Digital Performer 10 is now Ableton Live

[fmr]

as I said already. If I have a midi track that needs to be processed by a midi plugin (after the midi from the track is fed to it), and then fed from there to an instrument...(which takes only one track in logic pro), this requires 4 in DP.

midi track -->inst track with midi plugin-->miditrack2-->inst track with sound

think it through.

Why would you need to instantiate the MIDI plugin in an instrument track? And then routing it to a second MIDI track? If you have a MIDI track that needs to be processed by a MIDI plug-in, you instantiate "that" MIDI plug-in in "that" MIDI track. Actually, you CAN'T instantiate a MIDI plug-in in an instrument track in DP, since it is an AUDIO track. That routing of yours is pretty confusing. I don't get the need.

It seems to me you don't Know how DP works, actually. Instrument tracks in DP are AUDIO tracks. As they are in Cubase. In Logic they are hybrid tracks that receive MIDI and play the audio. Drawback: If you instantiate a multi-instrument (like Kontakt) you have a hard-time routing different MIDI channels to it, while in DP and Cubase it's simple and direct.

[machinesworking]

In order to use a midi plugin inserted between a midi track and an instrument I literally have to make 4 tracks in DP. Its a total nuisance. I'm glad you are happy with that nuisance, but this is something MOTU could improve drastically, and by the way it would help out a lot for articulation management.

You're exaggerating the nuisance. Every instrument in DP needs two tracks (MIDI and instrument), this is known. A MIDI plug in only needs to be instantiated, preferably in a V-Rack not a track. The only reason to have a fourth step is to record the MIDI plug in separately from say a keyboard controller or drum pad MIDI track. The advantage of this is obvious, MIDI from the second track is not automatically routed through the MIDI plug in, like it would be in Logic. Plus, that MIDI plug in is available to any track in DP, not just the one it's instantiated on.

seems we do not agree about midi regions and I don't see the point to argue about it.

Especially because Clips as MIDI regions isn't a known element, we do not know if they behave like Lives' clips or are less flexible, everything so far points to them being like Lives regions/clips. You're literally writing something off before it's even fully introduced.

[tremolounge]

What I hope for is the ability to turn Clips(regions) on and off. There are definitely times using Logic or Reaper when it feels like a huge PITA to use because of region based editing etc. If you could just switch on the fly between Note and Clip view in a track, I would be very happy.

I know what you mean -- in Logic it's a real pain that you only see the selected MIDI region in the Editor. If you find you need to edit beyond that region, you either have to select multiple regions before opening the editor, or go back up to the Arrange, select, etc.

Studio One has an elegant way of getting around this. When you double-click a MIDI region, you see that region in the editor, obviously, but you also see all other regions in that track, in faded or ghosted form. And you can scroll ahead or back (still in the editor) and select/edit any or all other regions or notes. (S1's feature where you can zoom in/out by dragging up or down from the timeline helps a lot here too.)

With a system like that there'd be no need to change a view preference -- you get the best of both worlds all the time.

[Dewdman42]

In order to use a midi plugin inserted between a midi track and an instrument I literally have to make 4 tracks in DP. Its a total nuisance. I'm glad you are happy with that nuisance, but this is something MOTU could improve drastically, and by the way it would help out a lot for articulation management.

You're exaggerating the nuisance. Every instrument in DP needs two tracks (MIDI and instrument), this is known. A MIDI plug in only needs to be instantiated, preferably in a V-Rack not a track. The only reason to have a fourth step is to record the MIDI plug in separately from say a keyboard controller or drum pad MIDI track.

No.

The only way to feed an instrument plugin with midi in DP is to create two tracks. The inst track could be a vrack sure but its still two needed tracks. Inst tracks In Dp do not have a midi input parameter. Only midi tracks have midi input and output parameters. When you create an inst track in dp then it magically shows up as an available midi destination and if it also outputs midi then it shows up as an available midi source but you have to create a midi track in order to route that midi. It doesn’t matter whether you intend to record on it or not. Midi tracks are being used to route the midi.

Vst midi plugins can only run on instrument tracks you cannot use them directly on midi tracks.

So if you have say a flute midi track feeding an inst track somewhere. That’s already two tracks which is already a bit of a nuisance, but now I want to run that flute midi track through a midi vst filter on its way to the instrument track. Please tell me how you would accomplish that. I see no other way but 4 tracks, though you could certainly put the two needed instrument tracks on a vrack if you want, but you still have four tracks needed overall and I’m not sure it’s less confusing to put half of them on a vrack. Yes it’s a nuisance, DP could be better in this regard.

[machinesworking]

So if you have say a flute midi track feeding an inst track somewhere. That’s already two tracks which is already a bit of a nuisance, but now I want to run that flute midi track through a midi vst filter on its way to the instrument track. Please tell me how you would accomplish that. I see no other way but 4 tracks, though you could certainly put the two needed instrument tracks on a vrack if you want, but you still have four tracks needed overall and I’m not sure it’s less confusing to put half of them on a vrack. Yes it’s a nuisance, DP could be better in this regard.

Again, you're conflating or complicating things here, both a MIDI VST and an instrument VST have to be instantiated, but neither have to be inserted into the tracks, they can exist just fine as V-racked instruments like you even mention. I'm trying to figure out how it's harder to instantiate a MIDI VST in a V-Rack VS in a MIDI FX slot? Plus, again, that same MIDI VST is addressable by any track in DP, not just the one it's instantiated on like in Logic. You could go into the Environment and wire it to other tracks, but that's complicated..

You're also comparing it to Logic, which for years and years could not use MIDI VSTi's at all. In fact as far as I know you still cannot use MIDI notes to implement Maschine MIDI Scene changes in Logic because Logic cannot address Maschine in that way, you have to use program change messages to change scenes in Maschine in Logic. Succinctly Logic cannot address Maschine as a virtual input source like DP, Live and Cubase can.

Back to DP, it's obvious that one of the reasons for the "limitation" of having a separate instrument track and MIDI track is Chunks. This is basically what you're complaining about here. I'm not exactly sure how or if it would be possible to implement the common VSTi AUi scenario of the virtual instrument automatically instantiating on a mixed MIDI track like other DAWs do, and have it be at all stable if someone was to decide to move it to a V-Rack? I don't know what kind of code changes, how that would possibly destabilize DP etc? One thing is certain, MOTU have heard people complaining about this, it's not like DP doesn't stand out as the one DAW that works differently this way, but for whatever reasons we get all kinds of changes in the last 20 years, but this remains.

It's certainly not because they don't know about it, so if it bothers you, then Logic is your DAW. Personally the lack of port definition on MIDI input drive me nuts in Logic, especially now that MPE is around, you literally can only play an MPE instrument as an input when using Logic because it flatly takes all 16 available tracks to use MPE. Even with DP10 not being 'MPE native', I can play the Roli and the MPK88 at the same time if I so wish, no need to assign MIDI channels to any controllers because DP sees MIDI inputs by port and not just channel. I still don't get why Logic can't do this to this day. I think the answer to both questions is the same though, the amount of work to get Logic to recognize virtual instruments by port isn't worth the amount of users that Apple loses not doing it.

[Dewdman42]

MW, repeat after me "you make a good point Dewdman42, let's hope MOTU is paying attention"

[machinesworking]

MW, repeat after me "you make a good point Dewdman42, let's hope MOTU is paying attention"

You're barking up a tree just to bark. In the same way I would be if I went to every thread on Logic complaining about how it can't differentiate by port on AUi tracks.

[Dewdman42]

I am not trying to start any kind of this-daw-is-better-then-that daw stupid train of thought. just pointing it out as an example, in this one particular case, where it is better, which is in the ability easily insert midi fx on tracks. Brain dead simple in LogicPro. Other things are not as easy, as you are now pointing out and has nothing whatsoever to do with DP, you're just arguing for the sake of arguing as you are prone to do MW.

Fact is, insert VST midi fx in DP is a nuisance. Sorry if this offends you. I hope MOTU will consider improving that, along with a couple other things I have mentioned because there are many other very compelling reasons to use DP, such as chunks and other things too, but in what I do with orchestration mock up, the lack of easy insert midi fx is a tremendous nuisance. Sorry if this word offends you.

[Monkey Man]

IIRC MOTU said perhaps 15 or more years ago, when it introduced its MIDI "FX" plugins, that 3rd-party processors will (implying a more-or-less-immediate implementation) be able to be loaded into MIDI tracks' slots in the same manner as the host's ones.

Been waiting a long time for this and it obviously hasn't happened yet. MOTU gave the impression that it had employed some sort of universal standard for these things, so I don't know what's happened there, but I do know that I've never been able to instantiate any of the 3rd-party (mostly-free) ones I've been interested in (mostly arpeggiators) in the intervening years.

[Dewdman42]

well what they did way back when was develop a separate midi plugin API, and they provided their own midi plugins in that proprietary format. Allegedly if you get the MAS sdk there is some stuff in there about how to create a midi plugin for DP. I don't have it, so I don't know. I have tried in the past to write them letters requesting the midi plugin SDK and I was never able to get it. I think I may have gotten a really old version of that SDK about 15 years ago but I've long since lost it, and it was very very mac-centric at the time.

In any case, the midi plugins in DP are not the same as the MAS plugins that go into the normal instrument and FX slots of DP as MAS plugins. But the MAS sdk may have the information needed to make a midi plugin for DP, so its really its own highly proprietary format at this time, and who knows what kind of SDK exists as of now.

But honestly, all we have to do is look on that face that there really are not presently any third party midi plugins for DP, to see that this is just not very accessible, and probably most developers would not want to spend time writing something so specialized that won't run on any other DAW's either.

when you look at the built in plugins they are very simple in comparison to most VST/AU plugins. Very simple UI's, very simple features. I suspect they are designed in a way to use absolutely minimal CPU cycles and probably do not go through the normal process block processing that VST/AU plugins go through. So they are fine for very simple filtering but perhaps not more sophisticated tasks like VST/AU midi plugins sometimes do. But that is just a pure guess.

Cubase suffers from the same problem by the way. They have a proprietary midi plugin SDK that is really old and they provide a few simple plugins, though there are a few third party midi plugins that came out (for example, Frank's plugins). https://www.midi-plugins.de/#Home But same fate on Cubase, you have to do more complicated routing in order to do midi filtering with AU/VST plugins, though Cubase (and StudioOne) are marginally less complicated because at least they have midi/inst combined into one track in such cases, so it can be done there with only two tracks. And the built in midi fx plugins, are proprietary and fairly closed box...just like DP.

So what Apple did with LogicPro was to put the midifx into the channel strip section of the instrument, rather then part of the midi track itself. That way, the AU-mfx plugin can use the same process block time as all the other AU plugins to do whatever it needs to do with fancy UI's or whatever is desired. This is very simple and elegant and perfect for many situations. What is not great about that approach is that you can't route (easily), the output from midi plugins there, over to other tracks or record the output either. However there are work arounds.

Cubase, DP and S1 all make it much easier then LogicPro to have a midi plugin that generates say multi-channel midi that needs to be routed to numerous midi or instrument tracks. That's where LogicPro users are usually frustrated.

As far as DP goes, I think the best work around for this problem right now is to use a third party hoster like Plogue Bidule or Patchworks...then you can chain up the midi plugin ahead of the instrument and problem solved, but there are pros and cons to having to use those too. I wish MOTU would just recognize more that people need to do these kinds of midi filtering tasks that go beyond their simple propertiary plugins... One simple solution would be to provide a midi VST fx slot on the actual instrument channel above the instrument plugin slot. Another perhaps interesting solution would be to provide something like a midi router object that can basically route midi from one instrument channel to another, without having to create a midi track to do it.

[machinesworking]

I am not trying to start any kind of this-daw-is-better-then-that daw stupid train of thought. just pointing it out as an example, in this one particular case, where it is better, which is in the ability easily insert midi fx on tracks. Brain dead simple in LogicPro. Other things are not as easy, as you are now pointing out and has nothing whatsoever to do with DP, you're just arguing for the sake of arguing as you are prone to do MW.

Sure great way to ignore what I've been pointing out, that different DAWs do things differently.

Fact is, insert VST midi fx in DP is a nuisance. Sorry if this offends you. I hope MOTU will consider improving that, along with a couple other things I have mentioned because there are many other very compelling reasons to use DP, such as chunks and other things too, but in what I do with orchestration mock up, the lack of easy insert midi fx is a tremendous nuisance. Sorry if this word offends you.

Again there is a distinct advantage to having the instance of a MIDI VST outside of an instrument track, you can use it as a MIDI input in multiple tracks and routed to multiple VSTi's if you want. Something Logic can't do without serious Environment work.
I'm not at all unhappy with the way DP does MIDI VSTs, I can see why you prefer Logics way, but DP's way also adds much easier flexibility to the system.

Again, I tried to point out that various DAWs have various "flaws" based on old parts of their code, and it's obvious that they aren't changing anytime soon to fit our desires. DP will probably not get MIDI tracks that can host instruments and Logic will continue to not differentiate MIDI input by port on virtual instrument tracks.

[machinesworking]

IIRC MOTU said perhaps 15 or more years ago, when it introduced its MIDI "FX" plugins, that 3rd-party processors will (implying a more-or-less-immediate implementation) be able to be loaded into MIDI tracks' slots in the same manner as the host's ones.

Been waiting a long time for this and it obviously hasn't happened yet. MOTU gave the impression that it had employed some sort of universal standard for these things, so I don't know what's happened there, but I do know that I've never been able to instantiate any of the 3rd-party (mostly-free) ones I've been interested in (mostly arpeggiators) in the intervening years.

You have to use the VST versions, open up the arpeggiator instrument in the V-Rack, select the arpeggiator as the MIDI input in a track and select whatever VST instrument you want as a MIDI output. Since we're talking an arpeggiator you will need to make another MIDI track to select a MIDI keyboard as input with the arp as output.

Obviously Multi Record on, and again everything should be VST. Once instantiated you can use it on any track you want of course. MIDI VSTs show up as MIDI input sources in MIDI tracks.

[Dewdman42]

exactly. 4 tracks. (2 could be on the V-rack)

[Monkey Man]

well what they did way back when was develop a separate midi plugin API, and they provided their own midi plugins in that proprietary format. Allegedly if you get the MAS sdk there is some stuff in there about how to create a midi plugin for DP. I don't have it, so I don't know. I have tried in the past to write them letters requesting the midi plugin SDK and I was never able to get it. I think I may have gotten a really old version of that SDK about 15 years ago but I've long since lost it, and it was very very mac-centric at the time.

In any case, the midi plugins in DP are not the same as the MAS plugins that go into the normal instrument and FX slots of DP as MAS plugins. But the MAS sdk may have the information needed to make a midi plugin for DP, so its really its own highly proprietary format at this time, and who knows what kind of SDK exists as of now.

But honestly, all we have to do is look on that face that there really are not presently any third party midi plugins for DP, to see that this is just not very accessible, and probably most developers would not want to spend time writing something so specialized that won't run on any other DAW's either.

Thank you, DM!

Yes, that jolted my memory and I now recall MOTU's having said that it expected 3rd parties to jump in. My recollection that it was some sort of universal standard was obviously-false.

If there isn't already, should there not be a standard for MIDI-only plugins? Hmm...

EDIT:
Thanks for the clarification, MC; you posted whilst I was s-l-o-w-l-y typing.

[machinesworking]

exactly. 4 tracks. (2 could be on the V-rack)

I'm a pedant, but V-Racked instruments are not tracks.

It's more like it's a four step process as opposed to two. Or a three step process if the MIDI plug in has it's own sequencer like Reaktor, Maschine, Spark, MPC2 etc.