Use Tracktion Live At Gigs for Keyboard Sounds?

[RJWlaw@aol.com]

Still using T6. Stable and the GUI is customizable.

Anyone doing this? It occurred to me that I could load acoustic piano VST on track 1, a Rhodes on track 2, a Wulitzer on 3 and a Mellotron on 4, etc.

As far as switching from one instrument to another, I would have to find a way to make a controller place T6's active input/arrow/sideways "picket fence slat" point to/populate the proper track. Anyone know how to make this happen?

[fde101]

Something to consider with this approach is that the virtual instruments will all be "running" and potentially consuming CPU time even when a different track is selected, so you will be somewhat constrained on the set of instruments you can use unless you can also find a way to "freeze" the plugins on the tracks that are not selected.

Specialized DAWs that are dedicated to this task generally have this kind of functionality as a standard part of the interface. Mainstage for example will load all of the plugins and sounds for a "concert" when it starts up so that it has them ready to go as soon as the "patch" (sound) is changed, but the plugins don't actually run (and thus consume CPU) until you switch to that patch, so you can use much more complex sounds than would be possible if you had them all running at once.

Such DAWs also have standard functionality to allow for the keyboard being split and different sounds being layered, even if the different parts are being generated by completely different plugins.

I don't think any of the Tracktion DAWs are really an ideal fit for this use case.

[dellboy]

Still using T6. Stable and the GUI is customizable.

Anyone doing this? It occurred to me that I could load acoustic piano VST on track 1, a Rhodes on track 2, a Wulitzer on 3 and a Mellotron on 4, etc.

As far as switching from one instrument to another, I would have to find a way to make a controller place T6's active input/arrow/sideways "picket fence slat" point to/populate the proper track. Anyone know how to make this happen?

Its been a while since I used version T6, but you should be able to set all the instruments onto different tracks and assign a midi channel to each and just use your master keyboard to change channels and select the instrument you wish to play. I have templates setup that boot into a playable multi instruments setup.

You will have to learn how to setup Virtual midi channels on the setup page and give them a name ( I have numbered mine from 1 to 10), and assign them on the main page to each channel.

[RJWlaw@aol.com]

Thanks for the replies.

My i7 laptop is way overqualified and cpu capacity will never be an issue with the 4 or 5 essential vsts I feel that I have to keep loaded, so that is at least one concern out of the way. Good observation though.

So now we come to getting a separate midi input -- each channel only "hearing" info from one midi channel -- to populate a channel input.

The problem I am having in that regard is that my interface is a Presonus FireMobile and only one midi input shows up in T6. If 16 showed up, I would be in business already.

I then turned to virtual midi inputs. After creating virtual midi inputs and not being able to get midi signal to show up on any of the virtual input meters or get midi info to the vst, I gave up and focused on finding a way to just move the arrow/slat input from track to track as needed.

There is not much info on virtual midi inputs and the info that IS available is in the context of setting them up to work for a multitimbral vst on a single track. The vsts that I would like to use are not multitimbral.

Is there any way to learn more about using virtual midi inputs in T6? My Google searches do not yield much germane info.

[fde101]

Not inputs - channels.

MIDI supports 16 channels on a single input. Most controllers let you specify which of those channels they are transmitting on, but each has a different mechanism for doing so.

[dellboy]

Is there any way to learn more about using virtual midi inputs in T6? My Google searches do not yield much germane info.

Go into settings midi devices and create as many virtual midi inputs as you like. Name them. On the main page create as many tracks as you want. Click on a track input in the centre and at the bottom of the page you will see "select midi inputs", so go ahead and select which midi keyboard device you are using. In the same place you will see "midi filters" which will need to be set so as to exclude any channels you do not wish to hear.

Assign instruments to tracks, and assign virtual inputs, and select midi channels on your controller.

This is for Waveform 9, your mileage may be different for T6, my memory fails me.

But I miss those old wiggly inputs.

[RJWlaw@aol.com]

Worked! Very excited. Forever grateful.