DP Approaches for handling orch articulations

[Michael Canavan]

Maybe there is something simple I'm missing. Do you have a set of a set steps that work reliably?

Sure, I just completed one for EWSO 11 violins!
So forgive me for walking through the whole thing since you've done most of it.

1- Pull up the instrument you want to use, and (IMO) two MIDI tracks. One for the keyswitches and one for recording the instrument notes.

2- Go into Device groups, create one with only that instrument in it. (in my case here EW Play) Name it after the Keyswitch patch you're using it for.

3- take one of the MIDI tracks and point it's output at the Device Group ( in my case 11V M for 11 Violins Master KS )

4- Name the MIDI notes the names of the Keyswitches.

5- Check to make sure it works.

6- Erase all notes from the tracks and select all three tracks.

7- Copy to Clipping Window, I have several for various things, hardware, Virtual Instruments etc. Name it ( in my case EW 11 Violins KS ).

8- When you instantiate the Clipping in a project, for some reason DP doesn't recognize my master audio out from the Clipping, (reported to DP in my case as Analog 1-8 1-2) so you stupidly have to select the output from the virtual instrument in the track and select... Analog 1-8 1-2. Play, Kontakt etc. then gets activated and you can use the named Drum editor keyswitches.

Basically saving the whole set up as a Clipping works, it would be cool if the Drum Editor just had presets that worked, but you have to save the virtual instrument as a Device Group to name the Drum Editor notes. and I don't know any other way to save Device Groups and named Drum editor notes besides saving the tracks as a Clipping. This IMO is all a lot better with the Content Browser, Clippings become even more useful and easy to deal with.

[bayswater]

Maybe there is something simple I'm missing. Do you have a set of a set steps that work reliably?

Sure, I just completed one for EWSO 11 violins!
So forgive me for walking through the whole thing since you've done most of it.

1- Pull up the instrument you want to use, and (IMO) two MIDI tracks. One for the keyswitches and one for recording the instrument notes.

2- Go into Device groups, create one with only that instrument in it. (in my case here EW Play) Name it after the Keyswitch patch you're using it for.

3- take one of the MIDI tracks and point it's output at the Device Group ( in my case 11V M for 11 Violins Master KS )

4- Name the MIDI notes the names of the Keyswitches.

5- Check to make sure it works.

6- Erase all notes from the tracks and select all three tracks.

7- Copy to Clipping Window, I have several for various things, hardware, Virtual Instruments etc. Name it ( in my case EW 11 Violins KS ).

8- When you instantiate the Clipping in a project, for some reason DP doesn't recognize my master audio out from the Clipping, (reported to DP in my case as Analog 1-8 1-2) so you stupidly have to select the output from the virtual instrument in the track and select... Analog 1-8 1-2. Play, Kontakt etc. then gets activated and you can use the named Drum editor keyswitches.

Basically saving the whole set up as a Clipping works, it would be cool if the Drum Editor just had presets that worked, but you have to save the virtual instrument as a Device Group to name the Drum Editor notes. and I don't know any other way to save Device Groups and named Drum editor notes besides saving the tracks as a Clipping. This IMO is all a lot better with the Content Browser, Clippings become even more useful and easy to deal with.

Thanks. I'll go over this in some detail and follow it with a new project to see if there is anything different from what I've been doing. At this point I think it is pretty much what I've done to set up drum VIs with drum names in the Drum Editor.

I can of course do this. I set up a Device Group (who knows why you need to do this, rather than simply creating and saving a set of drum notes, but there it is), associate it with the VI, and assign the MIDI tracks to it. It all works, but it appears to be specific to the project. If you go through all the same steps in a new project, and bring up the preset with the note names, nothing happens -- you have to edit the note names all over again. It not only has to be the same track, Device group, VI, and note name file, it has to be the same project.

I've got around this by stopping at the point where you deleted the notes in the MIDI file (which I don't actually have to do, BTW) and save what I have at that point as a template.

So this is not such a big deal. The VI can be in a V-Rack, so if you don't need it you can just ignore it. but even then I have to repeat the assignment of the VI to the Device Group, then the MIDI tracks to the Device Group before the MIDI tracks play the VI, even while the routing is already set up this way in the template. Again, not a lot of work, but possibly a bug that plays up when a template is loaded. This is not necessary if it's a project being loaded.

But where this fails miserably, is if I want to use a different Drum VI, I have to start all over from scratch. I can't even set up the Device Groups, VIs, MIDI tracks etc, and then load in the Note names. If I do, it doesn't actually show the saved names in the Drum Editor. You have to enter all the Drum note names yet again.

I think Logic has a much simpler and more effective solution. You can enter note names in the basic MIDI editor, and set the display options so only notes that are used show up in the note lanes. Done. If these options were added to the MIDI editors, the Drum Editor would be redundant.

Doing this, I've also noticed that MIDI has to be unpacked to show up in the Drum Editor. If you pack it or record it as clips, nothing shows up in the Drum Editor, even if that's where you are recording it. I'm wondering if this is going to be fixed in DP 10.12. It looks to me like the Drum Editor has been deprecated. I noticed some of the themes don't work properly in it, so it doesn't look like it gets checked properly in updated.

[Michael Canavan]

So I think your issue is you're not storing it as a Clipping.
It's the only way I know of that gets the virtual instrument, Device Group and MIDI tracks with note names stored in a way that a new project can read.

I just opened a blank slate DP project and imported the two mappings I did to Kontakt and EW Play. The Clippings recall the virtual instrument along with the two MIDI tracks and the MIDI Device Group. The only thing I have to do to get it to work is to re-select the audio output of the instance of Play or Kontakt.

[SMS]

I’ve been working on solving this, too, as I share the loathing for keyswitches.

Couple of thoughts... (forgive possible redundance, I haven’t read this entire thread)

• The problem of keyswitch chasing can be solved by lengthening the KS note so it’s present through the entire passage... that way it’s sent from wherever the playhead is....

• I was happy to discover that both Play and Machfive have built-in options to use Program Change messages instead of KSs.

•Kontakt has support for scripting which can be written to translate PCs to KSs. I suppose you could run it standalone and route MIDI to/from via virtual MIDI. You’d then need to have a second track in DP, always in record, listening to Kontakt, routed to your VI. You might be able to do this all in DP if you use the VST version of Kontakt (I think AU doesn’t support MIDI output from VIs), but I’ve yet to test this. The script can do pretty much anything, so it could ignore incoming notes and just translate the PCs. Again, though a little awkward to have that track always in record. Would be OK except in overdub mode.

All of these PC>KS solutions still have the problem of no names for the PCs. I seem to remember someone on this forum who created a custom midname file to deal with that.

Conclusion: it would be great if MOTU provided an elegant solution. MIDI processors that could be inserted into a MIDI track to affect either input or output would be great. Can a console translate PCs to notes and receive and send to the same track?

[bayswater]

So I think your issue is you're not storing it as a Clipping.
It's the only way I know of that gets the virtual instrument, Device Group and MIDI tracks with note names stored in a way that a new project can read.

I just opened a blank slate DP project and imported the two mappings I did to Kontakt and EW Play. The Clippings recall the virtual instrument along with the two MIDI tracks and the MIDI Device Group. The only thing I have to do to get it to work is to re-select the audio output of the instance of Play or Kontakt.

I'll try your approach with clippings. Do you expect that it will work if the VI's change (ignoring for the moment that the note names you want would likely be different for each VI? Or would you need to make a new clipping for each VI. In my case, I would want to drag in the clipping, change the Drum VI, and maybe make a few minor edits to the note names, rather than create them all again from scratch.

[SMS]

......Sure, I just completed one for EWSO 11 violins!

........(in my case here EW Play)


........4- Name the MIDI notes the names of the Keyswitches.

Cool idea! I was happy to discover that Play has a setting to use PCs for switching... they just start at 1 for the lowest. Unless we can somehow create a midname list for VIs, we don’t get named PCs, though.

I wrote a script for Kontakt to do the simple conversion (PC number to Note number)... PM me if you want it.

[richhickey]

Another big benefit if we could get patchname lists per MIDI track is that they can also contain CC (re)names. So, if DP were to allow this and use those names in the editors, it would be a bridge to using CCs for VI parameter control, which is all DP supports if the VIs are in a v-rack.

Given that a full fledged articulation system and automation support for VIs in v-racks seem far off, this smallish change would be of great benefit for both problems.

[grouse]

8- When you instantiate the Clipping in a project, for some reason DP doesn't recognize my master audio out from the Clipping, (reported to DP in my case as Analog 1-8 1-2) so you stupidly have to select the output from the virtual instrument in the track and select... Analog 1-8 1-2. Play, Kontakt etc. then gets activated and you can use the named Drum editor keyswitches.

Hi Michael,
just responding here as I have been posting on another thread regarding this very issue over the last few days.
I figured out, if you create the clipping from a template and then always start new projects from that same template, the added clipping will recognise the inputs and outputs.
So no more italics.
I've been setting this up lately, moving away from a wide variety of templates to relying more on clippings which, as you know, can become a myriad of mini-templates in themselves.

[bayswater]

So I think your issue is you're not storing it as a Clipping.

I've tried it both ways -- saving as a clipping, or as a template. It does the same thing either way. Both require the cleanup to link the VI and Device. Neither make it possible to reuse note names in other VIs or Devices. The clippings approach is more usable though because it can add a complete Drum track to a project that doesn't have one from the template.

On the way, trying to set up a key command, I got this:



This command cannot be found by searching the Command window. Anyone have a suggestion about what this is? If you execute the command using key commands either nothing happens or a clipping is saved. Could it be an upcoming feature that allow text to be copied into Drum note names?

[Michael Canavan]

8- When you instantiate the Clipping in a project, for some reason DP doesn't recognize my master audio out from the Clipping, (reported to DP in my case as Analog 1-8 1-2) so you stupidly have to select the output from the virtual instrument in the track and select... Analog 1-8 1-2. Play, Kontakt etc. then gets activated and you can use the named Drum editor keyswitches.

Hi Michael,
just responding here as I have been posting on another thread regarding this very issue over the last few days.
I figured out, if you create the clipping from a template and then always start new projects from that same template, the added clipping will recognise the inputs and outputs.
So no more italics.
I've been setting this up lately, moving away from a wide variety of templates to relying more on clippings which, as you know, can become a myriad of mini-templates in themselves.

I figured out the reason for this, look in MIDI Device groups in your template, you'll see all the devices you used previously, deleting the MIDI and instrument tracks doesn't delete the devices in an open Project.

All told it's not that big of a deal, at least here it's just the output assignments that have to be relinked.

[Michael Canavan]

I'll try your approach with clippings. Do you expect that it will work if the VI's change (ignoring for the moment that the note names you want would likely be different for each VI? Or would you need to make a new clipping for each VI. In my case, I would want to drag in the clipping, change the Drum VI, and maybe make a few minor edits to the note names, rather than create them all again from scratch.

Sure, that sounds like it would work. One thing this brings up is it's probably smart to rename the Kontakt, EW Play, UVI whatever instrument something unique each time as well.
I think DP is smart enough not to change the already instaniated Konakt instrument instead of making a new one because you reused a Clipping, but maybe not, only one way to find out.

[terrybritton]

8- When you instantiate the Clipping in a project, for some reason DP doesn't recognize my master audio out from the Clipping, (reported to DP in my case as Analog 1-8 1-2) so you stupidly have to select the output from the virtual instrument in the track and select... Analog 1-8 1-2. Play, Kontakt etc. then gets activated and you can use the named Drum editor keyswitches.

Hi Michael,
just responding here as I have been posting on another thread regarding this very issue over the last few days.
I figured out, if you create the clipping from a template and then always start new projects from that same template, the added clipping will recognise the inputs and outputs.
So no more italics.
I've been setting this up lately, moving away from a wide variety of templates to relying more on clippings which, as you know, can become a myriad of mini-templates in themselves.

I added a (lengthy) post to the one on using clippings that describes the differences between Global Clippings and Project Clippings, with instructions on how to make a Project Clippings folder, and an expansion on your "stick with a template" idea. See viewtopic.php?f=26&t=59693&p=573058#p573058

Terry

[ArseniyMSK]

Hello! First, I apologize for my ignorance of the English language! Because of this, it was difficult for me to study the entire forum thread. So if the answer to my question has already been given, please do not be angry
I just recently started to master DP. In the process of training, I came to the conclusion that this DAW is very convenient in working with articulations, if they are located on each individual MIDI track. However, this approach implies the presence of a large number of MIDI channels. I work through with Vienna Ensemble Pro. Inside which I open Kontakt. Accordingly, I need the ability to select the primary MIDI send to one of the VEP channels, then to open 16 Kontakt channels. "Vienna Ensemble Pro Event Input" does not work correctly, creating latch keys.
How can I achieve the desired result?
Thank you in advance!

[Michael Canavan]

Hey this is a new revelation on this whole drum concept for articulations. You do not have to create a device groups to get a MIDI drum track with "named" articulations, you can simply "name" the notes in the Comments section of the Drum editor. Save the track with the name of the Library as a Clipping and you can then call it up for either VEP tracks or native.

Until we get real articulation maps for DP this is a pretty good method IMO. I don't really like attempting to "play" the keyswitching, and don't like trying to navigate all the keyswitching that you can do without names.

[bayswater]

You do not have to create a device groups to get a MIDI drum track with "named" articulations, you can simply "name" the notes in the Comments section of the Drum editor. Save the track with the name of the Library as a Clipping and you can then call it up for either VEP tracks or native.

I thought the drum names were associated with the device group, not the track. When I tried this, the names did not transfer to a new project which has always been my big complaint about the Drum Editor.
Have you established a set of steps that work?