Questions About Limiting Pads Only For Drum Based Plugins, Assigning Keys to Synths, And Using Daw Controls In Ardour

[Shortstop]

Hey there,

So I'm still a mid-tier newbie when it comes to using Ardour.

I used Reaper for a long time on Windows and Linux and switched to Ardour maybe a few months ago.

I basically know how to add tracks, change inputs to the existing MIDI keyboard I have aka the Arturia KeyLab Essential 61, and add some preconfigured plugins from the Linux distro I use aka 'Jackalpup', which is just a variation of Puppy Linux that someone installed a ton of Linux audio plugins.

Its a neat distro and awesome in its own way.

However, I realized I keep doing the same kind of thing by importing similar plugins for sessions, and figured I'd make a template.

My goal is to do the following:
1. Limit the drum pads on the Arturia Keylab Essential 61 so that it would only react to drum based plugins. I have 'Red Zeppelin Drum Kit' installed, so I have that enabled for the input already. Problem is, I have no idea how to specifically limit the pads themselves to ONLY react to that particular plugin.

2. I want the keys on the Arturia Keylab Essential 61 to be used for everything BUT the drums.

Currently, both the drums and the synth plugins I've added to the template track in Ardour are reacting to both pad hits, and keys.

3. I would like to somehow figure out how to assign the faders and knobs of the LFO sections on the right side, as well as the 'DAW Command' center accordingly.

I have ZERO clue on how to do this, and how to easily assign these MIDI keys in this scenario.


Anyway, with this in mind, does anyone have a good ideas for this? Is this something that needs to be handled by QJackCtrl that comes with 'Jackalpup' instead of trying to do it purely in Ardour?

Thanks

[bluzee]

From the manual it looks like you can assign the pads to a different midi channel from the keys. For example if your keys are on channel 1 then have your synth plugins in the DAW also on midi channel 1. Reassign your pads to channel 2 and then have your drum plugin also on channel 2.

[Shortstop]

From the manual it looks like you can assign the pads to a different midi channel from the keys. For example if your keys are on channel 1 then have your synth plugins in the DAW also on midi channel 1. Reassign your pads to channel 2 and then have your drum plugin also on channel 2.

But how do I separate MIDI channels from the same Arturia keyboard if I only have 1 single USB cable coming out from the keyboard itself into the computer?

[bluzee]

Each midi port has 16 channels available. The manual says your pads are on channel 10 by default. Set your drum plugin to listen to only channel 10. Make sure your keys use a different channel.

[Michael Willis]

You can route your midi signal to multiple midi tracks, and then set up each track to only record a specific channel. Set up a midi track with your drum plugin, right-click the name of the track, pick "Channel Selector...", and then "Record only selected channels", and highlight only channel 10 (or whatever channel your drum pads use).

If this isn't sufficient, the X42 Midi Filter Plugins have lots of different ways to filter and transform midi.

[Shortstop]

Thanks everyone, I'll check this out over the weekend in Ardour and see if I can separate the MIDI channels accordingly with the Arturia Keylab Essentials 61 manual as well.

Only thing I can think of is that it might be harder since most of these MIDI devices are geared towards Windoze DAWs, etc, but I think I probably will still be able to assign whatever I want.

More than likely, it'll either require a deeper dive of MIDI settings in Ardour, OR by using some external thing like 'qjackctl'.

[tseaver]

@Shortstop:

Only thing I can think of is that it might be harder since most of these MIDI devices are geared towards Windoze DAWs, etc, but I think I probably will still be able to assign whatever I want.

The convention to have drums on MIDI channel 10 is so old that it is often hard-wired: you shouldn't have any "platform incompatibilities" based on filtering "drums-on-channel-10". See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI

[Shortstop]

Hey there, necroing an old thread of mine.

So I finally got to trying this out, and although I was able to limit the 'Channel Selector' to be Channel 10 for drums for Red Zeppelin drum kit for input and output, I noticed one thing:
From lowest C to middle C on my Keylab 61 keyboard, I can STILL hit drum noises. Though the drum pads themselves now ONLY play the drum sounds, I have no idea how to configure Red Zeppelin so that it ONLY plays on the pads themselves in this manner.

This makes playing a synth that's hooked up to the same MIDI keyboard but playing a separate keyboard synth plugin hard to do since I get random drum hits when I hit certain notes.

So, limiting to channel 10 works for the pads, but even with these limits of ONLY channel 10, all the other sounds of Red Zeppelin drum kit are still playing.

Can I also re-arrange the existing sounds that are mapped to the MIDI keyboard for the pads on Channel 10 as well?

Thanks.

[Shortstop]

Also, super random, but does anyone know a good plugin for piano for Linux as well? Like actual piano sounds, etc? Thanks

[tavasti]

Also, super random, but does anyone know a good plugin for piano for Linux as well? Like actual piano sounds, etc? Thanks

Get liquidsfz and Salamander Grand Piano