Beginner Questions on T7 FREE

[King Conga]

Hey Gang,

I was looking for an innovative, yet pretty simple to use DAW, and T7, or rather the VERY COOL, and intuitive Chord & Composition tools really turned me on. However, it doesn't appear that my MIDI is working. I know my setup is working because my PreSonus 1818VSL works great with their SO3.5, and my Alesis Fusion8HD works fine with that too. Admittedly, it only works with VST's. I think the circuitry in my keyboard is petering out because I can't get any internal samples to playback through the MIDI ports.

At any rate, I created my Virtual MIDI Instrument in the MIDI setup, as well as the 1818 Interface. The Audio portion test was successful, but when I play any keys on my keyboard there's no lights, no sound, nothing. All 16 of the MIDI ch. buttons are dark, but I don't hear anything. Also, while I'm at it, my FaderPort8 doesn't respond either. When I setup the unit itself I picked the HUI option, then reboot it, but T7 doesn't see it at all.

Please help. I'd really like to dig into this app.

Thanks,
KC

[HansP]

You need to get the MIDI data into Tracktion. There are MIDI plugins with LED lights that show you if this is successful. The MIDI component of the Presonus driver must show up in the Tracktion MIDI input configuration. Sure all cables are healthy and perfectly connected. I see cable failures every other day, in the project studio of my comrade.

Optionally, you need to route that MIDI out to the keyboard again, to use built-in sounds of the keyboard.
This is a) for monitoring while you play (it depends, because there will always be sync problems to solve, and you want to hear your playing in sync with the background tracks that exist already, even when this is a bit delayed). And b) to play back a recorded MIDI track through the sound generation of this keyboard.
For this, you would switch off the internal MIDI loop of the keyboard, and make it listen to a particular incoming MIDI channel.

You need to connect the audio output of the keyboard with an audio input of Tracktion, via the Presonus, to record that type of track, so you have the original audio of your keyboard in the mix.

You can use the recorded MIDI data of course with an instrument plugin like there is the sample player. This can save you from the complexity with the hardware audio and bi-directional MIDI.


I am repeating this old wisdom in a short and sloppy way, just to break up the problem.
Can you find out in which of these mentioned components so far your setup is failing?

[Peter Widdicombe]

You should easily be able to tell if MIDI input is there. Make sure the track has the midi device selected as an input (if not, you may have missed setting it up under MIDI; and DO make sure the interface is on when you load T7 or it won't be recognized) , and then just look at the meters on the left. If they bounce when you hit keys, you have input.

Next trick is directing them to do what you want. You want them to bounce back out a MIDI interface (this is trickier), or play a virtual instrument? If a .vst, then make sure you have selected one and dragged it likely as the FIRST item on the right side of the track. Think what the "data" or keystrokes are at that time. MIDI key events are not audible, and need to be fed through a virtual instrument. After that, it's audio, and you can then use volume, pan, reverb, echo, etc.

MIDI input to a volume control will likely do nothing and will not then pass anything along. Similarly, audio into a vst INSTRUMENT won't do anything. audio into a vst EFFECT will do something. Follow the path. Tracktion/waveform go left to right across the track.