Entering/recording notes from VST instruments

[chk071]

The question is about MIDI notes. My bad for not putting that in the title. Say you have a VSTi such as FM8 on a MIDI track, and it’s open, and the auditioning piano keyboard is shown. Arm the track, start recording. Why can’t you use that auditioning piano keyboard on the FM8 to record notes onto the DAW track?

How would the DAW know the timing?

[jonljacobi]

You play it in time.

[jonljacobi]

As I said here, because it is not the role of an instrument to produce MIDI.

Then you will ask "What then is the purpose of the built-in keyboard in the instruments ?"

The answer is simple : to let you try the patches you are making. The built-in keyboard must be able to internally trigger some notes. That's all. And even this built-in keyboard is not at all necessary given that the hardware keyboard or a MIDI sequence coming from the DAW or from a step-sequencer can perfectly be used also for that purpose.

A virtual built-in keyboard being necessarily played with the mouse, on a virtual built-in keyboard you could not even play a chord! It can only be successive single notes!

Why would you absolutely want to have the built-in keyboards producing these MIDI sequences when all the DAWs and MIDI hardware keyboards are already there to make them ? That would be redundant... and in addition that would add additional code (never used by the musicians nor by the composers) in all the plugins. And redundant again since all these plugins would have more or less that same code. It is totally useless to have these redundancies in all the instruments... knowing that it is not at all (and it has never been) the role of an instrument to produce elements of a score, it is the role of the DAW, the step-sequencer, the sheet editor, or the hardware MIDI keyboard. The built-in keyboard is there only to make you experiment your patches while designing them (or while choosing them in the preset browser) by playing some single notes here and there.

Oh for goodness sake. I don’t want to debate the purpose of things, or whether it’s good or bad, I only want to know if no MIDI output from a VSTi is a technical limitation or a vendor choice.

[harvon]

Why can’t you use that auditioning piano keyboard on the FM8 to record notes onto the DAW track?

Maybe just because it would require a mouse mastery that few have. Buy some cheap keyboard.

[jonljacobi]

I have a LaunchKey Mini MK3, a Korg PadKontrol, a Yamaha MX88, a TriplePlay on one of my guitars, and Roland TD-1 drum kit. I have plenty of ways to enter notes.

You never know what you'll have your hands on, when inspiration hits. However, I'll tell you the one instance when I think this could be truly useful and that's when EZ Drummer's percussion kits are in use. If you don't use them often, you might not know where a particular instrument is mapped to and being able to just click on it (and it is responsive enough to let you play a simple rhythm in time.) as you hear it in your head, might be useful.

However, that's all besides the point. What I would like to know, from someone with knowledge of the VST or other plug-in standards, is if real-time MIDI output is possible from a VSTi or not. I'm thinking I asked the question in the wrong place, so please forgive me.

[jonljacobi]

Just to finish this off, I heard from a dev that VSTi’s can output MIDI so it’s just a matter of implementation on the plugin or DAW.

[jancivil]

I told you that on the first page.

"Kontakt sends MIDI to 'the outside world'
IE: I used to set up templates sending my clicks on the plugin keyboards, starting from say Absynth, to and through Kontakt to another instrument in VE Pro in its standalone."

total waste of my time

[jonljacobi]

Well, I missed it, but thanks! As I said, the moments have been few, but there have been some where it would've been nice to simply hit the DAW's record to capture something. It was once such moment with EZD and the latin percussion just recently (the triangle) that led me to ask. And to be honest, I think I asked this same question about 10 years ago somewhere.

[yellowmix]

Just to finish this off, I heard from a dev that VSTi’s can output MIDI so it’s just a matter of implementation on the plugin or DAW.

Of course they can, that's how VST sequencers and arps work, it's in the VST spec.

But it's not "just a matter of implementation". Sequencers know what MIDI they are going to output and when, it's a different ballgame when the input can come at any time and it has to manage real-time audio synthesis simultaneously.

[jonljacobi]

Let me re-phrase... "It's just a matter of whether the vendor thinks to, or desires to implement the feature".

[yellowmix]

Let me rephrase to make it less technical. You're driving a tractor trailer. Someone requests that you answer mathematical equations on your phone when they come in randomly. The tractor trailer is the synth, the phone is keypresses.

Really, it's not as simple as you make it sound. It requires making even more compromises with audio engine. When you ask for a synth to also be a virtual MIDI keyboard you are asking the developer to make the audio engine worse.

[BlackWinny]

It is also like asking the musicians of the orchestra to be the composers of the symphony.

[BlackWinny]

In an orchestra the role of a musician is to apply with the best quality the part which is devoted to him. He is not allowed and will never be allowed to alter any part of the score. Even the conductor can't add, change, move or remove notes or measures (the role of a conductor is to bring life to the score, in the total respect of the work signed by the composer). Bringing changes in a score is the exclusive role of the composer himself.

In a sentence written by a novelist, a single comma which is misplaced, added or removed, can sometimes deeply change the sense of the sentence or even destroy some nuances (and it is useless to tell how much it may even destroy all the perception of the work if that work is intended to be a work of art). Printers are instructed to scrupulously respect the author's text (revised or not by the proofreaders). Printers have their role, which is to materially produce the author's intellectual work. They do not have to change a single comma on their own initiative.

In music it's exactly the same thing.

And when a musician is himself the composer, he doesn't bring the least change from his role of player of an instrument... If he changes a single note it is from his role of composer, and he will quietly validate later that change with a complete rereading of all the work, he will never validate it on-the-fly.

The composition is a step, the execution is another step. And those who execute the work are the musicians, the one who compose is the composer and the composition is not made during the execution, even if one of the musicians is himself the composer.

- For the musician, a score is a read-only sheet.
- For the composer, the score is a read-write sheet, but he doesn't alter his score in presence of the other musicians, he make this exclusively when he is alone without the musicians, because any change in a score can have a lot of consequences on many other things of the score. Even if the composer changes something in the score it can't be in a session with the orchestra... because it will totally disorganize the work of the orchestra, each musician having then an obsolete version of the score.

As I wrote many times in this discussion... each one his role.

The conclusion is obvious : an instrument in the DAW doesn't have to be able to produce parts of sheets.

When a tool as EZkeys makes this, it is not the piano itself which makes this, it is the small composition tool which is built-in, the ensemble forming together a very special plugin. This part of EZkeys is there only to allow a composer to compose with his piano. This part is then used only for the step of composing with harmony rules, not for the step of playing. But you must be aware that developing that composition part of EZkeys was not a small part of the development of the plugin. It is very specific to this instrument EZkeys for the harmony and melody part of a work, and Toontrack made the counterpart with EZdrummer to let the musician be able to imagine rhythms.

When a composer compose, he needs to work on the rhythms (then it will be the role of the composition part of EZdrummer) and he needs to work on the harmony and on the melody (traditionnaly it is made with a piano or a guitar). Both together make an ensemble of composition tools which is excellent to compose a score. But all the rest, the arrangements, will be made later and with other instruments which don't have to be thought as the essential instruments of the composer, (they will be essential... for the instrument players) because they will be more focused on the next very important part of a work during the step of the arrangements or during the step of the performances : the sounds, the instruments used, and their distribution in the space.

Each one his role.

[jonljacobi]

Man, bad analogies, misinterpretation, excessive monologues... Enough.