Thinking of buying Cantabile - any advice on version?

[viberunner]

I was planning on getting Solo.

I need to be able to split MIDI inputs. Primarily I want to have the left side of my keyboard thrown at one VSTi, the right onto another (e.g. Clavinet and Organ).

I might also pick up a nanoKontrol, with funky sliders. The sliders I might map as Drawbars, but might throw other controls to other things (e.g. Clavinet Brightness).

Is Solo going to do all that with Solo's Midi Assignments and Midi Filters?

I'm only asking because I'm not that familiar with MIDI, and fear spending money only to find Performer's Midi Routing and Triggers are going to be necessary.

cheers,

[alland]

I need to be able to split MIDI inputs. Primarily I want to have the left side of my keyboard thrown at one VSTi, the right onto another (e.g. Clavinet and Organ).

I might also pick up a nanoKontrol, with funky sliders. The sliders I might map as Drawbars, but might throw other controls to other things (e.g. Clavinet Brightness).

Is Solo going to do all that with Solo's Midi Assignments and Midi Filters?

Solo should do splitting for you as says
http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/features/midifilters

Also MIDI assignments as said
http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/featur ... ontrollers
However if you want to assign MIDI controls to your VSTi then VSTi should support MIDI controller mapping, Cantabile just passes that MIDI information to VSTi

I'm only asking because I'm not that familiar with MIDI, and fear spending money only to find Performer's Midi Routing and Triggers are going to be necessary.

No need spending money, check it out with Cantabile Solo trial version.
http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/download/

[TiUser]

If your keyboard supports split on two midi channels Cantabile Lite will do as well.

Drawbars can usually be assigned to the plugin itself. Again Lite will do unless you need special midi filters.

The most obvious thing missing in Lite is the audio recording / players. The other things are details you should check out before spending money...

Ok, I am the least to tell you not buying Cantabile, just I feel to recommend to check out "Lite" first as it can do the basic vst hosting things well too - and it's free!

If you find uncomfortable restrictions with Lite get a Demo first to check the additional features of Solo / Performer.

Just my 2ct.

[viberunner]

Cheers for the answers. I have the Lite version and the moment and it's great.

My keyboard is entirely basic (a digital piano) and doesn't support splits. But it does have 76 keys, so quite handy for two instruments.

I don't have the nanoKontrol yet, but though the drawbars will auto-map or be mappable in the VSTi, I want to use the controller for things at the same time, stuff I'm pretty sure won't be VSTi mappable (e.g. on the Clavinet).

[TiUser]

Ok, Solo and Performer both offer Zones/Spilt per rack which is not available in Lite.

If you want to try freeware first, maybe midi ox and virtual midi patch cables can serve well enough too.

Cantabile Solo is ok if loading Session files is not too slow for your use.

Cantabile Performer offers Subsessions, a kind of snapshots within a session that can be switched very fast. There are some more little differences mostly useful if you want to use some HW instruments in your setup as well. Midi routing table and triggers come in handy here.

As already mentioned you get the mediaplayers with the payware versions for simple audio and midi recording and playback. Nice for practising or playing backings. Useful to trigger and play sound snippets too.

I still recommend trying Solo/performer 30 days demo before a purchase to find out more.

'til then, have fun and be welcome to the club later...