complex vb3 midi config issue

[Baldwin Funster]

What I want:

Upper manual drawbars panned hard left.

Lower manual drawbars panned hard right.

Reason is for separation of frequencies so the left hand work doesn't bury the right hand stuff. These will be combined in mono later or used in dual mono when i use 2 powered speakers. Why does it matter if it's combined mono at the amp. I tried it and it makes a major difference. The mixer in the powered monitor has more headroom than the digital mixer in the laptop .

 

How i got it:

I'm using Reaper. I run 2 separate stereo tracks with vb3 on each one . Each panned hard L&R.

The controller has 2 midi channels and split.

I set controller ch 1 and nanokontrol scene 1 to midi channel 1 and map it to vb3 on track 1.

I set the upper drawbars B to midi channel 1 and lower drawbars B to anything I won't be using like midi channel 12.

 

Then I do the same but opposite for the lower manual on the vb3 on reaper channel 2.

 

Works good BUT: VB3 doesn't seem to allow saving 2 separate global setups . I tried saving by the vst preset shell and by the reaper project. And both at once. When I shut down reaper it all is lost. Suggestions?

[Markyboard]

How i got it:

I'm using Reaper. I run 2 separate stereo tracks with vb3 on each one . Each panned hard L&R.

The controller has 2 midi channels and split.

I set controller ch 1 and nanokontrol scene 1 to midi channel 1 and map it to vb3 on track 1.

I set the upper drawbars B to midi channel 1 and lower drawbars B to anything I won't be using like midi channel 12.

 

Then I do the same but opposite for the lower manual on the vb3 on reaper channel 2.

 

 

Hi BF - OK you got me curious so I set up similarly and confirmed that you can only save one Global setup for VB3. I'm not sure but this may be true for all VSTs. No matter, I think you can still do it although I may have missed something in the following explanation.

 

Set up track 1 (your left stereo track) with midi channel input set to ALL This is so Track 1 will recognize and process both midi channel 1 and channel 2. Also set up track to output to audio channel 1 on yoor audio interface. No need for a stereo track pair.

 

In this same track add a send (in the Master/Send section for track 1 ) over to track 2 (your right stereo track). As part of that Send set Audio to None and set up the midi channel to accept on channel 2 and not convert it to another channel(2>>2). Set VB3 to have midi channel 1 as its global for the upper drawbars and channel 2 for the lower drawbars on both track 1 and track 2; Reaper will separate out which track is getting which midi information.

 

Set up track 2 with no input (since the send from track 1 is feeding this track) and set to output on audio chn 2 (your right stereo channel).

 

Push in all drawbars on Track 1 for the Lower Manual as it's only using the upper. On Track 2 push in all drawbars on the Upper section as it's only using the lower drawbar settings.

 

Not sure if you're familiar with the sends so let me know if you need some more clarification

 

BTW this is working great here where the left speaker outputs one set of drawbars and the right speaker the other. Routing flexibility of audio and midi is one of Reaper's strengths.

 

[Markyboard]

Unrelated but one more thing regarding VB3 I just noticed. Without playing anything apparently the simulated Leslie spinning at slow speed puts out a whisper type sound that is saying (I kid you not) Mitt Romney, over and over.

:idk

[Delaware Dave]

"..Reason is for separation of frequencies so the left hand work doesn't bury the right hand stuff.."

If the lower manual were 666000000 while the upper manual were 888000000 the lower manual would not 'bury' the upper manual. IMHO I think you are trying to create a solution for a problem that already has a solution. My two cents which is usually the price of free advice

[Baldwin Funster]

Thanks. I have not used the sends, I'll try it that way.

[Baldwin Funster]

"..Reason is for separation of frequencies so the left hand work doesn't bury the right hand stuff.."

If the lower manual were 666000000 while the upper manual were 888000000 the lower manual would not 'bury' the upper manual. IMHO I think you are trying to create a solution for a problem that already has a solution. My two cents which is usually the price of free advice

 

Haven't you ever wanted a tremelo Leslie on the right hand and chorale or stop on the left. This will do that.

[Delaware Dave]

Then this would be a reason that you never mentioned. We don't read minds here, we respond to what is written

Carry on....

[Markyboard]

Haven't you ever wanted a tremelo Leslie on the right hand and chorale or stop on the left. This will do that.

 

Lots of reasons for wanting to share a VST across 2 or more tracks. But I also have a much easier way to put tremolo on the right and chorale on the left.

http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t490/Markyboard/Dual%20147s_zpsg3uf3pzi.jpg

 

[Baldwin Funster]

OK so literally 5 minutes ago I set up reaper as suggested and It worked as described . BUT my Kong Nanokontrol moves the bars on both channels causing the upper manual to sound on channel 2 when the bars on upper channel 2's vb3 move. The Nanokontrol has a lot of midi routing via the editor and I may find a workaround but as of now ......

 

Thanks for the help though. I now know more about reapers routing and I'm sure a solution is there.

[Markyboard]

Cool- glad you got it to work. I forgot you were using your controller to move the drawbars; I didn't play around with that. But is should be easy enough to insert a filter on the desired track to filter out the midi CC controls being received. You might need one on each track. I'll see if I can play with this later.

[Markyboard]

Hey BF - maybe your thread title got me carried away but I think this can be done much simpler. Now that you know how to use sends in Reaper delete the one you set up yesterday.

 

Set up track 1 for lower manual, track 2 for upper manual. In VB3 under Global Options Menu for track 1 set lower midi channel to 1 and upper midi chn 2. You can reverse this if you want but my simpleton brain finds it easier to have the lower channel # assigned to the lower manual and the uper midi chn with the upper manual. For each track set for "input midi" and select whatever device you're playing and the corresponding midi channel for that track; i.e track 1, midi chn 1 and track 2 midi chn 2. I assume you already have the audio interface setup with track one going to left panned audioi output and track 2 going to a right panned audio output.

 

Now as to the drawbars in VB3 right click on each one and set the lower manual drawbars to channel 1 along with whatever cc you want to use. Or better yet select a drawbar on the gui, right click midi learn and move the appropriate fader on your controller. Do this for each drawbar where all the lowere dbs will be set to midi chn 1 and all the uppers will be set to midi chn 2.

 

 

Reaper is set up now to only allow midi chn 1 data going to the lower manual and mid chn 2 going to the upper manual.

BTW you have the same deal with the drawbars where they have to be set up the same on both instantiations; it only saves the settings for 1 but this should not be a problem. If this doesn't work you should see the version I had earlier today with filters and such. Fun fun stuff.

[Baldwin Funster]

Wow you're like a midi scientists or something. Now I'm one too. This totally worked except because I'm using a keyboard controller AND a separate drawbar controller in the form of the nanoK, I had to set the midi input on each channel to "all midi devices" and assign midi input 1 on track one ect. I'll play around with this for a couple of days but so far it looks good. As our fine Latino brethren would say, muchas gracias.

[Garubi]

Unrelated but one more thing regarding VB3 I just noticed. Without playing anything apparently the simulated Leslie spinning at slow speed puts out a whisper type sound that is saying (I kid you not) Mitt Romney, over and over.

:idk

Yes, it's outputting the typical leslie "hum".

You can set its level or turn it off in the "Preset options menu": look for "Background Hum Level".

See VB3 Manual at page 9.

[Delaware Dave]

Mitt Romney? Are you sure it is not Bill Cosby?

[Markyboard]

You'll just have to join us for MAKCFH on the 25th and determine for yourself.

[Markyboard]

Unrelated but one more thing regarding VB3 I just noticed. Without playing anything apparently the simulated Leslie spinning at slow speed puts out a whisper type sound that is saying (I kid you not) Mitt Romney, over and over.

:idk

Yes, it's outputting the typical leslie "hum".

You can set its level or turn it off in the "Preset options menu": look for "Background Hum Level".

See VB3 Manual at page 9.

 

Thanks - just something I happen to hear while figuring out the split configuration. I'm not using VB3 these days but good to know. That might change with VB3 II especially if someone would detail step by step how to map the faders of an XK-3C for controlling it.

[Baldwin Funster]

Sounds like ......rosebud......