MIDI Plugins in QTractor

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Musicteacher
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MIDI Plugins in QTractor

Post by Musicteacher »

Hi,
I own a stagepiano that lacks features of a typical MIDI-Masterkeyboard. So I am trying to achieve some of that with MIDI-Plugins.

As a first exercise I wanted to map a midi-channel to another.

I have a midi track in QTractor with an instrument plugin. I have set this to "monitor" on. If I set it to midi channel 1, I hear the instrument when I play, even if the track is not selected. So the rest of my setup seems to be working as expected.

Now I set it to channel 2, I do not hear the instrument anymore, as my keyboard sends on channel 1.

Now I want to redirect channel 1 to channel 2 and expect to hear something again. I have put the MIDI Channel-Mapper as a plugin to my instrument-track, but it does not work.

So I have put it as a plugin to my MIDI Master Bus, this did not work, either.

This is only meant as an exercise, what I really want to do is to use the MIDI Keysplit to map one keyboard to two instruments on different MIDI channels.

So I get the feeling that I must be doing something wrong: Where to put the MIDI plugins?

Thanks for your advice,

Andreas
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rncbc
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Re: MIDI Plugins in QTractor

Post by rncbc »

Musicteacher wrote: I own a stagepiano that lacks features of a typical MIDI-Masterkeyboard. So I am trying to achieve some of that with MIDI-Plugins.

As a first exercise I wanted to map a midi-channel to another.
you can't do just that on qtractor premises, but there are ways, read along...
Musicteacher wrote: I have a midi track in QTractor with an instrument plugin. I have set this to "monitor" on. If I set it to midi channel 1, I hear the instrument when I play, even if the track is not selected. So the rest of my setup seems to be working as expected.

Now I set it to channel 2, I do not hear the instrument anymore, as my keyboard sends on channel 1.
check Track > Auto monitor on : when a MIDI track is highlighted as current all MIDI channel events will get filtered though it no matter the original channel...

Musicteacher wrote: Now I want to redirect channel 1 to channel 2 and expect to hear something again. I have put the MIDI Channel-Mapper as a plugin to my instrument-track, but it does not work.

So I have put it as a plugin to my MIDI Master Bus, this did not work, either.

This is only meant as an exercise, what I really want to do is to use the MIDI Keysplit to map one keyboard to two instruments on different MIDI channels.

So I get the feeling that I must be doing something wrong: Where to put the MIDI plugins?
you can put the plugin--iif multi-timbral (*)--on a MIDI output bus, then set "monitor" on on that particular bus (either in or out, is the same bus:))
doing this way all events get (transparently through into the plugin; however it gets all into its own (plugin) MIDI channel discriminator whatever there is...

hth.
cheers

(*) ps. a multi-timbral plugin is one that provides some way to map one or more of several instruments or parts or programs over the 1-16 MIDI channel space.
Musicteacher
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Re: MIDI Plugins in QTractor

Post by Musicteacher »

Thank you. I did know about the auto-monitor, but that was just an exercise. On the whole, the setup is much more complex, and I cannot rely on a track being highlighted. I want to be able to automate this, set monitor on on one track, later on another, to change instruments without the need of sysex-program change and stuff like that.

The other hint is valuable, thank you very much.

In the meantime I have found an alternative solution: I have set both virtual instruments to channel two, the keyboard that should trigger them on channel 2, too, and inserted a midi note range filter before it. This way I can make the lower notes pass through to instrument one, the other to instrument two.

The solution explained by you seems to be more powerful, though.

All in all, qtractor seems to do it's own filtering before any events get to the plugin, this is at least mildly irritating for me!

Thanks, Andreas
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rncbc
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Re: MIDI Plugins in QTractor

Post by rncbc »

Musicteacher wrote:All in all, qtractor seems to do it's own filtering before any events get to the plugin, this is at least mildly irritating for me
that's of course true for tracks but not for buses.

for MIDI tracks you can also set them to 'Omni' mode for which it accepts input on all 1-16 channels.

hth.
cheers
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Re: MIDI Plugins in QTractor

Post by Musicteacher »

Thank you again!
If this is not true for buses, why did my first attempt in redirecting events from MIDI channel 1 to 2 not work?

I had inserted the plugin to the MIDI master channel (input) and redirected channel 1 to channel 2. But still the events were passed to the track which had MIDI channel 1, not the other one. So I had guessed that QTractor decides which track to send the events to before the bus-plugins were processed.

I can send a minimal example if I did not make myself clear.

It would be much easier to just put one key-split plugin to a midi bus instead of putting multiple keyrange-filters to each track (and transpose filter afterwards).

Regards, Andreas
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Re: MIDI Plugins in QTractor

Post by rncbc »

Musicteacher wrote:Thank you again!
If this is not true for buses, why did my first attempt in redirecting events from MIDI channel 1 to 2 not work?

I had inserted the plugin to the MIDI master channel (input) and redirected channel 1 to channel 2. But still the events were passed to the track which had MIDI channel 1, not the other one. So I had guessed that QTractor decides which track to send the events to before the bus-plugins were processed.

I can send a minimal example if I did not make myself clear.

It would be much easier to just put one key-split plugin to a midi bus instead of putting multiple keyrange-filters to each track (and transpose filter afterwards).
one thing you have to realize is the way that MIDI is internally routed in qtractor...

the general block diagram in Manual - 4 Qtractor--An Overview is worth a thounsand words:Image
although that applies both to audio pcm signal and MIDI events, there's a catch when regarding the way MIDI is handled and processed by any of buses and tracks plugin chains (the yellow triangles above):
1) MIDI is only filtered when routing from an input bus into tracks on a per MIDI channel basis;
2) MIDI passes-through (monitor) to an output bus *before* entering *any* plugin-chain;
3) MIDI gets in but does not ever get out at the end of the chain, unless a MIDI Aux-send is there inserted).

so it should be now clear that, if you intend to use any MIDI channel filter plug-ins to be effective you must insert at least one MIDI Aux-send after those and direct it to a MIDI output bus where the instrument plug-in is inserted; having an instrument plug-in on a MIDI input bus will just not cut it at all ;)

hth.
cheers
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Re: MIDI Plugins in QTractor

Post by Musicteacher »

Thanks a 1000 times!

Without your additional explanation I would not have understood (from the diagram alone, I mean).

As for my initial problem, I will stick with my alternative solution. Adding a MIDI aux send and another MIDI bus just to be able to use the keysplit-plugin will not be easier than using a range-filter + transpose-plugin on each track.

I even consider buying a midi merger. Then I will be able to use one physical keyboard for each instrument instead.

In case you are wondering: This is for a very big concert of my school. I coach the band. The hardware-synthesizers we have sound pretty bad, so I thought I might just as well do all of this in software (as it is state-of-the-art nowadays anyway).

Regards,
Andreas
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