Hi All!
 
I'd like to pick your brains on best practises for manipulating MIDI tracks that contain only external control data i.e. we are using Sonar projects + playlist to switch digi mixer, synths, bass FX etc. and since it is working really well, more MIDI events get added and it gets more cumbersome to manipulate.
 
Currently I have MIDI events on channel 1 - 3 for the digi mixer, ch 11 - 13 for bass FX, ch 14 -16 for synths, and now we are adding switching of guitar FX (ch 9, 8, 7, ... who knows who many) ...
 
At the moment I use a separate MIDI channels for each external device to be able to enable/disable switching by just muting/unmuting the respective MIDI channel.  The project gets "cluttered" with MIDI tracks which I can hide in folders ...  I reckon just using one MIDI track for all control would have more disadvantages than advantages, right? ... or am I overseeing something here?
 
Now, what really makes life difficult is to remember which MIDI event triggers which external event. So I would like to have something like a drag and drop library for most often used external MIDI events. I tried to drag "bypass bass FX" MIDI CC event or "switch digi mixer scene" event to the browers and it creates a MIDI clip with something in it, but when I drag it back to a MIDI track it does not seem to put an event back ... anything I'm doing wrong here?
 
I should probably start to write an instrument definition file for all my external FX to make the event list viewer more readable ...
 
Any other tips you could provide?
 
 
 
EDIT: Changed title thread to the remaining question "How to drag/drop MIDI clips containing only MIDI control data to/from browser"

OK, the instrument def file I got worked out ... that helps visualizing what controls are implemented in each project ...
 
Still would like to be able to drag and drop frequently used MIDI ctrl events from the browser instead of redefining them everytime.

I got most sorted what I'd like to be using, however, it still would be nice to be able to drag and drop MIDI ctrl events that occur frequently (e.g. bypass external FX#2) from the browser.
 
Here's what I have observed:

• If I have at least one MIDI note plus MIDI ctrl data in the clip, the entire clip can dropped in the browser and then dropped back into the project with all information retained.
• If there is no MIDI note, you can dop it in the browser and it will create a clip, but when dropping it back into Sonar, nothing happens (i.e. no MIDI events added)

Anybody got this to work? What am I doing wrong? Happens in X3 and Platinum Kingston.

When I did this as a test (with Plat), the file when dragged back into the timeline was only a tiny single pixel line and nearly invisible.  I had to open the Event Viewer to see that it really did bring in the MIDI events.  I was able to "find" the one pixel line and expand it so it would look like a full clip.  I'm not exactly sure what your MIDI clip contains, mine was just two random Ch1 control messages.  Did you check the event viewer to see if your clips did come back?
 

It works for me as well (I mean clips with one CC only). But since the clip length is determined by content, just one event is infinitely short.
 
2 ideas:
1) put some note in the clip with the length you want to see the clip. In control MIDI tracks, add Midi Event Filter and select Note C0-C0. So all notes are effectively filtered out.
 
2) if that is about sending CC only, may be mapping Notes to CCs (in MFX) is better. Using instrument def and PRV (or zoomed track) it will be possible to recognize all control changes. The mapping can be Note Number -> CC Number, Note velocity -> CC Value, Note length -> Ignored. Caveats:
a) Note Velocity "0" is "note off" and so is not going to work right (after dropping from the browser). But you may want CC with value 0. Possible workaround is interpret velocity "1" as CC value "0" loosing "1" as possible value. Still not perfect but I think less critical.
b) I have not such MFX... But it can be written Without GUI that is not a big job (for me). But obviously I do not want waste my time in case you are not interested.

msorrels
When I did this as a test (with Plat), the file when dragged back into the timeline was only a tiny single pixel line and nearly invisible.  I had to open the Event Viewer to see that it really did bring in the MIDI events.  I was able to "find" the one pixel line and expand it so it would look like a full clip.  I'm not exactly sure what your MIDI clip contains, mine was just two random Ch1 control messages.  Did you check the event viewer to see if your clips did come back?
 

 
I made some progress (not quite sure how, it might have to do with whether or not "Non-destructive MIDI editing" is enabled or not), but I still face inconsistent behaviour or possible pilot error:
 
Now I can drag MIDI Control events to the browser and back to it works. I do get the event showing in the event list and I also get the tiny line in track view, which I previously did not get.
 
However, MIDI patch changes do not work that way.
 
MIDI notes always worked, so do combinations of events in a MIDI clip ...
 
 
PS: Thanks azslow for your suggestions. However, since I am controlling several external devices in a live environment, I want to stay clear from MIDI filters or additional notes that might have side effect ... basically anything not needed definitely needed is not in the Sonar project.  But I might try following your suggestion of adding a dummy MIDI note, which I delete after dragging the file from the browser ...
 

FreeFlyBertl
PS: Thanks azslow for your suggestions. However, since I am controlling several external devices in a live environment, I want to stay clear from MIDI filters or additional notes that might have side effect ... basically anything not needed definitely needed is not in the Sonar project.  But I might try following your suggestion of adding a dummy MIDI note, which I delete after dragging the file from the browser ...

Well, I had to stay at home today. So I have tested how fast I can create such a plug-in. 40 minutes, inclusive testing under X2 and SPlat  on 2 computers
So, if you want you can give it try: http://www.azslow.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=37
 
I understand your worries about extra tools live. But Sonar has a nice feature "Apply effect..." which also works on MIDI tracks with MFXes. And so you can bounce whatever effects you apply for performance, while processing offline convenient way.
 

azslow3
Well, I had to stay at home today. So I have tested how fast I can create such a plug-in. 40 minutes, inclusive testing under X2 and SPlat  on 2 computers
So, if you want you can give it try: http://www.azslow.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=37

 
 
Thanks. I'll give that a try later on today ...
 

azslow3
I understand your worries about extra tools live. But Sonar has a nice feature "Apply effect..." which also works on MIDI tracks with MFXes. And so you can bounce whatever effects you apply for performance, while processing offline convenient way.

Didn't know that ... sounds great
 
PS: I did a few more drag and drop to the browser attempts and noticed 2 things:
(1) some of the later events were not shown after import when "Tracks/Show Cropped" is not enabled (=default)
(2) the 1st patch change always gets eliminated from an imported MIDI clip (I believe Sonar is trying to assign it as the channel default patch of the inspector where it never shows) but all later ones show ... which explains why all my single patch change MIDI clips do not import back ...

Hi azslow,
 
Thanks again. Pretty impressive to write a MFX in 40 minutes including installer :-)
 
I think I'm sorted now. I got template clips for repetive CC messages which I can drag and drop. And I found the fastest way to add a patch change is using proper instrument def files plus having one patch change defined in the beginning of the track which you can quickly duplicate in the event list ...

FreeFlyBertl
Thanks again. Pretty impressive to write a MFX in 40 minutes including installer :-)

I have made several attempts to write other MFXes, unfortunately unsuccessful (due to one or other API restrictions). So I just had to clean up and add several lines of code
 
For Patch changes. I have played a bit with that and that are my results:
1) patch change should be inside other events, I have tried with Notes. And by inside I mean exactly inside. If you just start note at bar 2 and set PC also exactly at bar 2, Sonar "think" that PC is BEFORE the note (Sonar take some freedom in such decisions, another similar example is reinterpretation of Yamaha portamento).
2) if you add PC just a tick after note starts, copied clip has PC. But there is no "p" in squad then.
3) if you add PC somehow father away from the note start (I do not know what is the border value, let say "many ticks"), "p" is shown after clip -> Browser -> track copy.