EQ for MIDI?

I'm not a Sonar expert -- I have barely a working knowledge of it. Hasn't stopped me from loading it up with a bunch of VSTs though. But I'm stumped in that I haven't found anything like an EQ for MIDI. Why is that? Does such an animal exist, and if so, is there a particular one you like most?
 
There are several TTS-1 instruments I use on a regular basis, and a few instruments from other modules, that could really use a good EQ.
 
Is the solution to record the MIDI tracks to audio tracks, so I can get at the heap of effects available for audio?

You can also add the EQ, as well as any other FX you want, like reverb, compression etc, to a bus in the mixer or console view. The only FX available to midi are things like chorusing, velocity etc.

Yeah, okay, this makes sense. I may not like it, but it makes sense. Out of frustration, and telling myself I'd dragged my feet long enough, I bounced a melody track to audio so I could access the Sonitus EQ. And all I gotta say is, what took me so long? Geez, what a difference. I was finally able to filter a couple of annoying characteristics out of an otherwise nice sounding instrument. So I guess this is what I'll do from now on.
 
Now, I have known for quite some time that if I have only a single instrument associated with a soft synth, then I can use FX for the soft synth to get the sounds I wanted for that single instrument, but the stumbling block for me had been what to do with a single instrument when several were being handled by a single soft synth. Well, now I know.
 

Guys please, give me a break... You really never EQed MIDI with sysex messages??

Nope, chris, I've never had the occasion -- or need -- to delve into sysex arcana
 
Johnny, I've messed around some with TTS-1's pop-up interface, but I never could get it to do anything. Dunno what I was doing wrong. Thanks for the reminder. I do need to spend more time on your tutorials. Hrm -- I've always found TTS-1 to be quite good, for the most part. Couldn't hurt to find something better, I suppose.
 

chris.r
Guys please, give me a break... You really never EQed MIDI with sysex messages??

That is not the same thing.  If EQ is available via the synth used it is applied to the audio out internally of the synth not to the MIDI. If it were just the MIDI data that can't be EQed. Sysex is a way to control a synth using MIDI in much the same way MIDI can be used to control a Control surface.  

Open TTS interface(synth edit GUI), click on the edit button on the top of the mixer channel for the Instrument you want to EQ and another popup window will open with EQ, filter, Character, Vibrato and Envelope controls. You must turn the EQ on with the button above it. As you tweak the knobs play notes as it only updates after a note on event. Once you are done close windows and save your project and your settings will be saved in TTS. Another thing, if you use the Drum Kits in TTS you can edit each drum piece, you can replace each piece and build your own kit. And still another thing, if you use a controller the conrols are mapped to the standard controls and respond without binding and for me work without programming but you still have to turn on the EQ and bind those crontrols as they are specific to TTS.

Of course all of this is in the provided "Help" file that is loaded in the "Shared DXi" folder where Sonar is installed.

If you like TTS, use it, I do all the time its great for scratch and final sound production. As you delve deeper into the interface you find it may be all you need and is light on resources and very dependable as it has and will be for me.

Hope that helps.

mwmcbroom
Nope, chris, I've never had the occasion -- or need -- to delve into sysex arcana
 
Johnny, I've messed around some with TTS-1's pop-up interface, but I never could get it to do anything. Dunno what I was doing wrong. Thanks for the reminder. I do need to spend more time on your tutorials. Hrm -- I've always found TTS-1 to be quite good, for the most part. Couldn't hurt to find something better, I suppose.
 

 
The TTs-1 interface is very basic and I myself do not use it. Only thing I'll use is the Reverb and the Chorus. I was just pointing out that most all VST have built in Effects, compressors, reverb and EQ. One can mess with them and see if that is what works. In the better quality VST's you might get exactly what you want. But otherwise often the reverb's are terrible and the EQ does little as you just said. Then we use the better quality tools we have via the Pro Channel etc.  
I'm just thinking you were needing to tweak the sounds in a desperate attempt to make them sound better. This is where trying other VST's which high quality samples comes in. Those have a rich full sound right away without tweaking. 
 
I still use TTS_1 to "OPEN" a midi file and see if it will work for a song I'm going to do. I mostly want a good drum track. The rest I can re-do. 
I should post an example of a song with a "before" and "after" where the first is pure TTS-1 and second is after I replaced the instruments. It is like night and day. 
 

Cactus Music

mwmcbroom
Nope, chris, I've never had the occasion -- or need -- to delve into sysex arcana
 
Johnny, I've messed around some with TTS-1's pop-up interface, but I never could get it to do anything. Dunno what I was doing wrong. Thanks for the reminder. I do need to spend more time on your tutorials. Hrm -- I've always found TTS-1 to be quite good, for the most part. Couldn't hurt to find something better, I suppose.
 

 
The TTs-1 interface is very basic and I myself do not use it. Only thing I'll use is the Reverb and the Chorus.
< . . . >
I'm just thinking you were needing to tweak the sounds in a desperate attempt to make them sound better. This is where trying other VST's which high quality samples comes in. Those have a rich full sound right away without tweaking. 
 
I still use TTS_1 to "OPEN" a midi file and see if it will work for a song I'm going to do. I mostly want a good drum track. The rest I can re-do. 

 
Hey Johnny, I just went through your tutorial again. I realize now that I'd partially gone through it months ago. Thought it sounded familiar. Anyway, I'd like to address a few points you make, mostly that you've replaced TTS-1 with much better VSTs. Well, in your tutorial, what you've done is replace it with the SI drums and SI bass for those tracks and Strum Session 2 for the guitars. (You deleted the organ tracks) Well, I already know about these Cakewalk-specific soft synths, and have used them on occasion, as well as others, such as SI Strings (excellent by the way) and the Cakewalk Sound Center, which has a few halfway decent sounds. I also make fairly heavy use of Sforzando, which came to me by way of Band in a Box, one of its included soft synths. It has a couple of very useful guitar sounds. I have even, on occasion, saved a few of the Band in a Box tracks as .wav files to bring into SPlat because some of its native MIDI sounds are actually that good. One thing to note -- you refer to (and show) the BT Brickwall Limiter -- it isn't included in SPlat, apparently. I have available in SPlat the Sonitus Compressor and Compressor/Gate, which I realize aren't the same thing, but perhaps fairly close. There doesn't appear to be a Limiter included with SPlat.
 
In defense of TTS-1 once again, and this is coming at you as a classical guitarist who's been playing the instrument since 1972, I find that many synths barely give a passing yawn to nylon strings. TTS-1 fortunately isn't one of them. I especially like the voice "nylon o" found when you load the Preset Normal 2 bank of sounds. Conversely, the nylon string patches found in Strum Session 2 all sound as if the Ovation nylon string, with its plastic box, was used for the modeling. I can hear that plastic. It's not bad, it's just not really good. On a nylon string guitar, there's no substitute for a really premium quality set of back and sides hardwoods. The harder, the more bell-like sounding, the better -- they really do affect the sound of a nylon string guitar, often in a dramatic fashion. (And this is coming from a builder of classical guitars since 2004)
 
You do point out some useful processes that I haven't used so far, such as assigning the outputs to a stereo bus out. Haven't done that before. I just send my "outs" to my Synths, and send their outs to my sound card. But I guess having the stereo bus in the mix can help things.
 
 

promidi
I know that with Yamaha MU series units, you can send sysex commands to change the EQ curve of your entire MIDI file played back through these units. 

This would be the only way you can have EQ for MIDI is if the synth you are using (hardware or VST) supports the changing of EQ settings in the synth itself via MIDI commands.

Another example are the Applied Acoustics System VSTs.  These all have an effects section that includes an EQ.  The EQ parameters can be changed using MIDI NRPN commands sent to these particular synths.

In Cakewalk, these parameters are even available (and are listed) in the PRV as NRPN events which can be added in the same say as other controllers can.

Once again, it does depend on the synth and what parameters they have mapped to MIDI NRPN commands.

EQ is not used by MIDI. Lets make this very clear. MIDI is a protocol that is a set of instructions to control a device. Using the term EQ with MIDI is a direct misunderstanding of just what MIDI is. Yes, a synth with an EQ section will respond to MIDI control. What is not happening is the MIDI itself being EQed. MIDI can not be equalized. Its data not audio. Any synth will generate audio from the MIDI data instructions it receives, such as note on and note off. If it also has an EQ section such as in the Sound Canvas or any GM synth only the audio is EQed. It happens after the audio has been generated. EQ is a term that applies only to the audio not MIDI. Its easy to be confused by this but because one sees and hears EQing being applied. The TTS-1 is a Sound Canvas software clone. One can do with it the same as one can do with Sound Canvas. It too has an EQ section. That section can be controlled using MIDI just as all the parameters can.  

scook

mwmcbroom
 It has a couple of very useful guitar sounds. One thing to note -- you refer to (and show) the BT Brickwall Limiter -- it isn't included in SPlat, apparently. I have available in SPlat the Sonitus Compressor and Compressor/Gate, which I realize aren't the same thing, but perhaps fairly close. There doesn't appear to be a Limiter included with SPlat.
 

The Nomad Blue Tubes plug-ins including the BT Brickwall BW2S-3 and BT Limiter LM2S-3 are bundled with Platinum. Later versions of Platinum also included the Adaptive Limiter.

Okay, that's interesting. I thought I'd d/l'd all the accompanying stuff for SPlat, but apparently I missed a rather important add-on. I'll go have a look and see if I can find it -- both on my machine and at Cakewalk.com. Thanks for the heads-up!

Thanks, well my Download Manager indicates I've d/l'd both these installers before, but I went ahead and reinstalled them. Both 64-bit and 32-bit this time, dunno if it makes a difference on this 64-bit machine, but I reckon it couldn't hurt.

I think some of the comments only deepen the confusion between MIDI as a protocol and MIDI controlled modules and VSTs. As said by others, MIDI itself cannot have EQ since it is the information and not the sound. Effects can be applied to the audio output of vst instruments but this can be tricky with multitumbral instruments with only one stereo output. One solution is multiple instances of the vst using only one instrument per instance.

dubdisciple
I think some of the comments only deepen the confusion between MIDI as a protocol and MIDI controlled modules and VSTs. As said by others, MIDI itself cannot have EQ since it is the information and not the sound. Effects can be applied to the audio output of vst instruments but this can be tricky with multitumbral instruments with only one stereo output. One solution is multiple instances of the vst using only one instrument per instance.

This is what I've ended up doing, but in order to do so, I've been bouncing my MIDI tracks to audio so I can apply the VSTs to individual tracks. Early on, when trying to apply a VST to, say TTS-1, I didn't really care for the way the sound got applied to all my MIDI tracks. About the only effect I found that sorta worked was reverb, but then this is an effect that's available individually with the MIDI tracks, and I prefer to apply it on an individual basis.

Mvmcbroom:
"This is what I've ended up doing, but in order to do so, I've been bouncing my MIDI tracks to audio so I can apply the VSTs to individual tracks. Early on, when trying to apply a VST to, say TTS-1, I didn't really care for the way the sound got applied to all my MIDI tracks. About the only effect I found that sorta worked was reverb, but then this is an effect that's available individually with the MIDI tracks, and I prefer to apply it on an individual basis."
 
Just a few comments:
 Bouncing to audio is a great idea for tracks your 100% finished with. But if you need to edit later  you don't need to bounce to audio. You can apply audio effects to the instrument track. 
And you have the option with the TTS-1 of using 4 outputs. So you can sub group what your applying the effect to.
I know that's very limiting. And anther work around is to insert more than one instance of TTS_1. It is a light load synth so not a problem.
 
And yes when I say "much better" instruments I'm not really talking about the SI collection. They are a small step up from TTS-1. I used those in the tutorial so people who had Home Studio or Artist could follow along. 
And I'll also agree that some of the TTS-1 instruments get the job done. Your correct about Strum Session doesn't sound much better than TTS_1 guitars, other than the effects. The Jazz brush snare is also very good and my go to for that. I still have TTS-1 on many projects just for those things it does better than others at this point.