live scene changes with midi gear

Design Concepts
1

Hi,

I started out with a mbsid build - under construction - and two gm5x5x5s. My ambition is to build a mb lc for my studio but planning job is big, cost is big and i really dont have the time yet, but i cant drop midiboxing in the mean time. Too much fun.

Ive asked this around some midi and recording forums but cant seem to get any answer.

I have one big problem on gigs, configuring my synth and stagepiano during a song.

So i watched some dream theater behind the scenes on utube, and rudess is switching between preconfigured scenes at the push different keys on the controller.

What i like is to have a mb that do just that. A small one to fit besides my main controller at gigs. I use cubase or vstack on gigs and also one or two hardware controllers.

I want the box to be able to change scenes - that is changing vsti and patches in the vsti from one setup to another. Also i would like it to have a global transpose up down functions. Im not as fluent in keys that include playing on many black keys hehe, so if i play one song in A minor and i want to modulate the song to bb minor i wish i could just press “up” and every active patch both on my vsti and hardware synth transpose.

In my simple mind i dont understand how this work in my daw, what i need to program and what functions the midibox should have or if this is doable in mb platform at all.

What i also like is that when i change to another scene it should either reset transposer to 0 or transpose to a preselected key.

I could always use my keyboard and assign some keys to do the scene change but it would be stupid if i missed a note in a song and changed the scene at the wrong time!

All info / advice you can provide about hardware part of this and also how to program cubase / vstack to do this is deeply appreciated. My cubase version is sx3.

I have tried to do this with a keyboard controller bwfore when i first discovered this method, but havent succeeded yet since i have viritually no clue on where to start and know nothing about how it really works.

Any advice to get me started?

I wrote this on my htc (nightmare how slow it is to write with a phone) so just ignore any typos that might be there.

Ingebret

2

is all of your software and gear able to respond to midi ccs? then maybe a mbseq would do the job - i have not finished and integrated mine but have the feeling that it could do the job - so i am very interested in further comments, too :-).

edit: reasoning… dirty copy and paste from the SEQ V4 manual:

PRESET: this button opens a dialog which allows to select a preset file (left side), or to store a new preset:

…

Advantages of using preset files:

  • You can store your favourite track configurations, melody lines, drum loops, etc. in separate files to recall them later
  • You can prepare drum maps for different instruments
  • You can prepare CC setups for different instruments
    trkevent3.gif
3

Seems like youre on to something there. I use a borrowed cp300 as stage piano and a simple radium61 key controller for most gigs. Frequently used vsti for my gigs involve refx nexus and spectrasonics atmosphere. Its mostly piano patches from the stage and some ambient sounds layered over the piano from either mexus or atmosphere. I use the radium for leads and soundfx. The cp300 strikes me as an advanced piano and it can do a lot, for example transpose the vsti wired to it, but if i transpose that one i suddenly have an impossible setup with one keyboard transposed different to the other one. Its confusing keeping track on diting a song to say it in a nice way.

So short answer is that i dont know exactly what i can do midi wise with my setup, but i would be surprised if it couldnt be done…

As long as the cp300, cubase and those two plugins accept the right midi commands i would be home free.

As for using the mbseq, seems a bit overkill. I could use the firmware but i would lile to keep the firmware and hardware as minimal as possible. So that it does what i need only, i dont want a full featured mbseq just to do this…

It probably involves changing the program, but if the functions are there in mbseq it should be doable to program a version showing only the menu functions in the lcd that i need? Im np big programmer, but im sure witj some help i can do it…

Or?

4

just for the theoretic possibility, you could do that with a core32, one din module and very few buttons running an unaltered mbseq… but there surely are better solutions out there to send preprogrammed batches of ccs…

on the other hand… deep inside you know, you want a full mbseq :smiley:

edit: it would also be a good project to learn mios c programming… it is not difficult to send predefined CCs to midi ports and TK has written very nice tutorials… then you would only need a core32, a din module and as many preset buttons as you want to have… it gets a little bit more complicated if you want to configure which ccs to send within the unit…

5

on the other hand… deep inside you know, you want a full mbseq :smiley:

Haha, yeah I know that :D. I haven’t looked into more than the headlines on ucapps yet - but I will do. I have also seen some vids on youtube of TK demonstrating the mbseq - and I don’t know what facinated me the most - the machine or the music. Both I guess. I also left a comment - I told TK to send me his picture so I could make a statue of him at my house and worship it :stuck_out_tongue: haha. I had a period of about 10 years when I learnt to appreciate dance music of this kind shown in the video. And I used to produce that kind of music, but I never quite got it right, because at the time I had only a Soundblaster and shareware midi / (poor)audio sequencer called voyetra digital orchestrator plus. The soundfonts could never match real synthesizers - or emulated like VSTi. When I first got myself a real DAW system - after about 10 years of “soundblasting” I also played in a band, and that band leaned towards the prog metal / symphonic metal genre, and also my genre-interests changed acordingly. Don’t get it wrong - I still love a good trance / dance tune, but I like it more when I can produce what ignorant people call “real” music :). A full mbseq would be very nice to have, but I am really not sure I know exactly what to use it for in my setup right now :slight_smile: - However - I need the system we really discussed here :slight_smile:

Youre right - it would be a nice introduction to learning mios C programming. But I have no idea on where to start when it comes to the midi part - and interacting with my DAW - so any input would be very appreciated. Please feel free to come with your thoughts :slight_smile:

6

methinks that there must be other solutions out there that don´t involve programming, but if you want to do it - have a look at core32 tutorial 4 (sending midi):

http://svnmios.midibox.org/listing.php?repname=svn.mios32&path=%2Ftrunk%2Fapps%2Ftutorials%2F004_sending_midi%2F

in app.c, a MIOS function named SendCC is called like this:

MIOS32_MIDI_SendCC(port, Chn1, 1, midi_package.velocity);

if you combine that with code from tutorial 10 (DIN) which executes it when you press a button, you are almost done…

7

Sure the best would be a non-programming approach. That just say how little i have researched the options already out there…

You mentioned there had to be a better way than using mbseq for this or did i misunderstand u there?

The best was if i could do this without a lcd, as small unit as possible for placing it on the stagepiano, but if a lcd and menu navigation is good to have for setup i would maybe consider making it a bit complicated and make the actual controller as a breakout box and place the system in a rackbox with lcd and config buttons and encoder, or something. Isnt it enough to just run a bus cable berween them then? Maybe in form of a nullmodem cable or so?

8

Non-programming-approaches:

  1. Research better alternatives :slight_smile:

  2. If you look at my photo tut of the mbseq v4, you can see how you can separate the cs (in your case a minimal one which will fit easily on a stage piano) from the core.

The advantage would be that you can build a full cs (with displays and bling) later on, when you are ready for trance music and a full blown seq v4 again ;-).

The disadvantage would be that I think, mbseq presets cannot be loaded properly without display, so I would advise against it…

Programmig-approaches:

  1. Read the previous post - just build a core32 and a din module and get get ready to hack some code as suggested :slight_smile: