I've been enjoying using the mobile app to control Alchemy within Sonar, but something is escaping me. How do I record the midi information generated in the mobile app in my DAW? The direct control of Alchemy by the Mobile app is cool, but it seems to bypass the midi channel routing within the DAW.

I've been using MIDIPilot to control Alchemy and am able to route the midi output through a midi channel in Sonar such that I am able to record the xy/remix performances but I can't seem to figure out how to do a similar task with Alchemy Mobile. MidiPilot is a great app, but its controls don't correspond one-to-one to the controls in Alchemy such as the mobile app does.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks for your help!

Hi,

The short answer is to write enable automaton on the plugin wrapper by clicking the W in the top right hand corner (it should turn red). When W mode is active any changes to control on the Alchemy desktop GUI or using Alchemy Mobile will be recorded as host automation. You should see the automation curves being written to the track containing Alchemy. R (read) mode is enabled by default, which causes any automation to be sent to the plugin on playback.

To explain further ...

It sounds like you've been using MIDI Pilot to send + record MIDI CC messages instead of host automation. This will work, but host automation is generally more accurate than MIDI CC (which is limited to 127 values). Automation uses named parameters too, so it does not depend on the MIDI learn configuration being the same when a project is re-opened.

When using Alchemy Mobile to remote control Alchemy Desktop it's basically the same as using the mouse to control the plugin via the GUI. This means Alchemy is also sending the control values to the host as automation, but you need to enable automation for this to work.

You haven't mentioned which version of Sonar you're using, but it should be the same in X1 or 8.5 (the above instructions are assuming X1). Let us know if you need more info.

Peace,
Andy.

Hi Andy,

Thank you for the detailed reply. It was just the information I was looking for! Funny I never thought to use host automation to capture the xy/remix data. Now that you've mentioned that the remote wifi control is equivalent to using a mouse to directly change the parameters, that makes perfect sense.

I'm using.Sonar X1. I think you are correct though, not much changed in host automation functionally from Sonar 8.5.

Regards,

-Bentley Ousley