftertouch) and the desire for someone is that they program that stuff on ONE MIDI CHANNEL, and then the articulation map should cause those expression MIDI events to follow the notes to whatever channels they being dynamically re-channelized to. But currently DP does not do anything, it just sends all the expression data to the MIDI channel of the track...or if they CC's were explicitly programed for some channel, then it would be sent there, but anyway, this basically is a missing detail, MOTU did not realize about. I have already tried several times to communicate to them about it, I'm not sure they get it still, but hey maybe they'll get it right eventually.

Steinberg got it. Cakewalk can also handle this. StudioOne also does in its own way by virtue of the fact that it uses a DIRECTION style of articulation management, so all MIDI events are channelized together.

I have created a custom script for LogicPro in order to make up for LogicPro's deficiency in this area, you can read about it here:

https://gitlab.com/dewdman42/Channelizer/-/wikis/home

Specifically, the user does not want to have to use seperate MIDI tracks for every articulation and does not want to have to mess around with figuring out how to put expression curves on different tracks in order to get to the right articulation. The whole point of articulation maps is to make this kind of thing easier. The desire is to have a single source track..where you put all the notes of the instrument, like a staff on a score...and any expression curves for that instrument also in that one track... and then the articulation manager can either send keyswitches to switch articulations or re-channelize notes AND...make sure that single expression curve also gets re-channelized along with the notes. (that part MOTU has missed so far)

[Michael Canavan]

The articulation map is a mechanism that dynamically channelizes MIDI notes on the fly. The input MIDI notes in the track are on whatever MIDI channel they happen to be (usually CH1), and then based on the articulation assignments, can dynamically re-channelize the notes to different MIDI channels according to the articulation map setup.

Fine so far...

The problem is that when notes are being re-channelized, expression events are not being channelized. This has to do with the fact that articulation definitions are not really assigned to expression events. (nor would you want to). We go in the piano roll and we determine which articulation should be assigned to each note. So those articulation-assigned notes are routed by channel, if configured that way. But meanwhile the track has some expression MIDI data (cc, pitchbend, aftertouch) and the desire for someone is that they program that stuff on ONE MIDI CHANNEL, and then the articulation map should cause those expression MIDI events to follow the notes to whatever channels they being dynamically re-channelized to. But currently DP does not do anything, it just sends all the expression data to the MIDI channel of the track...or if they CC's were explicitly programed for some channel, then it would be sent there, but anyway, this basically is a missing detail, MOTU did not realize about. I have already tried several times to communicate to them about it, I'm not sure they get it still, but hey maybe they'll get it right eventually.

Steinberg got it. Cakewalk can also handle this. StudioOne also does in its own way by virtue of the fact that it uses a DIRECTION style of articulation management, so all MIDI events are channelized together.

I have created a custom script for LogicPro in order to make up for LogicPro's deficiency in this area, you can read about it here:

https://gitlab.com/dewdman42/Channelizer/-/wikis/home

Specifically, the user does not want to have to use seperate MIDI tracks for every articulation and does not want to have to mess around with figuring out how to put expression curves on different tracks in order to get to the right articulation. The whole point of articulation maps is to make this kind of thing easier. The desire is to have a single source track..where you put all the notes of the instrument, like a staff on a score...and any expression curves for that instrument also in that one track... and then the articulation manager can either send keyswitches to switch articulations or re-channelize notes AND...make sure that single expression curve also gets re-channelized along with the notes. (that part MOTU has missed so far)

Thanks great explanation. My reason for mentioning MPE etc. was that DP is obviously capable of handling multi pitch etc. per single track, so DP is not incapable of being modified by MOTU to filter by note trigger to a channel. I mean to some degree this is what the 'any' setting was supposed to do for things like MIDI guitars, one track, 6 channels and pitch, CC, filtered by those channels. It doesn't seem like that crazy of a use case scenario to me, I was about to make a Play instance with the separated into separate patches EWSO 50 piece orchestra articulations and this sounds like a strange limitation to have?