KVR Audio

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:41 pm

I've just discovered that Live has a really silly limitation with respect to MIDI plugins.

VST plugins are not 'Midi FX', which means that live sees them as either an audio effect or an audio instrument. It seems that it's totally impossible to use VST MIDI effects in live before a synth. You can tell a track to recieve MIDI from another track, and you'd think it would take the MIDI from the end of its chain, but it just doesn't! It instead takes the MIDI that arrives at the instrument's input (taking into account, i believe, any 'actual' MIDI FX that may precede it).

I can see logical reasons for this (to allow accurate doubling of synth parts on multiple tracks, avoiding problems that may occur if a synth doesn't echo its incoming midi at its output), but _WHY_ does it not at least give the option to take the midi from the end?

It's frankly very silly and limiting.

What I've decided to do, is make a very simple plugin (i'd do it tonight but my final exam is at 9am tomorrow! still need to revise!). What it will do is allow you to choose a MIDI output port, and it will direct all incoming MIDI there. There will also be an option to allow the MIDI to also pass to the VST output, or to prevent it. The settings would be stored with your project.

This means you could use it to route directly to a virtual MIDI cable, the corresponding input version of which would be assigned to your synth track. Thus, you could use VST midi fx in live, via a virtual midi routing, without the need for an external program, and keeping all routing configurations stored with your project.

I'm aware that it's not really possible for sample accurate MIDI output from within a VST process block, but I really don't think that in practical terms this will present much of a problem.

Do you think this is a good idea? Or, do you have any other suggestions for features it could have? I was going to build it into a plugin I made yesterday, but realised it could be more useful as a general-purpose plugin for use with all VST midi fx.

I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions related to any of the above.

jackson · Post by **jackson** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:45 pm

I'd just use energyXT inside Live, like everyone else who finds a limitation in their host

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:47 pm

yeah, that's what i always suggest. but i can see why people don't want to. personally, i think eXT is the best solution, but then it does remove the option of using live's own inbuilt features for synths directly on the interface. for example, a synth plugin gives you an XY pad there on live's panel. with eXT you have to switch between windows.

like i said, i'd do the eXT route, but I can totally appreciate why someone would prefer to have it working inside Live, all on one screen.

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:51 pm

Well, eXT is not much help for Mac users, so for us, that is not solution at all.

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:53 pm

good point indeed! i need to find someone who's happy to build my plugins on a mac (they're totally mac happy, i just don't have one to compile on!) and then y'all can all play.

d'you think it's a reasonable solution?

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 10:17 pm

Sounds like a decent solution. It would be nice to get around that limitation.

slasi · Post by **slasi** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 10:19 pm

I'm not sure I get what you're talking about. You can select the output of a plug-in as the input to a track. This is how I get Chordspace to work with Live. If I'm talking about something else, please let me know.

-Shehryar

kodama · Post by **kodama** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 10:22 pm

Chordspace is one of the very rare ones that works without having to resort to EXT.

Let us know how it goes haydxn!

jackson · Post by **jackson** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 10:26 pm

pdxindy wrote:Well, eXT is not much help for Mac users, so for us, that is not solution at all.

Next time I'll keep my mouth shut if there's a remote possibility someone might be on a Mac

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 10:33 pm

slasi wrote:I'm not sure I get what you're talking about. You can select the output of a plug-in as the input to a track. This is how I get Chordspace to work with Live. If I'm talking about something else, please let me know.

-Shehryar

it doesn't appear to work like that. from what i see, you can't select the output of a PLUGIN to route to a track, you can only select a MIDI track to recieve midi from- but what the track recieves is whatever midi there was BEFORE the instrument on that source track, rather than the MIDI that arrives at its output.

MotorsKill23 · Post by **MotorsKill23** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 12:12 am

haydxn...you CAN do this...at least it works here in Live 5.2.

It's not exactly straight forward if you haven't done it, but...

First choose a track for your MIDI plugin...Then choose another track to send this MIDI data to, and after you select the Track # that has your MIDI plugin in the "MIDI From" drop down(you are clearly getting to this point)....you will notice right below where it says "Track out" now has a little drop down arrow next to it...click and change this from "Track out" to the MIDI plugin. Now you should be recieving the MIDI data from your MIDI plugin instead of the Tracks MIDI.

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 12:24 am

wow, i hunted around and around for some extra setting and just didn't find one.

just tried it, and it works fine.

thank goodness!

feel free to completely disregard this whole thread! still, i think i may make the plugin anyway, just for kicks. it'll take about an hour anyway

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 12:28 am

thank you for your help there mr motorskill. now my annoyance at ableton has been vanquished.

slasi · Post by **slasi** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 12:47 am

MotorsKill23 wrote:haydxn...you CAN do this...at least it works here in Live 5.2.

It's not exactly straight forward if you haven't done it, but...

First choose a track for your MIDI plugin...Then choose another track to send this MIDI data to, and after you select the Track # that has your MIDI plugin in the "MIDI From" drop down(you are clearly getting to this point)....you will notice right below where it says "Track out" now has a little drop down arrow next to it...click and change this from "Track out" to the MIDI plugin. Now you should be recieving the MIDI data from your MIDI plugin instead of the Tracks MIDI.

This is what I was reffering to, and it is how I get Chordspace to work. kodama implied that most plug-ins don't work this way.

-Shehryar

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 1:09 am

MotorsKill23 wrote:haydxn...you CAN do this...at least it works here in Live 5.2.

It's not exactly straight forward if you haven't done it, but...

First choose a track for your MIDI plugin...Then choose another track to send this MIDI data to, and after you select the Track # that has your MIDI plugin in the "MIDI From" drop down(you are clearly getting to this point)....you will notice right below where it says "Track out" now has a little drop down arrow next to it...click and change this from "Track out" to the MIDI plugin. Now you should be recieving the MIDI data from your MIDI plugin instead of the Tracks MIDI.

cool, thanks for that tip

Stupid live limitation [solved!]