RC as VSTI hosted in Cubase Studio 5.5

[jdfair]

First of all, I just wanted to let Attila know that I have been "drooling" over this tool for years, but just couldn't justify the price. After the Christmas sale started, I was able to "get permission" to get it. So ... after playing around with it for a couple of days, I have a perceived problem that I need to inquire about.

Make no mistake ... I think that RC is the best conceived composer aid I've seen yet, and trust me, I've used most of all in existence. I haven't been this excited in years.

I'm running RC 64-bit inside the 64-bit version of Cubase Studio 5.5 as a vsti. I'm trying to use it in an existing project that is set to a 7/8 time signature. I just dropped a couple of phrases into RC and set up routing to a Yamaha Motif Rack ES synthesizer. I then arranged the Cubase and RC windows so that I could watch the timeline cursors proceed on playback ... RC was "way out of sync" with Cubase. I then set the RC vsti to "not follow the host time signature" and set the number of beats per bar to 7. No improvement on playback. The first phrase in RC was positioned at the beginning of Bar # 2 (in RC), but didn't "sound", on playback, until the Cubase cursor hit Bar # 3.

Also ... I'm not sure the "General MIDI" program change functionality is working correctly. I select a "patch" that I want to send to the General MIDI bank in the Yamaha Rack ES, but the an incorrect patch gets selected. Question ... does RC send a General MIDI bank select message (MSB=0, LSB=0, if I remember correctly) before transmitting the patch number ?

What am I doing wrong ? Any help would be most appreciated !!

Thanks,
Jimmy D.

[jdfair]

OK ... disregard the "out of sync" issue. I had forgotten that "beats" in RC are quarter notes. Once I changed the time signature to 7/4 in Cubase, everything synced up nicely. My wife has been telling me for 22 years that I'm a "big dummy", what can I say ?

[musicdevelopments]

Hi Jimmy,

thank you for your feedback!
The bank select message is not sent before the program change. But this can be easily fixed by editing the GeneralMIDI.rcINST file. You need to add the following:

Code: Select all

_midibankmsb=0; _midibanklsb=0;

to each line in this text file. I did it for you: if you download the file at http://www.musicdevelopments.com/GeneralMIDI.rcINST and replace C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\RapidComposer\DB\GeneralMIDI.rcINST, bank select message will be sent before the program change message.

Thanks,
Attila

PS: your wife has been wrong all these years

[jdfair]

Attila,

Thank You, sir ... you are a gentleman and a scholar !!

Jimmy D.