sending MIDI to multiple tracks---BUG?

[davedave]

I need to send MIDI from one MIDI input port to multiple tracks, so that I can play multiple VST instruments in real time on different MIDI channels.

Someone said this can be done using a simple MIDI pass thru rack filter, placed in the first filter position on each track.

This seems to work, except I noticed that things sounded a little funny.

Some investigation uncovered the problem. I'm getting doubled MIDI notes on each track. Whenever I use this mechanism to direct MIDI to multiple tracks, I get two of every note on and two of every note off, etc.

This is so frustrating! Everything else I need to do works, but I am stuck on this one.

Help?????????

[orltran]

It's most likely a bug, but not the doubled note, but that every rack sends to all tracks. I'm using a plugin which changes midi data, but in tracktion it doesn't throughput the original note, only the changed midi data, so I need to put it in a rack, so I can send the note too. However whenever I do this all the softsynths get it's data which have any rack put on them. I think this is the bug, and what you are experiencing is just a sideeffect of the bug.
(Funny tho that there is no other way to record on multiple tracks.)

But I might be completely wrong

[chico.co.uk]

Don't know if this will work, but you could try it as an alternative;

Create a new rack, put your multiple instruments into it. Connect the midi input from the left hand side to each instrument, then create as many audio outputs as you need to cover all the instruments on the right, and chain the stereo out from each instrument to a pair of outputs (one pair for each instrument)

Put that rack onto multiple tracks, and set the different tracks to play only the different stereo pairs of each instrument, then you can adjust pan and volume for each instrument independantly

That is probably a truly shit explanation, but if it makes any sense it might just work ...

[davedave]

It's going to take some experimenting to confirm what the first respondent said about racks sending midi to all tracks containing racks, but I think he may be onto something. What isn't clear to me is exactly what the MIDI IN and MIDI OUT connections in a rack really mean, what do they connect to? They seem to all be ganged together.

The second respondent made an interesting suggestion, but it still suffers from the fact that the midi data has to get to the left side of all the racks. Also, wouldn't there be a lot of overhead to having copies of all of my VST instruments in all tracks, but only using one per track?

I have actually come up with a solution that works for me. I placed all of my VST instruments into a single rack with the outputs all ganged together to a single left/right audio output. The inputs pass through a channel1 filter in some cases, to isolate the correct midi channel. What I couldn't do was simultaneously pass the midi data out the midi port to another instrument that is not a VST. So, I managed to separate those channels into an entirely different input midi port (pretty easy since I'm using MIDIOX), and use another track for the non VST data.

Does anyone know of a simple (and free?) VST plugin that does MIDI filtering and/or mapping. channel1 and splittastic are useful, but there have got to be more basic utilities like that out there, don't there?

Thanks for all your help.

[TheWall]

Though not 100% sure, but afaik, rack does send notes/audio to all the rest same copy of rack. and that's not a bug but the way it works.

If you want each track to have its own independant melody, you simply can't use rack. I'd suggest sticking to MIDIOX for the job, as it does it well. Adding more MIDI inputs is free in MIDIOX...

[valley]

a rack by it's very nature will distribute whatever MIDI input is directed to the rack to however many tracks that rack is on.

This is what one would expect given what racks are designed to do.

If you place a rack on track 1 and 2 that has it's midi input and output pins connected, then any midi sent to it on either/both track one/two will always be output to both track one and two. This is absolutely not a bug.

If you want to use a rack to split a single midi input to multiple outputs you will need to do some extra work.

After the rack on each track you will need to add some kind of MIDI filter plugin (unless your target plugs support filtering by channel or keyrange natively).

You could for example add a plugin that only lets a certain MIDI channel pass thru to each of sixteen tracks, and add a rack before the MIDI filter to provide full 16 channel track control.

A rack by itself though does no filtering so all tracks will be receiving all the same data.

Note doubling though as described in the first post is a new one on me. I'll have to test that to see if I can repliacte it.

[TheWall]

I wonder what exactly does dssilver want to do... If he wants to do layering using rack filter, there's no double note issue afaik, unless he's doing something strange to the routing(like using 2 MIDIOX inputs to 2 tracks that have the same rack on ).

dssilver, if you could give us a screenshot of the routing you've done that's casuing you doubled notes, ppl here might be able to help you more efficiently...

[chico.co.uk]

The second respondent made an interesting suggestion, but it still suffers from the fact that the midi data has to get to the left side of all the racks. Also, wouldn't there be a lot of overhead to having copies of all of my VST instruments in all tracks, but only using one per track?

Er, no. There wouldn't. Racks don't work like that.

Just try it, it's much quicker than thinking about whether it might work and discussing it on a forum. You only need to connect the midi input arrow to one track with a rack in it, not all of them.

[IIRs]

Also, wouldn't there be a lot of overhead to having copies of all of my VST instruments in all tracks, but only using one per track?

It doesn't matter how many tracks you have the rack filter copied to THERE IS STILL JUST ONE RACK! Each copy just provides extra ins & outs for the track on which it is inserted.

[davedave]

Hi- I'd like to thank everyone who has tried to help out here.

First off, I'd like to point out that when I created a simple midi pass thru rack, I expected each track I put it on to receive whatever midi data arrived at any of the tracks. The problem was that I got two copies of each note on each track. I checked this out very carefully by directing the outputs of two tracks, each containing a midi pass thru rack, to MidiOX and looking at what was coming out. I could certainly be overlooking something, but I can't think of any explanation other than a bug.

To the person who suggested using MidiOX to split various MIDI channels to different ports before reaching Tracktion, that's a great idea, but those extra ports aren't really "free" as you say. To use virtual ports requires running MidiYoke, which I have had problems using on my Windows XP system. What I have done is use a few inputs and outputs on my 8 port hardware midi patch bay as "virtual" midi ports, by connecting the inputs and outputs together. By adding one of these, I was able to split the data in MidiOX to two ports and basically solve my current problem, but that doesn't explain why I couldn't get the midi pass thru rack to work. If I were doing something more complicated, I would run out of hardware ports. But if the rack worked the way it is supposed to, all that wouldn't be necessary and I'd be making music right now instead of writing this.

To the person who tried to explain why there wouldn't be multiple instances of my VST instruments, of course, you're right. But based on my experiments, it still wouldn't work. The only solution I could find was to put all my VST instruments into a single rack on a single track, use channel1 (in some cases along with splittastic) to direct different midi channels to different VSTs, and mix all of the audio to a single left and right audio port.

I also had data on some MIDI channels that needed to go to a MIDI output port, rather than a VST. I had to split those channels to a different MIDI input port (using MidiOX), and connect that port to a different track.

Again, the reason I'm writing this is that, theoretically at least, none of this should have been necessary had the midi pass thru rack simply caused an identical copy of the incoming MIDI data to be received on each track.

Alternatively, why can't Tracktion just allow a single MIDI input port to be used as input to more than one track? As far as I'm concerned that would make the most logical sense.

Thanks again to anyone who has read this far, you're a real trooper!

[davedave]

I created a new project with one MIDI input (a USB keyboard), one MIDI output and three tracks.

I connected the MIDI input to the first track, and the output to a to a port which was being listened to by an instance of MidiOX.

I played the notes C-D-E-F-G repeatedly.

For each note I played, I expected to see in MidiOX one note on message followed by one note off message.

So far so good. Here are some screenshots:

http://www.vidsilver.com/screenshots/trkscrn1.jpg
http://www.vidsilver.com/screenshots/ox1.jpg

Next I placed a simple midi pass thru rack on tracks 1 and 2, and played the same notes repeatedly. Instead of seeing TWO of each note in MidiOX, I saw FOUR.

Here are the screenshots:

http://www.vidsilver.com/screenshots/trkscrn2.jpg
http://www.vidsilver.com/screenshots/ox2.jpg

Next I placed a copy of the pass thru rack on track 3. This time, I saw SIX of each note being output:

http://www.vidsilver.com/screenshots/trkscrn3.jpg
http://www.vidsilver.com/screenshots/ox3.jpg

It would not surprise me if I have misunderstood how this is supposed to work, but could someone possibly explain how it IS supposed to work?

[TheWall]

OK, I'm following this up with a bit more info after testing. Dave was right. Tracktion does seem to be sending doubled notes. The same routing works correctly with the other hosts I tested with.(eXT, FL Studio, Orion)

What I did was playing MIDI Keyboard from a host(Tracktion or the others) to trigger an instrument(I chose sfz, for it has a polyphony indicator) in Bidule( standalone mode, not Rewired)

The MIDIOX port-mapping is like this:



(Note that it's quite unstable using MIDIYoke for this operation. I've experienced crashes from time to time, even though the port mapping should be alright with no feedback. Once crashed, I had to restart XP to make it working properly again. )

The doubled notes issue only happens when a rack is present - that may explain the cause. An option to do not join the pre-rack MIDI info may be a better solution for ppl who use Tracktion to trigger other applications/gears. I don't use T that way, but I can understand their frustration.

Edited due to my own stupidity.