New user and small question

[Keyb]

Hi,
my name's Alessandro and I'm from Italy. I play keyboards in a live cover band that ranges from 60s to contemporary music. Most of the repertoire is rock'n'roll/disco.

My current setup shows Korg, Roland, Yamaha and E-mu rack synth all driven by a M-audio Keystation. Although the quality of sounds and the keyboard touch are great, this setup weights far too much for frequent gigs I've bought a much lighter (and therefore simpler)) master keyboard and I'm exploring the VST world. And now I'm testing Cantabile to host all VSTs and perform quick sound changes.

I've found a way to perform all the live nuances I need, except one, described below. This is the very last obstacle before finalizing the Cantabile purchase and replace my physical synths.

Is there a way to easily and quickly transpose all racks/VSTs of a subsession? Does a master transpose exits? It would be nice to assign a master transpose feature to 2 different buttons on the keyboard. Every time you push the button, the key increases (or decreases) by 1 semitone.

Any help/hint about it would be very appreciate.

Best regards,
Alessandro

[risome]

Assign them all to the same midi channel

[Ashville.Guru]

Hi Allesandro,
I had the very same requirement as you do - for a master transpose, that can be controlled via Midi CC. I finally solved it using a rather complicated workaround:

1. Cantabile's builtin transpose does not respond to midi CC, but thankfully, there are a few free midi plugins that do this: J's Midi PLugins, or MidiKarval's Transposer.
2. I put the transposer plugin into it's own rack, and send the output of the rack any of the 4 Loopback devices (e. g, Output -> Midi Loopback -> Loopback 1)
3. Finally, in Cantabile's Midi Routing Table, I assign a new routing, from Loopback 1 (in my example) to each rack (hint: can be done quickly using copy-paste). Thus, you will have as many routings as racks that need to be transposed. And of course, each rack's direct input from the midi keyboard must be disabled (otherwise you'd be having both the transposed and non-transposed notes going to each rack!). To do this, go to the rack's "Select Midi In Device" drop down menu, and uncheck your midi keyboard.

Although it seems to be a complicated workaround, it has given me a lot of peace of mind, and I've used it successfully on live gigs. But yes, it would be much nicer if Cantabile had a Transpose/Velocity curve that assignable to midi cc, and perhaps a "Master Midi" rack...

Hope this helps.
Cheers,

Guru

[TiUser]

I think this should be a feature request. Live transposition would be really nice to have in Cantabile.

It also meets the "controller virtualization" idea I've discussed with Brad some time ago. In brief the idea is to have a virtual layer between physical devices and Cantabile's racks that allows fast exchange of keyboards (without editing all related sessions) and adapt their controller features - probably even incomplete - too.

[Keyb]

Guys, thanks for the quick answers.

@Ashville.Guru: Very clever workaround! I'll give it a try tomorrow!

@TiUser: A built in feature would be really nice. Actually, as Cantabile is already filled with deep filtering possibilities, I thought such a basic one should have been already implemented and I have missed finding it.

Alex

[TiUser]

Well, what you touch is not a lack of transposition options - there are plenty - but how you tried to use it - in realtime with external controls.

This is a systematic issue imho that needs a feature request.

Becauase of the many midi plugins suggested lately to work around problems I will also look into this a bit more and try to collect ideas. I know Brad wished to improve some things... it's just a matter of time and priority.