help with making patch changes in U-he VI from Live 10

[sayatnova]

Hello Everyone,

I am having a hard time figuring this out...

I tried to just place a preset patch into the "MIDI Programs" folder, and named it "000 Patch Preset Name". I tried to get the bank and patch changes recognised by ZebraHZ via a dummy clip from Live. This did not work. Maybe because Live cannot set a value of "0" in the fields for Bank, Sub Folder, or Patch sections...

Per a tech support exchange with U-he, and in the manual for Zebra HZ, this should be true:

1) The "MIDI Programs" folder in the preset menu is Bank "0".
2) Each subfolder will be referenced in augmenting values starting from 1. By this criteria: the single subfolder I have created in the "MIDI Programs" folder in the preset menu should be set to "1" (hence the original naming scheme...

So, in the "MIDI Programs" folder in the preset menu of the U-he plugin (Zebra HZ), I have created a sub folder called "1", and in this folder I have a patch preset called "000 Patch Preset Name". I have also duplicated this and called this second patch "001 Patch Preset Name"...

So, technically, shouldn't I just need to send a bank and patch select message via a dummy clip in Live, with 0 as the Bank value, and 1 as the Sub Folder value, and 1 as the Patch value to make this work? I am asking because it does not work.

Perhaps there is a problem in Live, since there is no "0" as an option for any of the parameter sections: it is either "--" which is OFF, or starts at "1"... No way to select "0" as a bank, or any other value.

I have quit and rebooted Live a few times to be sure and get the updated status for the "MIDI Programs" folder after I created the sub folder and added the presets...

What am I missing? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have 6 hours into this with no luck.

Thank you!

[tasmaniandevil]

Are you maybe using the VST3 version of ZebraHZ?

Live does support VST3, but currently their VST3 implementation isn't complete, and thus doesn't allow MIDI program changes at all.

If you want to use program changes in Live, you have to use the VST2 or AU format.

[#rob]

So, technically, shouldn't I just need to send a bank and patch select message via a dummy clip in Live, with 0 as the Bank value, and 1 as the Sub Folder value, and 1 as the Patch value to make this work? I am asking because it does not work.

Let me see if I can remember the addressing thing...

The MIDI Programs folder itself is "bank 0", that is correct.
Any files directly inside the MIDI Programs folder need to be addressed with "bank 0" and "patch n", where n = 0 to 127 (I think).

For example:
../MIDI Programs/ (bank 0)
../MIDI Programs/Nice preset one.h2p (patch 0)
../MIDI Programs/Nice preset two.h2p (patch 1)
../MIDI Programs/Nice preset three.h2p (patch 2)

To load "Nice preset three.h2p", you'd have to send "bank 0 + patch 2" to the plugin.

Any other folder directly inside the MIDI Programs folder will be "bank n", where n = 1 through 127 (I think). Any files inside the sub-folders need to be addressed with "bank n" of the containing folder, and "patch n" where n = 0 to 127 (I think).

For example:
../MIDI Programs/ (bank 0)
../MIDI Programs/Some folder/ (bank 1)
../MIDI Programs/Some folder/Nicer preset four.h2p (patch 0)
../MIDI Programs/Other folder/ (bank 2)
../MIDI Programs/Other folder/Nicer preset five.h2p (patch 0)
../MIDI Programs/Other folder/Nicer preset six.h2p (patch 1)

To load "Other folder/Nicer preset five.h2p", you'd have to send "bank 2 + patch 0" to the plugin.

I don't have Live installed on this machine, so I can't check here, but maybe you can check if Live possibly offsets the displayed bank/patch value? Do the patch/bank values range from 0-127 or from 1-128? Maybe it just looks as if the list starts at 1, but maybe their "entry" 1 is actually "index" 0 etc.?

Also, I faintly remember something that it may be necessary to explicitly send bank and patch number every time, i.e. it's not enough to send first the bank change, and then the patch change later, but you have to send bank+patch all the time. Something like that.

[EvilDragon]

Live definitely offsets the bank and program change values to be 1-128 instead of 0-127. Kinda lame.

Another lame thing is - you can only (AFAIK) send bank/program change at the start of a clip, and that's it. So for every bank/program change you need to make a new clip. Laaaaaaaame.

[sayatnova]

Are you maybe using the VST3 version of ZebraHZ?

Live does support VST3, but currently their VST3 implementation isn't complete, and thus doesn't allow MIDI program changes at all.

If you want to use program changes in Live, you have to use the VST2 or AU format.

I am using AU on a Mac, thank you.

[sayatnova]

So, technically, shouldn't I just need to send a bank and patch select message via a dummy clip in Live, with 0 as the Bank value, and 1 as the Sub Folder value, and 1 as the Patch value to make this work? I am asking because it does not work.

Let me see if I can remember the addressing thing...

The MIDI Programs folder itself is "bank 0", that is correct.
Any files directly inside the MIDI Programs folder need to be addressed with "bank 0" and "patch n", where n = 0 to 127 (I think).

For example:
../MIDI Programs/ (bank 0)
../MIDI Programs/Nice preset one.h2p (patch 0)
../MIDI Programs/Nice preset two.h2p (patch 1)
../MIDI Programs/Nice preset three.h2p (patch 2)

To load "Nice preset three.h2p", you'd have to send "bank 0 + patch 2" to the plugin.

Any other folder directly inside the MIDI Programs folder will be "bank n", where n = 1 through 127 (I think). Any files inside the sub-folders need to be addressed with "bank n" of the containing folder, and "patch n" where n = 0 to 127 (I think).

For example:
../MIDI Programs/ (bank 0)
../MIDI Programs/Some folder/ (bank 1)
../MIDI Programs/Some folder/Nicer preset four.h2p (patch 0)
../MIDI Programs/Other folder/ (bank 2)
../MIDI Programs/Other folder/Nicer preset five.h2p (patch 0)
../MIDI Programs/Other folder/Nicer preset six.h2p (patch 1)

To load "Other folder/Nicer preset five.h2p", you'd have to send "bank 2 + patch 0" to the plugin.

I don't have Live installed on this machine, so I can't check here, but maybe you can check if Live possibly offsets the displayed bank/patch value? Do the patch/bank values range from 0-127 or from 1-128? Maybe it just looks as if the list starts at 1, but maybe their "entry" 1 is actually "index" 0 etc.?

Also, I faintly remember something that it may be necessary to explicitly send bank and patch number every time, i.e. it's not enough to send first the bank change, and then the patch change later, but you have to send bank+patch all the time. Something like that.

Thank you, Rob. Yes, this is how I understand it to work. This part is clear! I m Having problems with getting that sent to the synth from Live via a clip... I have tried different setting combinations of the "--" and "1" for the bank and patch values. Nothing seems to work. I don't know what I am missing... Any other ideas?

Thank you for your help.

[sayatnova]

Live definitely offsets the bank and program change values to be 1-128 instead of 0-127. Kinda lame.

Another lame thing is - you can only (AFAIK) send bank/program change at the start of a clip, and that's it. So for every bank/program change you need to make a new clip. Laaaaaaaame.

I am OK with this, since I am trying to develop a live performance piece that will cycle through various patches throughout the performance at select times. I am using a Push2 and will run many clips and cues for each piece. I just need to figure out how to make it actually work!

[EvilDragon]

OK so if you only have a set of up to 128 patches just placed as they are in MIDI Programs folder (no subfolders, you need to only set the Pgm value. You can leave Bank and Sub at ---. Just tried it, works fine.

[sayatnova]

OK so if you only have a set of up to 128 patches just placed as they are in MIDI Programs folder (no subfolders, you need to only set the Pgm value. You can leave Bank and Sub at ---. Just tried it, works fine.

OK, tonight I was able to figure it out: You can leave the Bank and Sub at "---" and only use Program values to change patches, IF you have only patches listed in the main MIDI Programs section. However, if you switch to also using a second Bank (sub folder in "MIDI Programs" folder), as soon as you switch to the second Bank, it will still work until you go back and try to use a dummy clip that previously worked for the "MIDI Programs" folder (that has "---" for a value...). You cannot return to the "MIDI Programs" folder level. In this case you need to be sure and use Bank "1" for the "MIDI Programs" folder ("0" in the manual!), and Bank "2" for the subfolder in the "MIDI Programs" folder ("1" in the manual)! Note: Programs always start at "1" (for 000) and go up from there regardless of the Bank they are in: "---" will not load a patch in any case.

This worked in Zebra and Hive, which is what I had time for tonight. Should be the same for all U-he synths.

Hopefully this will save some other a lot of frustration!

Thank you for the help.

[EvilDragon]

Yes --- means that message isn't sent, so if you have a clip set to that, it will stay on the bank last set by any other clip. In this case if you indeed want to absolutely make sure to go to the root folder, you gotta set Bank to 1.