Helpful ReplyMIDI routing... Grrr!!

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Billy86
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2017/05/09 00:21:17 (permalink)

MIDI routing... Grrr!!

For the life of me, I can't get the data in a standard MIDI track to "point at" and "play" a virtual instrument in Kontakt Player 5 that's instantiated in the project. I've spent a week and am about read to pull out what remains of my hair! :-P
 
The midi track is performance data that was generated from Realitune's Fingerpick guitar VSTi, and I'm trying to get it to play Orange Tree Sample's Evolution Steel Strings, which is in the Kontakt Player (as is the Realitone Fingerpick VSTi generating the MIDI data.)  
 
I've tried all the routing I can think of, and the closest I've gotten is a single played note on the OTS instrument at the very beginning, when I hit "play." Then nothing but silence. 
 
Can anyone tell me if they've successfully had a MIDI track play an OTS instrument with performance data that was generated by another virtual instrument. Maybe there's a mapping issue going on between the two products?
 
Thanks for any help.

Windows 10 x64 on a Dell/Intel i5, 500 Gig SSD, 32 gig RAM, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, Sonar Professional, Melodyne 4 Assistant, Kurzweil SP-76 stage piano, Baldwin RP 100 digital upright, Novation Impulse 25, Breedlove Pursuit Concert Acous/Elec, Fender American Standard Tele, Fender G-DEC 30 modeling amp, Sigma DM-5 Acoustic, Ovation MCS148 Celebrity Acous/Elec. Mandolin, Roland V-Drums TD-11KV, AKG P220, Yamaha MG82CX mixer, KRK Rokit 6 Powered Monitors, PreSonus FaderPort
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    msorrels
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    Re: MIDI routing... Grrr!! 2017/05/09 12:53:24 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby Kamikaze 2017/05/09 13:57:28
    So here's how to do this with OTS Steel Strings and Musiclab's RealGuitar, it may not solve your problem with Fingerpick though, but it will give you an idea how to do this.
     
    First when you add the MIDI generator VSTi make sure to click Enable MIDI Output when inserting the synth.

     
    Then when you insert Kontakt always use split audio/MIDI tracks.  On the MIDI track going into Kontakt select the output from the MIDI generating synth.  In this case I'm picking RealGuitar's Omni channel. 

     
    Then you need to click the enable Input Echo button (little button on the right with looks like waves coming out of it) on the Kontakt MIDI track (or the MIDI doesn't flow from the source to the instrument).

     
    Now with RealGuitar you have to enable the MIDI out inside the instrument as well.  It's a drop down in the Setup box for output.  Not sure what you need to do with the Fingerpick VSTi.
     
    Then load OTS into Kontakt and set it's input MIDI channel to 1 (if the generating VSTi uses a single MIDI channel or Omni if it uses a bunch of channels)

     
    Now feed MIDI into your VSTi and it should play through to the Kontakt instrument live.  You will need to either mute the audio output of the source VSTi or set it to be silent.  With RealGuitar you can choose output MIDI only.
     
    Here you can see I'm playing a 3 note chord into RealGuitar but inside Kontakt 6 keys are being triggered because RealGuitar is creating a guitar chord output.

     
    Things that might be an issue: Steel Strings expects certain MIDI output (range/channel/etc), it's very possible that the Fingerpick VSTi is playing notes outside its range.  Or it may be playing notes on multiple MIDI channels.  Steel Strings chord mode is unlikely to work with generated MIDI, you should use the disabled mode.  The MIDI output could also be on multiple channels.  Using Omni for the input channel in Kontakt might help with that.  If you record the MIDI (on the Kontakt MIDI channel) and open the event viewer in SONAR you might be able to see what exactly the MIDI looks like and figure out what you need to do to make it more Steel String friendly.

    -Matt
     
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    thedukewestern
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    Re: MIDI routing... Grrr!! 2017/05/09 13:55:05 (permalink)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kGH2A9xKfw    =-)

    Be the first one who thinks that you can
     
    Sonar Platinum, Windows 7 64 bit - clean install January 2016, Focusrite Pro 40, Outboard Pres, Native Instruments Komplete, Izotope, PSP, Melodyne, Vegetarian
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    msorrels
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    Re: MIDI routing... Grrr!! 2017/05/09 15:16:16 (permalink)
    It looks like Fingerpick isn't a VSTi at all, but another Kontakt instrument?  The same system works with Kontakt as the VSTi source though.  First add TWO copies of Kontakt to SONAR.  Don't try and route the MIDI inside Kontakt itself (not even sure that can work at all but even if it could, it's way more confusing and likely to mess up).  Add a second Kontakt and load Fingerpick inside it.  That second one needs to have the Enable MIDI Output checked when you add it like above.  Inside Kontakt you need to go to the Options panel and the Engine tab and change "Send MIDI to outside word" to be "script generated notes".  Then it's just like above.

    -Matt
     
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    Billy86
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    Re: MIDI routing... Grrr!! 2017/05/09 15:44:08 (permalink)
    Hey. Thanks so much Matt and dukewestern. Still getting my head around MIDI in general, and Kontakt in specific.
     
    I'm going to dive into this next time I sit down to try again. Matt... great and helpful screen shots and direction! Thank you, thank you. Yes, Fingerpick IS a Kontack instrument loaded in the same instantiation as OTS Steel Strings. I'll try the separate loads of Kontakt with the Fingerpick in one and the OTS in the other. 

    Windows 10 x64 on a Dell/Intel i5, 500 Gig SSD, 32 gig RAM, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, Sonar Professional, Melodyne 4 Assistant, Kurzweil SP-76 stage piano, Baldwin RP 100 digital upright, Novation Impulse 25, Breedlove Pursuit Concert Acous/Elec, Fender American Standard Tele, Fender G-DEC 30 modeling amp, Sigma DM-5 Acoustic, Ovation MCS148 Celebrity Acous/Elec. Mandolin, Roland V-Drums TD-11KV, AKG P220, Yamaha MG82CX mixer, KRK Rokit 6 Powered Monitors, PreSonus FaderPort
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    Billy86
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    Re: MIDI routing... Grrr!! 2017/05/14 00:45:30 (permalink)
    msorrels
    So here's how to do this with OTS Steel Strings and Musiclab's RealGuitar, it may not solve your problem with Fingerpick though, but it will give you an idea how to do this.
     
    First when you add the MIDI generator VSTi make sure to click Enable MIDI Output when inserting the synth.

     
    Then when you insert Kontakt always use split audio/MIDI tracks.  On the MIDI track going into Kontakt select the output from the MIDI generating synth.  In this case I'm picking RealGuitar's Omni channel. 

     
    Then you need to click the enable Input Echo button (little button on the right with looks like waves coming out of it) on the Kontakt MIDI track (or the MIDI doesn't flow from the source to the instrument).

     
    Now with RealGuitar you have to enable the MIDI out inside the instrument as well.  It's a drop down in the Setup box for output.  Not sure what you need to do with the Fingerpick VSTi.
     
    Then load OTS into Kontakt and set it's input MIDI channel to 1 (if the generating VSTi uses a single MIDI channel or Omni if it uses a bunch of channels)

     
    Now feed MIDI into your VSTi and it should play through to the Kontakt instrument live.  You will need to either mute the audio output of the source VSTi or set it to be silent.  With RealGuitar you can choose output MIDI only.
     
    Here you can see I'm playing a 3 note chord into RealGuitar but inside Kontakt 6 keys are being triggered because RealGuitar is creating a guitar chord output.

     
    Things that might be an issue: Steel Strings expects certain MIDI output (range/channel/etc), it's very possible that the Fingerpick VSTi is playing notes outside its range.  Or it may be playing notes on multiple MIDI channels.  Steel Strings chord mode is unlikely to work with generated MIDI, you should use the disabled mode.  The MIDI output could also be on multiple channels.  Using Omni for the input channel in Kontakt might help with that.  If you record the MIDI (on the Kontakt MIDI channel) and open the event viewer in SONAR you might be able to see what exactly the MIDI looks like and figure out what you need to do to make it more Steel String friendly.




    Well, you called it, Matt I was able to get Fingerpick MIDI going out from an instance of Kontakt to trigger OTS Steel Strings in a second instance of Kontakt using the method you described. However, the results were kind of a mess, probably for the very reasons you describe: the MIDI data sent from Fingerpick (Kontakt instance 1) isn't what OTS (Kontakt instance 2) is expecting. Something is getting lost in translation.
     
    The Fingerpick has some nice finger-picking patterns, but I think the OTS sounds better. Was trying to play to the respective strength of each. I wish OTS would issue a finger-picking "add-on" package or something.

    Windows 10 x64 on a Dell/Intel i5, 500 Gig SSD, 32 gig RAM, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, Sonar Professional, Melodyne 4 Assistant, Kurzweil SP-76 stage piano, Baldwin RP 100 digital upright, Novation Impulse 25, Breedlove Pursuit Concert Acous/Elec, Fender American Standard Tele, Fender G-DEC 30 modeling amp, Sigma DM-5 Acoustic, Ovation MCS148 Celebrity Acous/Elec. Mandolin, Roland V-Drums TD-11KV, AKG P220, Yamaha MG82CX mixer, KRK Rokit 6 Powered Monitors, PreSonus FaderPort
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    msorrels
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    Re: MIDI routing... Grrr!! 2017/05/14 15:55:49 (permalink)
    You might want to record the MIDI out of the Fingerpick instrument and take a look at it.  Sometimes it's not that hard to tweak it to be more friendly to other guitar instruments.  A few things I've used that help include the MIDI track's Key+ in the inspector lets you add offsets to the notes, very handy to get things in the right key range.  (there is also a FX MIDI Transpose plugin as well).
     
    For extreme cases you can actually rig up a Drum Map to map some notes to other notes.  The drum map editor in SONAR is very painful though, but if you are going to use this a lot it might be worth it. 
     
    Other tricks include creating a second MIDI track and sending it to the same Kontakt Instrument and Channel and put on it keyswitches and OTS specific bits.  That way you can keep the Fingerpicking generated but also have some extra bits.  The two streams will get merged just like it was one MIDI track inside Kontakt.
     
    And of course there is the brute force fix it with the Piano Roll View.  But that might be a bit painful.
     
    In all likelihood the MIDI patterns Fingerpick use are just MIDI files included with it somewhere, might be able to drag them into SONAR as is and tweak at the source.  For VSTi generators that doesn't work, but Kontakt instruments aren't so advanced so usually their is plain MIDI sources somewhere in the resources folder.
     

    -Matt
     
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