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Help with Virtual Instruments with Digital Performer

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:28 pm
by myronman
Hello everyone,
I recently purchased MSI, and I am trying to control the volume one an instrument track and it's not turning down.

Also, I wantd to put in a patch change for my virtual instrument so that after a certain point, I want to change to a marco cello, and then at another point put in the sustenuto cello sound.

I tried to do it with making multiple MIDI tracks one for each of those instruments, but I can't figure out how to turn the sound off that I don't want to sound.

By the way, I'm a complete noob, so I may not be explaining this right.

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:04 pm
by Shooshie
Well, you won't be doing patch changes in MOTU SI. You change instruments by adding tracks and moving the notes/lines in question to the new track. In MOTU SI, you have 64 instrumental tracks, so you have plenty of room for that. I regularly run 32 tracks of VIs in MSI. You don't turn the tracks on and off, but just move the notes, so that there are no notes playing in the other tracks.

Of course, you COULD just use duplicate tracks, and allow Expression Control (or others) to fall to zero where you want no sound.

How are you trying to control the volume in that one instrument? Velocity? Volume Control (CC#7)? Expression Control (CC#11)? Breath Control (CC#2)? Velocity will not do it. Velocity selects which volume level to choose from the samples for that instrument, thus changing the loudness timbre. Volume control will work, but may not be as subtle as Expression or Breath Control. Expression is what I use, and I've got my Yamaha WX5 wind controller set to produce CC#11 for that purpose. Aftertouch might also work. I don't use aftertouch much, but you might check the manual and see how to employ it.

Shooshie