Volume Control

[okiikahuna]

I want to use my Receptor live and control it from my S90ES. The ES is set so that the volume pedal sends CC#11 (Expression) to control its global volume on whatever channel I am sending on. (I cannot set it to CC#7 because that is set to the S90's internal mixer: Using CC#7 for global volume control would mess up the internal mixer settings) I would also like to control the Receptor's global volume with the same pedal. Since the Receptor's global volume cannot be controllerd by CC#11 on any channel (omni on) I want the volume of the various Receptor plug ins to be controlled by CC#11 on whatever channel they are set. (By the way, Muse: Global volume control with CC#11, omni on is a basic kind of thing that is easily accomplished on most any synth module other than Receptor. Hardwiring global volume to CC#14 on channel 16 doesn't work with many controllers.)

For some plug ins, like say B4, this is not a problem. For others, it is. So, until our good friends at Muse implement some kind of midi mapping or usable global volume control in the Receptor, I'm looking for another way to accompolish this. Maybe there is an FX plug-in I could stick in the signal path that just responds to CC#11 as a volume control. Could even be a plug in designed to do something else, but which could be set to do just this. Anybody know of any such plug in? Or, does somebody know another way to accomplish this? If so, I would be very grateful if you let me know about it.

Thanks.

K.

[kblock]

K
Did you ever get an answer? I have the same problem.
Kirk

[skater7510]

You might want to try putting something like this between your controller keyboard and your Receptor and just alter your pedal controller info coming in (what works with your keboard) and going out (what works with your Receptor).

http://www.midisolutions.com/prodevp.htm

[okiikahuna]

Hi, Kblock:

There was quite a bit of discussion of this issue on a recent thread here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=185112

My solution is very similar to what Skater suggested. I use a Midi Solutions midi mapper to route CC#11 to CC#14 on midi channel 16 which controls the output volume.

This is, of course, far from ideal. Since the Midi Mapper must be pre-programmed from a computer, I don't know what I would do if it stopped working at a gig. Guess I'd just have to run it through an analog volume pedal and use two pedals to control the overall volume of the rig. (Mental note: pick up analog volume pedal for backup).

It would be nice if Muse would add some midi processing to the Receptor so this could be done internally. However, I've seen no indication from anybody at Muse that they intend to do so, or even that they consider this to be an issue, so I'm not holding my breath.

Frankly, I'm amazed that there aren't more complaints about this. It would seem to be a major issue for anybody trying to use the Receptor live, unless they are simply using one plug-in at a time.

K.

By the way, I just lookd at the Event Processor that Skater recomended: This appears to be the new name for what they used to call the Midi Mapper.

[kblock]

Thanks Skater and Okiikahuna! Looks like I must add the Event Processor or analog pedal to my already complex setup. Our cover band plays a very diverse song list. I thought the Receptor was the solution to simplifying my transition time from song to song. I typically have 4-5 keyboard sounds in each song and must split/layer my S90ES and Novation Remote SL 61 every song. I expect receipt of my Receptor Pro this week. If I just use the plugs available on Receptor and not use the internal S90ES sounds, can I use CC#7 in conjunction with a volume pedal to control overall volume of all channels? Or perhaps using a FC9 foot pedal connected between Receptor's outs and the mixer will allow me to control volume for all midi channels?
Thanks again. Kirk

[okiikahuna]

S90ES will only send the CC#7 on the channel on which oit is currently transmitting, so you will only be able to control the volume of one Receptor Channel at a time. Not a problem if you only want one sound at a time.
But, if you are into serious splitting and layering, you will be using the S90ES in Multi mode. In that case you want the volume pedal to transmit on CC#11 so it doesn't screw up the relative volume settings of your S90ES multis. The Receptor's mixer does not respond to 11, and I don't think any of the plug ins included with it can be set to allow 11 to control volume.

K.

Excuse the off topic post: If you set up your S90ES multis right, you can easily get 4 or 5 sounds spread across the keyboard and it shouldn't take long at all to go from song to song, just one or two button pushes. You can also instantly change the sounds just by changing midi channels, which only requires one push of the corresponding track select button. You will have a much easier time setting this up if you use John Melas' Multi Editor software. Now, back to Receptor . . .

[kblock]

okiikahuna

If I turn local off on the S90 and just use it to control sounds on Receptor (via USB) and then place a dual (main right and left out of Receptor) volume pedal (Behringer or Yamaha's FC 9) between Receptor and the Mixer, I should be able to control the overall volume of all tracks, correct?

Kirk

[TechEverlasting]

I'm a new Receptor owner, but I think you should also be able to send your S90ES's audio out to the Receptor's audio in and dedicate a Receptor channel to it. On the Kurzweil 2600s I'm familiar with it would be very easy to set up multis that used some internal sounds and sent MIDI out for additional ranges and channels. I expect this could also be done on the S90ES. In this case your analog volume pedal would control both the sound from the S90 and the Receptor's plugs. There are some nice useable sounds in the S90ES, especially the pianos and rhodes. It would be nice to be able to use those as well.

Just to add to this, it would be quite easy on a K2600 to create very long chains of seven layer Setups consisting of some local patches and some channels feeding a Receptor. The eighth zone could be set to send CC14 on channel 16 which should eliminate the need for an analog volume pedal. I'm not sure if the Yamaha will do this.
Also, my experience has been that if you are going to run through an analog volume pedal get the best one possible, probably one of the ones Ernie Ball makes.

[gregh1]

Okiikahuna, in response to this thread, I've updated my free plugin GH-LRSelector to let you use CC#11 (or CC#7) for volume. Get it here:
http://www.ghservices.com/products/vst/ ... lector.zip
Please let me know if it works for you!

[okiikahuna]

Thanks, gregh1!

I've been out of town and I just saw your post. This looks like exactly what I've been looking for! I won't get a chance to try it out for about a week but this could be the way to get that ugly square box out of the back of my rack. I'll post my thoughts here as soon as I get a chance to play with it.

Thanks again!

K.

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

[quote="gregh1"]Okiikahuna, in response to this thread, I've updated my free plugin GH-LRSelector to let you use CC#11 (or CC#7) for volume. Get it here:
http://www.ghservices.com/products/vst/ ... lector.zip
Please let me know if it works for you![/quote]

Greg, you're awesome... what a clever solution!

And yes, we do have a MIDI mapper on our product development map... thanks in advance for your patience.

Cheers

Groovology

[okiikahuna]

Hello Groovology:

I've finally had enough time to sit down and install your plug in. Unfortunately, I must be doing something wrong.

The plug-in seemed to isntall just fine. I can open the edit screen and all the controls do what they say they do. I can turn the volume up and down using the knob on the edit screen.

However, I can not get CC#11 to control the volume. I have set the selection to "CC11" in the little edit window to the right of the volume knob. I have selected "Route midi CCs to source plug in" on the Setup page. I have double checked that my keyboard is actually transmitting CC11. But still no luck.

Knowing me, I'm probably missing something simple and blindingly obvious. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Thanks for taking the time to reply.

K

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

Hmmm... I think there is a little identity confusion.... Greg Holmes is the clever guy who has made the L/R control plug-in... I'm the marketing guy from Muse Research.

And I guess, as an executive board member of the MMA that Controller #11 is Expression, not volume, and usually CC#7 is used to control volume, not #11... #11 controls variations in volume to allow for more realistic sounds...

Cheers

Groovology

[gregh1]

Okiikahuna, the plugin (GH-LRSelector) is actually from me. After reading your post, I spent a bit of time with my plugin and my RevB OS 1.5 Receptor (I did not experiment with any of the Pro-400 units in my inventory). Here's what I found (some of this you may already know).

a) When you have a VSTi in Receptor's SOURCE slot, it receives MIDI notes and note-related data.
b) When you have something other than a VSTi in the SOURCE (e.g. an AUDIO SOURCE or PLUGIN AUDIO FEED), then the first FX in the chain receives MIDI.

Those two facts only apply to the first 16 slots in the Receptor mixer (NOT to Effects Bus 1, 2 or the Master, which have no SOURCE).

c) With "Route midi CCs to source plug in" OFF, the Receptor mixer receives MIDI CC, RPN, NRPN, etc.
d) With "Route midi CCs to source plug in" ON, then the SOURCE or first FX (if there is no source VSTi) will get CC, RPN, NRPN, etc.

Point d) applies only to the first 16 slots.

e) If "Route midi CCs to source plug in" is OFF, then all elements of the Receptor mixer have associated MIDI CCs, and all published VST/VSTi parameters of all plugins can be controlled with NRPN (e.g. "B0 63 20 B0 62 00" as seen in "Faceless Mode"), and front-panel parameters have special CCs (see "Controlling the First 16 Parameters of Any Source Plugin" and "Controlling the First 4 Parameters of Any FX Plugin" in the manual, but there's an error in the FX example).
f) If "Route midi CCs to source plug in" is ON, then even NRPN will be sent to plugins, bypassing the mixer.

I'll talk about those points later.

g) MIDI program changes are "filtered", such that they only get through to plugins if the Receptor slot number (1-16) matches the MIDI channel number of the program change.
h) Since NON-VSTi SOURCES are missing the "MIDI Filter" button and dialog, they receive all MIDI data on all channels (except possibly PCs, which I did not have a chance to test for) coming in to Receptor (which is why my GH-Selector plugin has a MIDI channel filter built in, to filter the CCs).
i) Effects Bus 1, 2 and Master don't seem to receive MIDI at all (other than front-panel parameters in point e) above).

It's probably point i) that is causing you problems. I had thought that my GH-LRSelector could be used in the Master channel, but it does not receive MIDI there (except via front-panel parameters in point e) above, for example CC87 on MIDI channel 16).

Points e) and f) were the most surprising to me, since I thought that ONLY the common MIDI CCs were affected by "Route midi CCs to source plug in". I realize that NRPN are just special-case CCs, but I thought that they would be handled differently (i.e. always routed to control all VST parameters of all plugins).

With the current Receptor MIDI implementation, there seems to be no workaround if your controller can only send CC11.

Although I applaud Muse for addressing the complex problem of a MIDI-controllable mixer interface AND controlling plugins within that interface, I think that improvements to the Receptor MIDI implementation should be given highest priority, even above the "Receptorizing" of plugins.

This post is long enough, so I won't post any details here, but basically all MIDI needs to be mapped, filtered, and routed on a plugin-by-plugin basis.

[okiikahuna]

Thanks Gregh1 for the detailed reply. And thanks to Groovology for setting me straight about my mixup in names and about the intended use for CC#11. As you can see, I am easily confused.

If I understand Gregh1 correctly, the plug-in will not be able to receive CC#11 unless it is connected to a mixer input channel whose source is an external input. The plug in also cannot receive CC#11 when inserted in the output channel.

Gregh1 and Groovology both agree that this is due to the Receptor's midi architecture, which does not allow CC#11 to be routed this way. According to Groovology, this is as it should be, because CC#11 is not meant to control volume, but expression and so shouldn't be used for the purpose to which I am trying to put it.

My reply: It is necessary to have two controller numbers assigned to volume for a very good reason: When using a keyboard set-up with multiple splits and layers, you need one controller to set the individual volume levels of the various voices in relation to each other (the mixer settings) and another to control the overall volume of all of the voices, without disturbing the relative volume levels. Synthesizer manufacturers have adopted a de facto standard where CC#7 controls the relative mixer volume levels of the individual voices, while CC#11 is used to control overall volume of all voices assigned to a given midi channel. (At least this is what Korg, Yamaha and Roland do and have done for quite some time).

Receptor follows this de facto standard half way by assigning CC#7 to individual mixer channels each on its own midi channel: However, Receptor has left off the second part of the standard, by having no really satisfactory way of cpntrolling the overall volume of an entire split and layered keyboard set-up at once, unless your controller can transmit control pedal changes as CC14 on channel 16 (What does the MMA say about this?) Unless you transmit CC#7 on all midi channels at once, you cannot use it to control the overall volume of a multi-layer Receptor set-up.

Assuming that CC#11 really ought to be used only for expressive variations in volume, then it seems it ought to be possible to route CC#11 to volume in order to get those expressive variations in volume. And shouldn't I be able to do my expessive variations in volume on all voices assigned to a given midi channel at the same time without disturbing the relative mixer settings? This is all I want.

Because the Receptor uses third party VSTis which are not designed for live performance and which vary wildly in what they will do with the various CC numbers, we need better midi mapping in Receptor to make them useful in live performance.

Forgive me Groovology: as you can see, I love a good debate

Anyway, a big thank you to Greg Holmes for trying to help me out. And Groovology: I understand that we are sort of on the bleeding edge of technology here with the Receptor. After all, the Japanese workstations have been ironing out the wrinkles in a completely different paradigm for nearly 20 years. And the Japanese workstations don't have the vagaries of third party plug-ins to deal with. Given that, I think we can understand when the Receptor is not quite as fully developed in some ways as we might like. This is why I think it is important to put my long-winded and self-important posts up on this board. Its great to see that Muse people like Groovology are actually reading this stuff, even if they may not always agree.

Bottom line is still this: MORE MIDI MAPPING!

Again, thanks.

K.