Anybody using a Midi Controller to Control Plugins in Waveform?

[tmaworks]

I'm curious if anybody is doing this -Are you finding any limitations with certain plugins?

I'm just looking for something that might make mixing for longer hours and switching back and forth between plugins a little easier -Sometimes, clamping down on my mouse or the little pad on my laptop and making those micro-movements to move those little, digital knobs and dials on plugins aggravates my tendonitis...

One gentleman recommended this to me. Not sure what DAW he used or exactly what application he's using it in:

http://faderfox.de/pc4.html

I had something similar a while back, but never really gave it the time -A Novation Launch Control, or something...

Thanks.

[Peter Widdicombe]

I guess part of it is - how many buttons or controls do you have available, and what/how many things to you want to control?

I've an Akai with 9 sets of faders/buttons, and have mapped the 9 faders to the first 8 track's volume, which is handy, and the basic start/stop/record/rewind to the keyboard's transport controls, which works well.

Unfortunately some of the other things I'd like to do didn't work so easily; and probably need some scripting to accomplish - like track up/down and select. These WORK if the cursor happens to be in the right place; but then when you hit play/stop/rewind it all "loses focus" until you select track again.

You can also remap controls to specific things; but not sure of the scope of operation. If you happen to have a VST on track 3 and "map" some controls - not sure it would work on another project where that VST happens to be on track 4.

You can also map controls to send "keyboard commands", so for instance a button can simulate hitting F, or T, or whatever that may toggle selected plugins on a track.

There are dedicated VST collections that may have better control capability, where pots/sliders can work selected features of the vst, like Arturia or maybe Kontakt, if they happen to be in front. I haven't tested any of these.

[tmaworks]

There are dedicated VST collections that may have better control capability, where pots/sliders can work selected features of the vst,

Yeah -That's basically EXACTLY what I'm looking for -Some way to just make it so that instead of going in there with a mouse to move the tiny controls on the screen, I'm using actual knobs to change to parameters of the plugin, itself... BUT. from what I'm learning, it seems yo've gotta "program" each plugin individually with your particular hardware device -no matter what DAW you use -A bit of a chore, but if you've only got a few plugins that you use on the regular, it could really be worth it, imo...

Doesn't really seem that there is a "plugin this device option and fly around through all your plugins..." option. Would be too good to be true...

[Dark Lane]

Yes, sadly I dont' think such a device exists as each plugin has it's own set of controls that may or may nor be mappable with MIDI CC messages.

For what it's worth, I use an Arturia KeyLab Essential MIDI controller that allows up to six sets of custom CC messages so I have one set for each of the most popular plugins I use (generally VI's rather than signal processers). Yes, each one has to be set up individually but, with MIDI learn, it's not such a big job. Then I can open the plugin and switch to the relevant CC profile.

In addition, the MIDI controller acts as a control surface so I have simple transport controls like start/stop/record as well.

Cheers

[Peter Widdicombe]

Very few plugins have just a few controls. Some go really over the top (check out Surge ! ) with the number of features/settings and subpages of settings. Common things you often want might be cutoff/resonance/reverb/modulation rate and depth/volumes of different layers - and that might fill out a typical controllers' limit; and you've just scratched the surface.

Now Surge happens to have the capability to allow most of it's parameters to be "easily" mapped to MIDI CC mappings - but that will be for Surge (and possibly only for the particular patch you've customized it for).

[tmaworks]

Yes, sadly I dont' think such a device exists as each plugin has it's own set of controls that may or may nor be mappable with MIDI CC messages.

For what it's worth, I use an Arturia KeyLab Essential MIDI controller that allows up to six sets of custom CC messages so I have one set for each of the most popular plugins I use (generally VI's rather than signal processers). Yes, each one has to be set up individually but, with MIDI learn, it's not such a big job. Then I can open the plugin and switch to the relevant CC profile.

In addition, the MIDI controller acts as a control surface so I have simple transport controls like start/stop/record as well.

Cheers

This is awesome. I'm definitely going to look into doing something similar -I barely use 10 plugins most of the time. So, if I could sort out a way to work all those in (or even 8 of them or something...) that would be just awesome...

Thanks for chiming in!

[tmaworks]

Very few plugins have just a few controls. Some go really over the top (check out Surge ! ) with the number of features/settings and subpages of settings. Common things you often want might be cutoff/resonance/reverb/modulation rate and depth/volumes of different layers - and that might fill out a typical controllers' limit; and you've just scratched the surface.

Now Surge happens to have the capability to allow most of it's parameters to be "easily" mapped to MIDI CC mappings - but that will be for Surge (and possibly only for the particular patch you've customized it for).

yeah -You make a great point! most of the plugins I use, fortunately, are super simple, usually only have 5 or so buttons on them -if that...

I'm guessing that you could "toggle" over to different channels with your device couldn't you?? -So, if even one plugins parameters take up all the knobs, you could just toggle the whole device over to a new plugin. But, yeah -I see where this is starting to get complicated...