Garritan Jazz and Big Band Question

Go to the piano roll view and in the controller box at the lower left, select CONTROL from the drop down menu. In the box underneath that one, select 1 (or type it in). This is the volume control (also called modulation). With the "pencil" tool, draw a short line from the left margin at about 65. This will lock the control wheel in Kontakt at that value and you don't have to manually reset it each time. Hope this helps.

I didn't realize these options existed. I loaded a project and found them checked off - I guess that is the default for SHS4XL.

It is there but you have to "grab" the gray line between the piano keyboard at the left and the "slider" bar at the bottom of the pane. Just move the cursor until it shows 2 small, parallel black lines and, using the mouse, move it up. This reveals the hidden controller pane with the controls at the left. In addition to controlling the volume with controller #1, there are many other functions you can control. Playing around will help you learn a lot about controllers and how to tailor sounds in SHS.

Let me suggest a simple experiment for you to try. First, open a new file and delete all tracks except 1 midi track. Go to the staff view and manually enter something simple. Try just a C major scale using quarter notes. If you are hooked to a midi device and the output shows your midi, you should hear the scale on the midi when you hit PLAY.

Then add your Garritan JABB using the DXi insert you are familiar with. In the Kontakt player that comes up, select one of the trumpet options (for example, trumpet 1 - open. Your midi track should say 1-Garritan for the output. The DXi channel you added should say Garritan for the input and the DXi output should show your computer soundcard.

Now hit PLAY. You get nothing, right? That is because your MOD wheel on the KONTAKT is at zero. Manually move it up to the middle of its range and hit PLAY. You should hear the sound output through your computer. Notice that when the scale is over, the MOD wheel goes back to zero. Hit PLAY again and no sound because it is at zero.

Now, go to the piano roll view of the midi file and adjust it so you can see the controller boxes. For controller #1, just draw a very short line at 64. It doesn't even have to be 1 beat long. When you hit PLAY, you will (1) hear sound and (2) see the MOD wheel on the Kontakt player jump about 1/2 way, stay there while the scale plays and jump back to zero when it is done.

Now, using the pencil tool, draw a line starting at 127 for the first note and going to zero at the last note. Now, when you hit PLAY, the sound starts out loud and drops off to nothing at the end of the scale. Watch the MOD wheel when this happens. It jumps up to the top and moves down to zero.

Try this and you will learn a lot on how the Kontakt player works.

I am sure you have noticed that a lot of computer-generated music sounds like, well, computer-generated music. The controllers allow you to add in some human-touch. If you are using JABB then you should take advantage of things like controlling the volume. The amount of stuff you can control is amazing. If you want to hear what can be done, I suggest finding something on this board done by Randy Bowser and then visit the site where he has links to his music. He really understands how to use the controllers. He takes each individual track and works it over with as many different controllers as he needs, then blends everything together after applying things like reverb and compression. So each track is tailored. When the project is saved, all the control settings are also saved. Generally, as a final step, all the usable tracks are highlighted and you use the EDIT -> BOUNCE TO TRACK and save the mix as another separate track which SHS generates. This last track can be exported as a wav file and use to burn a CD.

Hello everyone on this thread--I had to take a look since your question, Rscully, was about JABB, a library I'm Very glad to have recently added to my set up.

Turned out to be a very nice start to the day, having my work mentioned here as an example of good MIDI work--Thank you, Ken J and Rscully for the unsolicited and much appreciated comments!

There was something on this thread which needs to be corrected--Boten said exactly the opposite of what he meant, I'm sure of it, so let's just make sure this thread doesn't cause future confusion:

"...In addition to that, go to OPtions - Project - MIDI out and select both "Zero Controllers When Play Stops" and "Patch/Controller Searchbach Before Play Starts"..."

He meant to Un-check, DE-select the "Zero Controllers" option, not to select them.

See, Rscully, one of the problems you were experiencing was that the JABB instrument volumes (cc#1) were being set to Zero every time you stopped playback. The results were you couldn't hear much of anything. Zeroing controllers is helpful on standard MIDI instruments, but because of the way Garritan sounds are programmed, that doesn't work. When you start and stop a project, you need to have the current volume level maintained, not zeroed.

The rest of what Boten was saying was right, that you DO want to keep "Patch/Controller Searchback.." selected, checked.

One more thing--This was implied in the responses you got here, but I want to make sure you understand that the controls in the Kontact player are primarily meant for audition purposes. They aren't what you use for control throughout a project.

You can move Kontact's virtual mod wheel up, but that's not setting the volume for your project. As we've just gone over, all the volume work has to be recorded (or drawn in) inside the project itself. The volume knobs themselves in Kontact Do maintain their settings which are the loudest Potential volume for the instruments.

You can see for yourself, if it helps, by opening a Kontact display which has instruments in it--When you move the mod wheel of your keyboard, the virtual wheel in the Kontact moves but not the volume knob. If you want to make one instrument more prominent through an entire mix, you can set up a basic starting mix with those Kontact knobs, so that it's easier to always have your louder solo instrument up front. Just watch out for going over the 12:00 position--it's easy to get distortion.

Have fun!

Randy
rbowser

HI, Ken!

It's simply mandatory that you un-check that box in Sonar. Take a look around at the Garritan site for confirmation if you need. Not knowing about that option in the Project tab in Sonar is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for Sonar users getting started with GPO and JABB. Time again the question is posted, "Hey! I've inserted all sorts of cc1 but my instruments keep fading down to nothing!"


"...as long as your track has some cc#1 value designated at the very beginning of the track, it wouldn't make any difference or not if you zeroed out the controllers when play stops..."

See--the answer is right there in your question. If you have a high cc1 value at the beginning of the track and you stop/pause the project in the middle, as we have to do constantly while we work, if you have that option checked to be On--that cc value you inserted is ignored and instead, cc1 is set to Zero. Exactly as the name implies--this option reduces Any controllers you have in the project to Zero. As I said in the earlier post, this works well for regular synths--you Don't want modulation or pitch bend to be half-on when you start playing a project again.

With the option checked On, you won't hear the instrument until the next cc1 value is in the track. Even with virtually continuous use of cc1, you'll see in Piano View that there are still plenty of blank spots--whenever the value hasn't change.

Having the box unchecked is part of my template. If I start a project from absolute scratch, skipping the use of a template, I still sometimes forget to go in and set this option correctly, and I go through a momentary surprise, "HEY--where's my sound?"--and then have to go, "Um, duh, Randy, go un-check the box."

If it still seems strange, look through your post again, Ken, and try to see the logic of what I've explained. With that box checked--whatever you have in the project will be ignored when you start play again after stopping.

Randy
rbowser

You guys are a great resource. Since talking to you I have cut my drinking in half and my hair is growing back. Thanks so much.

RScully


Why all of a sudden can I not record my tracks to a audio file? One door opens and another closes.

"...Why all of a sudden can I not record my tracks to a audio file?..."

Rscully, start a new thread with this question, since it's a different topic. Give people a chance to see the question and respond.

And when you post this, be much more specific with details. There's No way of guessing what's going on with this brief description.

Randy
rbowser