Vortex VSTi - Multi Timbral Groove Machine Beta

[como baila]

Como have you had any crashes or problems with the latest beta?

I have experienced a crash when using the Reso knob, which has me stumped at the moment, I'm looking into that one now.

Yes, one. I had attributed it to something else, but I'll have a look at the reso knob, which I didn't touch, but I hazily recall that the crash (freeze actually) occurred after I had used the randomize slider on CC1 and CC2 in a sequencer window ... but then possibly it is CC71-manipulation related related with the sliders sharing routines with the knob?

A little background: Cubase's Inspector track midi input does not filter midi channel input, sending all 16 channels to the chosen midi output and, naturally, recording all 16 channels on the track.

This wouldn't be too much of a problem if I only was trying to playback with multitimbral soft or hard instruments, since I could always 'dissolve' the recorded track to 16 mono midi channel tracks after it was recorded. But as I am using hardware mono synths and/ or patch modes, it greatly complicates working something out before recording the midi due to unwanted notes playing.

So, I was building a little template that include 16 midi tracks with input filters using the Cubase inspector's 'input transformer' to restrict midi track one to channel 1, midi track two to channel 2, etc., all tucked in a folder so I could open the template and copy the folder and all setup tracks as many times as I needed for any project using MIDI VSTi.

I'm not sure how I got on to telling you all this ... but, anyway ...

After finishing the template, I instantiated Vortex and was doing fine. I thought about expanding the template and having several MIDI VSTi that I anticipate using regularly, all setup and routed to the midi tracks. As I instantiated a second MIDI VSTi, RapidComposer, in preparation for expanding the template, Cubase froze.

I left it there on the 'look into it later' list for the moment. So, I don't know who wasn't playing nice with who. I will try some different combos of instantiated MIDI VSTi plug-ins later to see if there is any pattern of problems.

I suspect the RapidComposer MIDI VSTi shares territory with Vortex, as it is also multitimbral, actually permitting up to 4 sets of 16 channels from one instantiation ... although I'd only loaded the first 1-16 channel plug-in.

Thinking about it, what I really think happened is that when I instantiated RapidComposer, Cubase asked me if I wanted to add a midi track for the instrument and I clicked 'yes.' I shouldn't have done this as the default behavior of adding a midi track (something I've groused about on the Cubase forum!) is to set the track midi input to 'All MIDI Inputs.' I first intend to open the instrument in the rack next time, then add a track manually and set the track midi input to 'Not Connected' before I add the instrument to midi output. We'll see.

RapidComposer, if you've not taken a look, is under Music Development, which also has a forum here on KVR.

Finally, I also experienced lack of internal audio output on two of the three times I instantiated Vortex beta 16. I checked the Channel GUI and the red activated lights were on and the yellow midi light intermittently as I pressed the note from the keyboard and watched the sequence cycle. Don't know what that was about?

Two other niggles. When I reopen a Cubase project where Vortex GUI has been open when I save it, there is just a border with no graphics. I have to hit the Cubase 'edit' button for the GUI to close and reopen it to get the graphics back.

The 'auto' key pressing to change sequences is still dodgy. I didn't try the CC 12 as my Novation Automap controller software either uses parameters or CC's on independent pages ... but I probably could set this up using the the Cubase track 'Quick Controls,' which I hadn't thought of till this moment.

I must say, writing these things out often brings ideas and possible solutions drifting into consciousness.

Como

PS Was I the 20th early adapter? I noticed the price is now $40.00.

[Astralp]

I've fixed the reso crash in the next version, I think there is something wrong somewhere in the randomizers, I forgot I need to check through those.

Well, if you can find something reproducible with the freeze that would be good, although I don't have cubase anymore ( I was a user from 1990 until a couple of years ago ).

[musikmachine]

I opened an instance in Cantabile last night and clicked on the bit rate iirc and Cantabile crashed.

GUI appears black or can see host background like it's cloaked, closing and reopening usally sorts it though. Occured in S1 and Cantabile.

Changing the the bank or sound kit on channel four in S1 has caused the audio to start buzzing twice, had to reload Vortex. Also just got An unexpected error crash in S1 when trying to quit. I'd been trying out the performance triggers for the first time, don't know if it's related. Had to force quit.

Still getting stuck notes and random steps when triggering sequences in Cantabile but it seems to be related to the maschine controller as it happens almost immediately when i press a pad. Repeatedly pressing the pad causes the sequence lights to speed up and trigger randomly. Can't see any issues in Midi Ox midi monitor when i trigger a pad and it's not doing this in S1. All notes off disables the sequence but all the notes remain stuck orange on the Vortex keyboard.

GUI bug: when i click on shift in the CC sequencers and drag up or down the two lines underneath move first and then the rest of the sequence will move slightly, all will shift normally if the two at the end are at full value.

Audio In seems to act more like a send or bus than an insert in Cantabile as i can still hear the unaffected audio.

Yep definitely getting better, gonna have a lot of crossover appeal i think. Will there be a drum sequencer added and would that tie in with step input?

I'm tuckered out with all this beta testing!

[Astralp]

I opened an instance in Cantabile last night and clicked on the bit rate iirc and Cantabile crashed.

This one is fixed in the next release, it was pig to track down!

GUI appears black or can see host background like it's cloaked, closing and reopening usally sorts it though. Occured in S1 and Cantabile.

The screen isn't repainting on a patch change, I'm on this one.

Changing the the bank or sound kit on channel four in S1 has caused the audio to start buzzing twice, had to reload Vortex. Also just got An unexpected error crash in S1 when trying to quit. I'd been trying out the performance triggers for the first time, don't know if it's related. Had to force quit.

I think this is related to Reso problem, let me know if still happens in the next beta, but I think it's fixed.

Still getting stuck notes and random steps when triggering sequences in Cantabile but it seems to be related to the maschine controller as it happens almost immediately when i press a pad. Repeatedly pressing the pad causes the sequence lights to speed up and trigger randomly. Can't see any issues in Midi Ox midi monitor when i trigger a pad and it's not doing this in S1. All notes off disables the sequence but all the notes remain stuck orange on the Vortex keyboard.

This is what Jens spoke of, his maschine controller was sending out midi notes for an unknown reason, I'll ask if he got any further with it.

GUI bug: when i click on shift in the CC sequencers and drag up or down the two lines underneath move first and then the rest of the sequence will move slightly, all will shift normally if the two at the end are at full value.

Believe it or not it's supposed to, but I'll probably axe it, it currently maintains the relationship proportionately so as they get lower the resolution and control gets finer, but when they get near to the bottom the resolution gets too fine. It seemed like a good idea at the time..

Audio In seems to act more like a send or bus than an insert in Cantabile as i can still hear the unaffected audio.

The audio in goes through the FX channel, and so is related to the FX Mix in the master section, it should be fully wet when turned fully right?

Yep definitely getting better, gonna have a lot of crossover appeal i think. Will there be a drum sequencer added and would that tie in with step input?

Haha I thought it already was a drum sequencer, what do you see being different? Yes I think so it has a lot of breadth and diverse ways it can be used, I hope that people latch on to it

I'm tuckered out with all this beta testing!

haha, I know the feeling, I'm a bit done in with it, looking forward to the day when no bug reports come back

[Astralp]

The next version has a big change, Octave C2 is now devoted to triggers in both single and multi mode which makes a lot of sense, and instant hands on fun. Hold is also ineffective for this octave so that hold can be used for triggering sequences and then hands free for the triggers. Multi Mode has all shifted up an octave to make room for the triggers, and the repitch octaves at the top end don't hold either. I think all of this is a major improvement

[Astralp]

BETA 16

* Fixed crash when using the reso knob
* Aftertouch -> Filter Added to the synth section, can be + or -
* CC 74 Assigned to Master Filter Cutoff & CC 71 assigned to Master Resonance.
* CC 91 assigned to FX Mix
* Recorder Bug Fixed
* GUI refresh should now be working correctly in all areas
* Fixed a bug where clicking on default notes was causing a crash
* Fixed Slider SHIFT Up/Down bug.
* Octave C2 (notes 36 - 47) Now acts to control the triggers:
C - Reverse
C# - Back
D - Retrigger
D# - Back
E - Stutter 2
F - Stutter
F# - Tie
G - Half Tempo
G# - Pause
A - Double Step
B - Quantize Tempo

Note: This means that multi-Mode behaviour has changed, basically everything has shifted up an octave to make room for the triggers.

TJ - I see what you meant about the shift sliders, I misread earlier on, fixed now thanks for finding it

[como baila]

*

* Octave C2 (notes 36 - 47) Now acts to control the triggers:
C - Reverse
C# - Back
D - Retrigger
D# - Back
E - Stutter 2
F - Stutter
F# - Tie
G - Half Tempo
G# - Pause
A - Double Step
B - Quantize Tempo

Note: This means that multi-Mode behaviour has changed, basically everything has shifted up an octave to make room for the triggers.

Andy,

I definitely like this! It will mean that we can also easily sequence these controls from a midi track for arranging/ recording.

I do wonder why you didn't set it down one more octave on the keyboard though? Is it that the next lower octave is already in use?

I would prefer not to lose the current pitch range of Octave C2, since it appears to be consistent with the pitch you'd expect in normal use on the keyboard, which I find helpful in the prior betas as a quick way to spread the pitch range of your arrangement with different pitch voicing between sequences.

I know you can offset the pitch per sequence, but I did find it handy and intuitive to have the key selected reflect normal pitch usage on each octave of the keyboard. I haven't had a go at it yet, but did you repitch everything up the right side of the keyboard an octave lower to compensate, or just leave the old C2-B2 pitch range out?

Also, since I'm still getting my head around this, will those control notes be channel specific to the channel selection setting in each individual sequence, or is it global for all sequences that have the particular control setting 'on' through Channel 16 or which other midi channel?


Como

[musikmachine]

Awww great about the triggers, i'm always looking for the button on my controller. Easier to automate as well.

Re the controls, a lot aren't named in the CC mixer, will they be added later and will the synth reside on the synth page or be a seperate app?

Will test out and post back. Re drum sequencer, i meant being able to stack notes per lane, snare on the 3 and the 5 etc.

One cheeky Fr: Polyrhythmic sequencing!

[Astralp]

I'm just about to go to bed so just a quick one, I didn't repitch the ranges but you can easily change the entire range using the Master Transpose (in theory anyhow, haven't tested that for quite some time but should still work ok). It's funny because I tend to work mainly with octaves above C2, but there's no reason why I can't move it lower except I'm trying to consider people with smaller keyboards and how to maximize the usefulness of the range. I think really you need a 4 octave keyboard to make the most of it, more is an advantage in multimode for the repitcher. I have a 4 octave x-station and it does nicely.

The unnamed controls don't control anything internally, the names are just references to the internal synth CCs for ease.

The synth will be a separate app, I think it will be an addon as there is quite a lot of work involved in building it, it depends on how well Vortex sells as there is still a few months worth of work to do on that probably.

Everything is up in the air for discussion, but I think if I built the synth interface into Vortex it would become more resource intensive and the load time would increase by a large factor, I think one of it's best points is that it is a fairly light plugin despite all it can do. I thought I could maybe build a deluxe version with all the editing stuff in there which would then leave Vortex intact, and become a choice of what people want to use etc...

It's a tricky one especially if people are using a few in a project, then the lighter the better really.

I won't be developing another version for a long while anyhow as I'd want it to be pretty much feature complete and solid before it branched.

As for drums, I don't want to differentiate really, I like the fact it is uncomplicated and can control anything, but don't forget that more possibilities will be opened up once I develop the polyphonic side. I intend it to be a new list option on the sequencer and you choose a mode for how the poly works for that sequence. Editing multiple notes on a single page may be a possibility, but at it's heart it is a mono step sequencer and so multi notes will be multiple mono step sequencers running concurrently, and so the challenge is how to organize that from the code side. First up will definitely be multiple sequences which will be easy enough to code. Modes I have so far is chained, simultaneous, simultaneous pairs, a CC for changing between at the same time. There's a lot of different directions that side can fire off, so should be interesting!

Polyrhythmic you can do already by changing the lengths of individual sequences

[MarkSA]

Vortex is becoming more and more fun.

I can confirm the 16 bit recorder output works now.

Been playing around with the old presets with the drums and have been using my keyboard to trigger the drums, and using the triggers that have been mapped to the keyboard. In sequencer mode and hold on, certainly makes triggering sounds very useful. Works well most of the time, one or two stuck notes.

Multisequence works as above, but has more stuck notes.

I think Vortex is pretty sophisticated now. Having a synth built in may be a lot of work and may hog resources. I like the addon idea for later on?

[como baila]

Andy,

3 issues, at least 2 I also had with beta 16.

1. The GUI on first open does not draw. Just a butterscotch colored blank canvas with a border. Close it and open it and it's there.

2. Audio weirdness from the internal synth. Open it in a fresh project without making any changes. Sequences are running but no sound or activity in the channel of the DAW mixer. Go to the midi mixer page and all the little orangish squares are active and I see the little yellow light go on when I press a key. Turn of all the instruments and turn them back on and presto, audio. Play with on sequence page using its key and the new control triggers and everything goes merrily along. Stop and now that key still cycles in the sequence, but no audio. No audio on the other sequence pages?

3. After playing with the key control activation, I'm happy with the pitch as is. I realize that what you call C2 = 36, I've always called C1 = 36, so the keys used are actually in the octave I would have chosen.

However, the tabs at the bottom of the page should be realigned to follow the keys in ascending (and inversely, descending order). I notice G# triggers the light on 'mute,' for an example.

I'd suggestion you have 'C' all the way to the left of the bottom of the sequence page, and maybe repitch, since it is important, at the far right with a little gap to separate it. Likewise, the control tabs that don't respond to a key press maybe should have a separation gap.

Besides that the order of tab placement doesn't follow the scale, e.g., from left to right, C = Reverse is the 3rd tab and D = Retrigger is the 2nd, I note the following.

C# = Back does not appear associated with any tab, either by name or triggering the yellow activity light on the tab.

D# = Back, same as C# and a duplicate?

E = Stutter 2 lights the Stutter tab, as does F.

G# = Pause triggers the light on the Mute tab.

B = Quantize Tempo triggers the light on the Pause tab.

You probably would have caught all this without me!

Como

[Astralp]

Vortex is becoming more and more fun.

I can confirm the 16 bit recorder output works now.

Been playing around with the old presets with the drums and have been using my keyboard to trigger the drums, and using the triggers that have been mapped to the keyboard. In sequencer mode and hold on, certainly makes triggering sounds very useful. Works well most of the time, one or two stuck notes.

Multisequence works as above, but has more stuck notes.

I think Vortex is pretty sophisticated now. Having a synth built in may be a lot of work and may hog resources. I like the addon idea for later on?

Great

Could you try and make the stuck notes reproducible and describe the sequence of events for me, I haven't had any stuck note issues for a long while now, I was hoping that one was cured especially in single sequence mode.. Was it a fresh project?

Well it does have 12 synths built in, it was the controls for making sounds I was talking about which would add probably 12 x 30 (ish) patch storage locations, which would add a whack to load time. Yes the addon will be later on, it's a chunk of work, however there will be lots more internal presets added before then. I still have to do some sample based patches, just haven't had chance yet.

Incidentally, you could always make your own kits manually by adding a folder and editing one of the existing kit text files to change folder/sample name. They are just text files with a list of 24 WAVS going from C to B then C to B again

[Astralp]

1. The GUI on first open does not draw. Just a butterscotch colored blank canvas with a border. Close it and open it and it's there.

hmmm really? I'll look into this

2. Audio weirdness from the internal synth. Open it in a fresh project without making any changes. Sequences are running but no sound or activity in the channel of the DAW mixer. Go to the midi mixer page and all the little orangish squares are active and I see the little yellow light go on when I press a key. Turn of all the instruments and turn them back on and presto, audio. Play with on sequence page using its key and the new control triggers and everything goes merrily along. Stop and now that key still cycles in the sequence, but no audio. No audio on the other sequence pages?

and look into this, sounds as though a solo might be on for some reason. Was this with a patch other than the first one or with the first one as well? Just wondering whether program changes were involved.

Incidentally with those buttons clicking on one whilst holding control will set all others to the clicked buttons current state.

However, the tabs at the bottom of the page should be realigned to follow the keys in ascending (and inversely, descending order). I notice G# triggers the light on 'mute,' for an example.

This one is on my list already

I have been thinking of separating the triggers, that was why I made some more vertical space a few betas back, just not sure how it will be done yet.

C# = Back does not appear associated with any tab, either by name or triggering the yellow activity light on the tab.

D# = Back, same as C# and a duplicate?
E = Stutter 2 lights the Stutter tab, as does F.

C# is back and D# is forward, they use the amounts set in the master section. They share the same trigger enable that's why the same on lights up. Same as stutter and stutter 2, they are enabled as a pair.

G# = Pause triggers the light on the Mute tab.

Can't reproduce this one, works fine here?

B = Quantize Tempo triggers the light on the Pause tab.

This also works fine here?

You probably would have caught all this without me!

No This is great! The more of this I have the quicker I can get things fixed, and the sooner v1 is released. At my end I tend to be working intensely on small parts of Vortex and so it gets a bit hard to see the big picture if you see what I mean

[MarkSA]

I'll look into seeing if I get any more stuck notes and get back to you.

I have Black Magic. Is it possible to make kits for Vortex using BM?

This how the triggers work for me. I see no problem. I just think one of the triggers was left out.

* Octave C2 (notes 36 - 47) Now acts to control the triggers:
C - Reverse
C# - Back
D - Retrigger
D# - Back
E - Stutter 2
F - Stutter
F# - Tie
G - Half Tempo
G# - Mute
A - Double Step
A# - Pause
B - Quantize Tempo

Another question Andy, the green button (next to internal)on the left on the midi mixer page. How does it exactly work? Seems to change the sound.

[como baila]

Andy ...

Could you give us a little more info about making 'kits' and presets? I assume a preset is a collection of up to 12 kits for the different sequencers and kits include, or can include instruments as well? I'm struggling to understand the difference between the larger Vortex Samples folder downloaded and the ones in the beta folder. I don't see exactly how to navigate to the folder with the larger sample set from the GUI and am assuming I'm only loading/ playing with the sounds in the small folder that is packed with the beta.

Or will all this be revealed with v1.0?

Como