V-Racks in the Mixer

[dewdman42]

yea those steps did not work for me, so I dunno. I will leave to you DP9 owners to figure it out then, if you say it worked for you I will take your word for it. Did you actually test it out to make sure the MIDI controller was actually controlling the V-rack plugin?

Like I said earlier, for me, when it was in a V-Rack, the MIDI learn button would light up and it would go into learning mode, but then clicking all over the controls of the V-rack plugin did not actually register anything, while clicking on the controls of a sequence plugin did.

And when I tried to open up the actual controller assignment dialog, you can there specify various parameters related to the "learn". A source, a target, various other things. It presents you with a dropdown list of target plugins and all of the parameters within those plugins.

None of the plugins I had instantiated on v-rack tracks appeared on that list...only plugin instances instantiated on sequence tracks.

Why it worked for you and not me, I have no idea. If that is working then great! it means automation on v-rack plugins.

[bayswater]

Yes, of course I made sure moving the MIDI controller affected the plugin. The only thing I can think of is the particular plugins involved. I don't suppose MOTU can guarantee it will work on any and all plugins, or all the parameters on specific plugins. IIRC, I always moved the controller before selecting the plugin parameter, but I don't see why that should matter.

[dewdman42]

right. I tried with several mainstream plugins. i didn't have a MIDI controller actually connected so I couldn't move the controller first. The instructions say to click on the plugin first, FWIW and it worked fine when on a sequence track. very strange. Also very strange that when I went into the dialog none of the plugins on V-rack were appearing as available targets. I also noticed that when clicking on the MIDI learn button at the bottom of the FX window, there would be a default plugin parameter selected ahead of time..which was another plugin on a sequence track, rather then the one I was trying to assign to on a V-rack track.

By the way, as a side note, I want to mention that in that dialog I mentioned you can specify the MIDI sources and in there you can specify a sequence MIDI track as the source, instead of your MIDI controller. That's how you can use this for V-rack automation. when you click the MIDI learn button, there is a consolidated side window that opens up for controller assignments. A line is created with colored box indicating that its waiting for you to click on a plugin control and twist a knob on your MIDI controller. Well you can double click on that to pull up the dialog I mentioned. So in there you can assign the MIDI source as being a sequence MIDI track. Glad to hear its working then...V-rack automation, at least of plugin parameters...is there. still can't automate V-rack fader and send levels, but I don't see that as a problem generally as the sound is usually coming back to a sequence audio track and can be automated there. have no idea why it was completely non functional for me, but as far as I'm concerned DP9 is still beta.

[bayswater]

I tried with several mainstream plugins. i didn't have a MIDI controller actually connected so I couldn't move the controller first.

OK, I tried it on my laptop which doesn't have a controller attached and no MIDI interface. I opened up MIDI Keys. Didn't get a link between MIDI Keys and a MOTU plugin in a V-Rack. I'll try it again later and see if I can get it going.

[dewdman42]

try double clicking on the line I was talking about to open the dialog...then you can specify the source and the target more directly.

[yamguitar]

I definitely dig V-Racks for VI's, especially Kontakt... frequently I'll write a series of cues as different sequences in the same project, when I know I'm going to be reusing a lot of the same instruments. There's a lot of switching from sequence to sequence, and the V-Racks eliminate or seriously curtail the sample load time between switches. V-Racks are also handy for containing reverb and EQ settings that I know will be common to all the cues in the project.

[daniel.sneed]

My 2 cents:
Of course I don't automate FX inside my V-racks (no way to).
Nor do I automate FX return (no straight way to, or need extra aux in chunk).
BUT, whenever needed, I automate FX sends (bus sends), which is a breeze.

BTW, just for the recall, inside V-racks FX do follow any chunk tempo map.

[dewdman42]

well it is actually possible to automate FX parameters in a V-Rack, using BlueCatAudio's patchwork....or it sounds like maybe under DP9 you can do it with MIDI learn.