KVR Audio

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 4:32 pm

I'm planning on getting a Linnstrument. I currently use Live and am happy with it, but it does not support the functionality of the Linnstrument, so am looking to get another host that does.

I am considering Logic and Bitwig.

I had been figuring to get Bitwig, but Logic sure offers a lot of bang for the buck and with the latest update which includes an upgraded Alchemy, it is tempting.

For this thread, I am not interested in comparing the DAW's overall, but just in regards to working with a Linnstrument. Are their differences in how each deals with the data? Functionality differences? Ease of setup and editing of data? Any other pertinent feedback pro/con?

Bitwig 1.2 beta is now available for all Bitwig users, so I figure more people who have a Linnstrument will be testing it.

thetechnobear · Post by **thetechnobear** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:01 pm

I can't say for linnstrument, but can comment based on Eigenharps and Soundplane, which require the same functionality

I assume you are particularly interested in per note expression 'support'...as this is the only additional requirement.

Live is great, but it only allows passes data thru to the plugin on one channel unless you route it from different tracks, which is a pain... (*) , it also does not support poly pressure.
(*) but it does have M4L so you can write stuff to make this a bit easier.
- so I tend to just use Live, when I'm happy to just record/loop audio and forget the midi data.

Logic is good for hosting plugins etc, as it just passes the midi data thru, including poly pressure. It can ( I believe) also record poly pressure ... but it won't record multi channel data on one track. Some built-in instruments have mono mode, which allow a limited amount of per note expression. (for some stupid reason, Alchemy has had poly pressure support removed

) ... arguably, if your doing this then you may as well use MainStage.
(Roger Linn seems to use Logic most, so perhaps best support !?)

Bitwig, as of 1.2 beta, is leading the way... it can store individual note pitchbend, pressure and timbre, and can play these on its built in instruments. BUT 1.2 beta currently does NOT pass per note expression to VSTs/external midi, its on the 'to do list' but is not there today.

soo... where does that leave us?
well, Bitwig looks like it will get there first, and with its built in instruments (polysynth in particular) its nice, the fear is BWS has so many things on its to do list, so we don't know when its going to be finished.

for the time being, I tend to just record audio and use a host (usually Vienna Ensemble Pro) that just allows midi to pass thru (or OSC in the case of madrona labs stuff)... and for that purpose I tend to use Live.

other mentions, tracktor/reaper but Ive had no real experience trying these,
another thread discussed this here : http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 3&t=434651

gbevin · Post by **gbevin** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 7:44 pm

In terms of channel per note support, expressiveness support and editing, Cubase has been leading the way for years since VST note expression does all of it. Cubase records it perfectly and has great editors to be able to fine tune your expression. A few of its built-in instruments now support it also, including Halion which is massive.

The virtual instruments with support for LinnStrument expression in Logic are now starting to surpass Cubase's offering though, but the editor doesn't support per note expression yet.

BitWig is catching up rapidly but has neither the detailed editor support of Cubase, nor the wealth of virtual instruments of Cubase and Logic. However, it does have a unique workflow and a great talented and dynamic people behind it, so it's only going to get better and rapidly.

In short, they're all great and you can get each one for the price of a virtual instrument, you can actually use all of them and get the best that each has to offer!

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 1:04 am

thetechnobear wrote:Bitwig, as of 1.2 beta, is leading the way... it can store individual note pitchbend, pressure and timbre, and can play these on its built in instruments. BUT 1.2 beta currently does NOT pass per note expression to VSTs/external midi, its on the 'to do list' but is not there today.

Thanks for your reply... and yes, I am specifically interested in the note expression functionality. I find it confusing to understand what DAW does what. Some sort of support for note-expression or multi-channel midi can take a variety of forms. And in my case, I am most interested in Bazille and Diva along with ACE as those are most most used softsynths.

I had understood that Bitwig 1.2 would allow me to use a Linnstrument and Bazille or Diva with its note expression. So you are saying it only works for Bitwig instruments. That's a disappointment. Are you sure of that? I've heard contradictory comments in the Bitwig forum.

I don't expect to do lots of editing of recorded data. I prefer to just re-record if I'm not satisfied with the result, but I would like the possibility to do a bit of editing.

Regarding Logic, are you saying you need to record multiple tracks?

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 1:06 am

gbevin wrote:In terms of channel per note support, expressiveness support and editing, Cubase has been leading the way for years since VST note expression does all of it. Cubase records it perfectly and has great editors to be able to fine tune your expression. A few of its built-in instruments now support it also, including Halion which is massive.

The virtual instruments with support for LinnStrument expression in Logic are now starting to surpass Cubase's offering though, but the editor doesn't support per note expression yet.

BitWig is catching up rapidly but has neither the detailed editor support of Cubase, nor the wealth of virtual instruments of Cubase and Logic. However, it does have a unique workflow and a great talented and dynamic people behind it, so it's only going to get better and rapidly.

In short, they're all great and you can get each one for the price of a virtual instrument, you can actually use all of them and get the best that each has to offer!

I primarily want to use Bazille and Diva. They currently don't have a vst3 version so my understanding is that they would not work for note expression in Cubase yes?

gbevin · Post by **gbevin** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 5:00 am

pdxindy wrote:I primarily want to use Bazille and Diva. They currently don't have a vst3 version so my understanding is that they would not work for note expression in Cubase yes?

Actually is works perfectly fine in Cubase, they have a note expression conversion panel where you can indicate that it should interpret this as channel per note MIDI information instead. You can use the regular VST 2 version of Bazille and Diva, play it live, record all the MIDI data and edit it in Cubase.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 6:07 am

I've been eyeing the Linnstrument myself, but I had no idea that it wasn't fully supported in Live. That's a big disappointment.

What about Sonar? That's the other host I use, so I guess I'd be okay if it worked well in there.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:04 am

Isn't Tracktion supposed to support this stuff since v6? They have a close relationship with the Seaboard people so should.

Musical Gym · Post by **Musical Gym** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:48 am

What did Roger suggest using?

gbevin · Post by **gbevin** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 8:02 am

aMUSEd wrote:Isn't Tracktion supposed to support this stuff since v6? They have a close relationship with the Seaboard people so should.

Afaik, Tracktion at the moment only supports Seaboard's custom MIDI data format, but I suspect that will change as MPE advances.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 12:49 am

I can't seem to find any info on compatibility with Sonar. So exactly what MIDI features are required to get the most out of Linnstrument?

thetechnobear · Post by **thetechnobear** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 3:20 pm

pdxindy wrote: I had understood that Bitwig 1.2 would allow me to use a Linnstrument and Bazille or Diva with its note expression. So you are saying it only works for Bitwig instruments. That's a disappointment. Are you sure of that? I've heard contradictory comments in the Bitwig forum.

positive, Ive been testing it since b1.
this is only 'currently', BW do intend to add MPE support for VSTs/External midi, just we don't know when... could be tomorrow, next week, next month...

Bazille/Dive support Voice per Channel (VpC) midi rather than MPE (again u-he have it 'on the list'). for daws Ive used (I don't use cubase) , you can create a track per midi channel (= touch) , so if you want 6 independent touches thats 6 channels which then feed into the same VST.
it works, but its a hassle to edit.

Traktor, I couldn't get working (traktor support did say it should work, but i didn't follow it up)

I will say, all this sound more complicated than it is in practice,
whilst Im looking forward to BWS support MPE and the editing features, its frankly not a big deal to me, as I said, I tend to record audio and even if there was midi editing, I suspect I would not use it much. but your case may of course be different.

(frankly, if you have Live and are happy with it... Id stick with that, and keep an eye on BWS to see when they add MPE support for VSTs, and when u-he is useable... Ive raised both issues to bitwig during beta, so hope it will be resolved at some point)

des · Post by **des** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 5:41 pm

I've been running Bazille in Reaper and it seems to get along fine with Linnstrument. I just wish I could filter out some midi channels going into a Reaper channel.. Right now you can select None, All or an individual channel.. (from a midi port which you select) I suppose I could insert a midi filter before Bazille. The idea being running Bazille on two different tracks with midi channels 1-8 on one track and 9-16 on the other and operating Linnstrument in split mode.

I know its a pita, but Live can be a decent host, you just have to make copies of the track with your VSTi on it and change the input channel on each. I then group the tracks together. Something else to consider...you don't have to use 8 midi channels for multi- note/channel play. If you're doing melody work, only enable 3 or 4 channels in Linnstrument. Then you only have to set up 3 or 4 tacks in Ableton. Bern having a lot of fun using Alchemy like this...

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:34 pm

des wrote:I've been running Bazille in Reaper and it seems to get along fine with Linnstrument. I just wish I could filter out some midi channels going into a Reaper channel.. Right now you can select None, All or an individual channel.. (from a midi port which you select) I suppose I could insert a midi filter before Bazille. The idea being running Bazille on two different tracks with midi channels 1-8 on one track and 9-16 on the other and operating Linnstrument in split mode.

I know its a pita, but Live can be a decent host, you just have to make copies of the track with your VSTi on it and change the input channel on each. I then group the tracks together. Something else to consider...you don't have to use 8 midi channels for multi- note/channel play. If you're doing melody work, only enable 3 or 4 channels in Linnstrument. Then you only have to set up 3 or 4 tacks in Ableton. Bern having a lot of fun using Alchemy like this...

In Live, are you saying to create multiple instances of your VSTi, one for each midi channel? Or do you mean to have multiple midi tracks which are all routed to a single track with a single VSTi instance?

Doing it this way, would it effectively allow you to make use of polyphonic aftertouch (one aftertouch value per midi channel, with each note being on a different channel)?

des · Post by **des** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 11:01 pm

Yes in Live set up a track with the VSTi you want. Adjust the patch to respond the way you want (remember that it wont be MPE responsive at this point). Save the patch. Set that Live track to receive from Linnstrument on midi channel 1. Copy that track to a second track but change the midi channel to 2, etc... Set your Linnstrument to transmit in note/channel (channel/note) and set the number of channels you want to use. If you copied your Live track 3 times ( for a total of 4 tracks ranging from midi channel 1 to 4) then select channels 1-4 on Linnstrument in the channel/note settings. This way every time you play a note (up to 4) it will go to one of the Live tracks you set up. I said before I was using Alchemy but I meant to say Absynth....though it should work with any VSTi that allows you to use multiple instances of it.

Note - using a VSTi that consumes a lot of CPU power...like Bazille...can eat up your processing resources real quick using it this way. More cpu power is definately an advantage here...

Best Host For Linnstrument