so, with the various "knobby surfaces", as to why there are many who simply overlooked them, the problem so far has been one of abysmal presentation across the board. to be fair it's not easy, and something such as universal plugin control presents serious UX challenges and design requirements. as I said, ideally it happens at the top-level, i.e. in the main daw, and using an intermediate host bring along its own set of potential issues. you need a really solid piece of software to make it happen, and make the users happy.JCJR wrote: ↑Wed Dec 19, 2018 6:53 pm I never paid attention to "knobby control interfaces" totally ignorant about them. If some of the knobby interfaces, you can program a knob on the controller to automate dumbass FX EQs, compressors, choruses, zillions of other plugins that don't give a hoot about MIDI and completely ignore MIDI messages, then somewhere along the line the knob gestures get turned into floats before they make it to the non-midi VST's. Maybe controller driver dependent or host-dependent or something else. There are many ways it could be done and still fit the VST spec.
but what we have learned from this is that a daw is much better suited at handling vst plugin control is than the MIDI protocol can be - some of the inherent flaws are non-existent. the smart people that used to work at NI set out to solve a specific problem when they started the Kore project: while a DAW excels at recording, editing, arranging and versioning, it never excels at tightly hosting a real-time synth or FX for the purpose of producing electronic music.
there are two possible approaches: easy-access templates, where only the main, or most musically useful, parameters are shown, and full control templates. Kore shipped with easy-access control pages, boatloads of them... but most of them were lack-luster, didn't showcase how the system can shine. by the time people started to understand how to make more full-featured, solid templates, it was too late, most people had the perception the idea of a universal sub-host was a waste of time, kind of like NI's new komplete kontrol is. regardless, they made it 95% of the way there with Kore 2. let me provide some photographic evidence of what it can look like if a high-end plugin control platform is well supported and developed.
let's begin with a good little synth
with a second page like it for osc 3/4
mono/poly is great, keep in mind you can get to the first 8 pages instantly, page 8 gets you to the first of 4 mod matrix setup pages that you can navigate with the arrows or jog wheel, so, splendid operation overall. zero controls missing. we'll pretend the on-board fx aren't there, it's just the meh MDE-X tacked on.
ok now I need to look at my vumeter, as this is an old 24-bit, non-floating point environment... a good plugin host can enhance the experience in various ways, here I have setup shortcuts to common gain staging values on the buttons
so that we can ram the signal through this hot new toy, the Pre-X7
then it's time to whip out Replika XT, now here's something snazzy. this prestigious vst has full multi-mode operation on all the parameters, it's all reflected on the controller in 5 ergonomic pages, you just switch modes and it sets itself up like magic. they probably made it like that, hoping it would look cool on the KK keyboards... I haven't seen that template but it must look stupid next to this one, that's for sure
let's get phased out a bit
at this point, might as well try to eq some of that mess
and handle those dynamics... oooh, Vice One CM, that's a good one, should load that more often
time to create a bus and setup an aux... this is xenoverb... sadly the multi-mode parameters don't auto-label like RXT, that's not always the case, but it works fine like this.
gonna color the verb some more with loc-ness
that's not a zero at the top, it's an actual phase invert symbol
a second aux, this time with Dubstation classic
with bark of dog on it, mostly for fun
now we're in the master bus, so we'll have an sdrr in desk mode...
FreeG acts as the main fader, it doesn't get any smoother.
splendid, that's the sound done, now we wedge in a Thesys at the beginning of the chain, record a little pattern on the launchpad pro, then hit the Action Section:
Track 1 is now live and ready to go, nothing left to do but record as many motion sequences as you want in Ableton, as though this were some Electribe on steroids (which is how I largely describe the experience). throughout the chain, every single parameter was always easily accessible - and always well proportioned in relation with the control being accessed, never annoying, always the proper value displayed. this was a premium chain full of well-made plugins, no doubt. you can move in between modules from the hardware, of course. once the plugins were loaded there was zero mousing in the operation, moving back and forth and tweaking... oh, and everything always has full recall, all the time. that's why I actually use RackSpacer (I know I can just use empty KoreSounds but RackSpacer sounds much more analog, so), it lets me align some effects like EQ's together in a lateral chain, so I can switch with the left/right arrows comfortably. that's some serious hardware workflow emulation for you. there is so much stuff that works well that you can have dozens of Kores like this and almost never repeat your plugins - take my word for it, it's my daily routine
this is basic stuff though, we can get really wild with length-synced midi file sequencing with multiple step-seqs in there, stuff you used to see in the advanced hardware studios in the electronica phase of the late 90's. a high-end electronic-music oriented DAW or host can deliver that experience and blur the lines, making it fun AND fast...
MIDI Learn cannot.