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I’m trying to use the microwave xt panel which works fine as a standalone app but not in vst form for some reason within Ableton.. Does anyone else use ctrlr successfully with this DAW? Is there anything I have to change configwise?
I will get back to you soon on this. I had it working for a while then it quit. I will be getting it working again soon though I hope.
Stoner
Live has a very unstable midi system. Add external hardware in the mix and you’re set for trouble.
I had noticed this before when i used my rs7000 as master and Live as slave, the Live set’s tempo wobbled around what it was supposed to be.
Also it does not support sysex so if the panel you are using needs sysex communication you need to do some midiyoke/maple midi routing.
I still love live as a sequencer for audio and simple midi, but for “serious” midi editing for multiple outboard stuff i use Reaper.
For example the panel i am working on works great in Reaper, but Ableton refuses to play ball…
Maybe the new version has improved midi? Sure hope so…
Also it does not support sysex so if the panel you are using…
You have got to be kidding me. that’s a pretty big strike against ableton. Good thing for ctrlr users to be aware of.read below, das and Llamatron’s comments. Live automates the knobs via vst index, and ctrlr handles all the message sending/receiving, so live doesn’t really need to know about sysex at all apparently.
noisemonkey – More than 3/4 of that microwave XT monstrumWave panel is sysex stuff, all of the dumps are sysex, wavetables, waveforms, even programs,
rendering the microwave synths pretty useless in live unless you want to just use it to automate filter or fm modulation sweeps…-
This reply was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by
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This reply was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by .
Monstrum Media | Music, Sound & Software Design, Chicago / San Francisco listen
And if you are going to use CCs only just use normal Ableton automation stuff, don’t load plugins to do that. I use MBase01 for my kicks in FLStudio but since it has only 8 parameters and all are CCs i’m not going to load a Ctrlr panel for it, that’s just inefficient.
You can use Ctrlr in Live if you use virtual midi like midi yoke or Maple, sending the midi out of Live & into Ctrlr using one of those, and make sure the midi-device your microwave uses is disabled in Live’s preferences.
This way you can still tweak the controls, but then there is still the crappy midi timing of Live, making the whole setup near useless…
Another option is to Rewire live in some other daw that is more reliable, and put the Ctrlr plugin there. But then again this limits Live’s capabilities, and personally i don’t like this “schizophrenic” workflow, too confusing once your project gets large.
On a side note, i sure am curious about this Bitwig thing, the makers are former Ableton programmers and claim they are making the “better” take on Live. Let’s hope they get their midi system right.
In fact there’s no need to use virtual ports. Once the port of the synth is disabled in Live you control the synth with the panel, and all sysex goes thru Ctrlr.
You can even receive midi from other Live tracks.
Damn, that means i’ve been doing the virtual midi cable merry-go-round for no good reason at all in my daw testing, making things needlessy more complex…
Silly me!Going to try again tomorrow with Live & Reaper without virtual midi, thanks for the info das 🙂
Das, just for clarification is the sysex going through ctrlr automatable in ableton live? I agree it would be brilliant if bitwig were to swing the big midi doors open a little wider than ableton went.
Monstrum Media | Music, Sound & Software Design, Chicago / San Francisco listen
cheers for the info guys, I’m going to post this as a feature request in the Ableton forum. I probably wouldn’t have just bought the upgrade for Live if I had known this.
My method for ctrlr in Live:
– Disable the midi ports of the machine you want to control in Live
– Put Ctrlr on a Midi track, load your panel. Be sure to select the output and “Thru from host to device” in Panel settings
– Put an external audio effect after Ctrlr in the track’s chain, select no output for Audio To, and your sound card’s channel receiving the synth’s output in Audio From
There you go, you can automate your instrument regardless of them being CC or Sysex, they might not show up immediatly, in this case click the small triangle on Ctrlr’s “object” in the track’s chain, click configure and move the controls you want to automate in the panel to see them appear here.
You can also use the External audio effect’s latency compensation to fix any latency.
To avoid doing all that every time you want to use Ctrlr you can drag’n’drop the track in Live’s file system browser to save it, it might crash Live when you do that (it does for me), but you can load it after.
If you also enable snapshot on load there almost won’t be any difference between a VST instrument and your synth, only the fact it needs midi and audio set properly to work.
I agree with Llamatron, his explanation is perfect.
No matter if it’s a CC, Sysex, NRPN or whatever message, each modulator is a vst parameter automatable in Live.
Thanks Llamatron, i tried again this afternoon without virtual midi stuff and it works as it should 🙂
kudos, llamatron and dasfaker. thanks a ton for clarifying this. Many users ask about this.
Monstrum Media | Music, Sound & Software Design, Chicago / San Francisco listen
My method for ctrlr in Live: – Disable the midi ports of the machine you want to control in Live – Put Ctrlr on a Midi track, load your panel. Be sure to select the output and “Thru from host to device” in Panel settings – Put an external audio effect after Ctrlr in the track’s chain, select no output for Audio To, and your sound card’s channel receiving the synth’s output in Audio From There you go, you can automate your instrument regardless of them being CC or Sysex, they might not show up immediatly, in this case click the small triangle on Ctrlr’s “object” in the track’s chain, click configure and move the controls you want to automate in the panel to see them appear here. You can also use the External audio effect’s latency compensation to fix any latency. To avoid doing all that every time you want to use Ctrlr you can drag’n’drop the track in Live’s file system browser to save it, it might crash Live when you do that (it does for me), but you can load it after. If you also enable snapshot on load there almost won’t be any difference between a VST instrument and your synth, only the fact it needs midi and audio set properly to work.
This reply was modified 1 day, 19 hours ago by Llamatron.
This reply was modified 1 day, 19 hours ago by Llamatron.
This reply was modified 1 day, 19 hours ago by Llamatron.so just to clarify, in Ableton midi settings you turn off monitor and tracking?I wasn’t sure what you meant regarding the audio effect/ inputs/outputs
so just to clarify, in Ableton midi settings you turn off monitor and tracking?I wasn’t sure what you meant regarding the audio effect/ inputs/outputs
For the midi ports go to menu Options->Preferences->Midi Sync, and in there put everything on the port(s) connected to your synth to “off”, so Live doesn’t get in the way of Ctrlr when it connects to them.
The external audio effect trick is if you have your synth plugged to your sound card and want to have the audio coming from the synth inside Live, and on the same track you control it from. Live allows to use external hardware effects with an effect called External Audio Effect (in the Audio Effects section of Live’s own plugins, not the VSTs), who will send audio it receives from its track to an effect and receive the modified sound. What’s usefull for us is that it will always receive any audio it receives and send it into the track, so we don’t send anything, but receive the synth’s sound. It’s not what it was designed for but it works.
One thing I’m not sure tho is if the External Audio Effect is included in all Live’s versions, I own Live Suite 8 so I got it but it might not be available for you if you use another version.
Don’t hesitate if you got any other question or unclear stuff in what I wrote, also I have a french version of Live so some words in settings might differ on your version.
so I can automate effects but not actually send note data from Ableton though?
you can automate your instrument regardless of them being CC or Sysex, they might not show up immediatly, in this case click the small triangle on Ctrlr’s “object” in the track’s chain, click configure and move the controls you want to automate in the panel to see them appear here.
I tried this with the Samichsid vst, but moving any controllers in the vst does not add any in the automation panel. The vst is controlling the synth, so that part seems to be working OK, only not sure how to automate.
Anyone any idea what Im doing wrong ?
Thanks!
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This reply was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by
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