fl studio 6/external midi controllers to vsti?

[arke]

dude, under options have you enabled "enable MIDI remote control"?

Yes.

okay just wanted to cover every base...you also have it asssigned in midi options correct?

I'm not sure what you mean. The hardware sequencer CAN'T be assigned because I'm using the port in the host (Bidule). But that is irrelevant, since the note information IS reaching fl studio successfully through the host? So I've lost you on this one. What exactly are you getting at, and what is the reasoning?

Its usually quite hard (if even possible) to reassign the MIDI CCs sent out by your controller. Thats why FL Studio just does it yourself, with the added benefit that you can assign them to different things at the same time. Have one control filter cutoff of some synth, the other the volume of the bass, the other the compression amount of the drums, or whatever. That's why FL Studio does it that way.

[droolmaster0]

"I don't know what you mean by "track 1" or "track 2", but here's an explanation:"

Ah - I don't know the fl studio 'lingo' yet - I just was referring to that main window where the instruments are set up by channel.

"Every VSTi has a "Port" number in the upper right of its window - this is the MIDI Port that it will receive on. You don't need to bother with any of this unless you are using multi-timbral instruments or you want to send MIDI CC's."

Right - I have the midi out set to port 0, and the synth in part 2/channel 2 set to receive on port 0.

"So MIDI Out sends MIDI data along a certain port - set the VSTi's port to the same number as the output port on the MIDI Out, so that they will connect - the channel should generally be 1, since most VSTi's accept on channel 1."

hmmmm - but the vsti is in part 2, and receives notes there on channel 2, so shouldn't the channel be 2? (perhaps I'm missing something very basic here - very possible).

"Any of the knobs/sliders on the MIDI Out generator (all synths/things that show up and have a step sequencer/piano roll next to them are called generators) can be mapped to output CC's, SysEx, and NRPN, if I remember correctly. Obviously you take any given knob from the MIDI Out's knob bank, right click it, select Configure... and set its Name, CC#, and whatever else is on that dialog. Now, the final step: right click the knob and select "Link to Controller". Now you can just use your MIDI Controller to send data on the correct CC (so, move your mod wheel, if you want the knob to respond to CC #1), and the Link to Controller will pick it up and map it so the knob follows the CC."

ah - what appears to be missing is the knob mapping. I thought that what I was doing was choosing midi controllers - but I wasn't actually mapping anything to anything, and nothing was happening...hah - I don't know if that makes sense - but your explanation makes it quite clear what I missed. Thank you!

I still think that they should allow you to just send the controllers through without doing any of this. For instance, Bidule allows you to very easily map controllers to parameters, but you can also simply send the controllers to the vsti or vst. This makes things a lot easier (I think).

IN any case - thank you. Got it now.

[dougsyo]

Every VSTi has a "Port" number in the upper right of its window - this is the MIDI Port that it will receive on. You don't need to bother with any of this unless you are using multi-timbral instruments or you want to send MIDI CC's. [good explanation cropped]

Any of the knobs/sliders on the MIDI Out generator (all synths/things that show up and have a step sequencer/piano roll next to them are called generators) can be mapped to output CC's, SysEx, and NRPN, if I remember correctly. Obviously you take any given knob from the MIDI Out's knob bank, right click it, select Configure... and set its Name, CC#, and whatever else is on that dialog. Now, the final step: right click the knob and select "Link to Controller". Now you can just use your MIDI Controller to send data on the correct CC (so, move your mod wheel, if you want the knob to respond to CC #1), and the Link to Controller will pick it up and map it so the knob follows the CC.

So, CC -> Knob -> VSTi.

For what it's worth, for VSTI that have their own MIDI learn functions (RGC, Linplug, Concretefx, Dash, and others), once the MIDI Out generator is in the chain, I can usually use the VSTI learn rather than FLS'. If all I wanted to do was use FLS' I would not have used the MIDI Out in the first place.

The MIDI Out trick is most useful for VSTI like z3ta+ that have more parameters than FLS (at least older versions) could handle via "Link to controller", as well as multitimbral VSTI.

Doug