New User Needs Help Please

[jazmaan]

Hello,

I am brand new to GPO and have some basic questions. (I've read the manual already.)

1. I have a Korg Triton as my controller. It's "mod wheel" is actually a joystick that spring-returns to the center position. What do other Triton owners do about this?

2. I use Cubase as my sequencer. Is it possible to take a pre-existing midi track, assign it to a GPO instrument and "play in" the articulations without otherwise changing the track? I tried but my use of the Mod Wheel and Pedal didn't seem to get recorded.

3. I tried loading in a pre-existing Cubase midi, assigning different instances of the GPO Vsti to different tracks. But when I tried to play back the midi, I couldn't hear the GPO instruments until I switched them all to Midi Channel #1. What am I doing wrong?

Thank You!

[deadbeat]

hmmm...
I'm new to GPO and in the same boat, getting my old pieces into GPO.
In the Cubase SX family, you certainly can 'play in' mod wheel data. Just select the track and record. I've done it and it works fine. Also you can draw mod data in the controller lane (and sustain data etc)

I'm not sure about the midi channel thing. My head hurts when I think about VST channels versus midi channels. I'm not even sure what a midi channel is! But I think the first instrument on a multi is on channel 1, the second on 2 etc. So you can set up your midi tracks in cubase to play whichever instrument you want. You can send each instrumet to a separate VST channel too.

[KevinKauai]

Hi, jazmaan!

I use a Korg Triton Studio as my only MIDI controller and wasn't aware that other "mod wheels" are not spring loaded. We've had a few discussions here about adding other (out-board) hardware as alternate mod wheel devices, as well as at least one candidate foot controller than might be suitable for "key switching" but no one has yet taken the plunge and done it (that I know of, at least).

I've resigned myself to using the spring-loaded mod wheel with the left hand and playing the single solo line with the right. If it's a French Horn section, for example, I can usually get two or three notes with the right hand. I have also occasionally resorted to "cheating" and pasting in notes from other lines after the fact.

I also use Cubase SX (2) but have not yet found a way to "merge in" articulations as you describe in your second point. I just found an intriguing hint -- page 68 -- that says "If Rec Mode is set to 'Merge', the overdubbed events are added to the existing part." That would seem to lead you in the direction you were guessing about. This would SEEM to be what you (and I) might be looking for; however, my early experimentation is less than completely satisfactory: firstly, when i record a line without ANY mod wheel usage, I'm getting the "default" setting (which in most cases is pretty quiet); second, applying the mod wheel information looks to be a "once only" trip -- it is not clear how you would do a second "take" and use those mod wheel articulations in place of what you just "merged in". I think I'm going to bother Steinberg's support center with a call on this tomorrow and see if one of those folks has a suggestion. Stay tuned.

I don't know what might be the culprit regard your third point. MIDI channels and VSTi's are fairly straightforward and I have no problem with using any of the eight MIDI channels on each instance of GPO and never have to resort to what you are describing. It *may* be that you have a semi-hidden control message in the MIDI that you are bringing in that is telling it to switch to a channel and/or device that is other than what you think it is. I would inspect the detailed MIDI stuff in the Cubase SX MIDI editor and see what is there.

i hope this helps ... KevinKauai :)

[mrreno]

Hi Jazzman, I'm new also and had a simular question about my Roland a-30. It too has a joystick type mod wheel. For me my answer came from Robinsegg who suggested that I take and reassign my volume slider to be a modulation slider. That is working great for me. Only problem is that I don't know how you would do it on your particular keyboard. If you can I think you will find that it works great. Anybody out there know how to reassign sliders with a Triton keyboard? Good luck

[Aziraphal]

I'm using Korg Trinity's "Value" slider for mod data. You can remap the slider's CC message (I think it's 18) to Mod (1) with Midi / Setup dialog in Cubase VST 5.1 (prolly something similar in Cubase SX)

(who invented the silly spring loaded joystick anyway??? &%%$!!!)

Another trick would be using an expression pedal (a technique popular with many MIDI orchestration masters). That could be assigned to send MOD data in Triton itself - check the manual

2) If you can record notes, you can record other controller data, unless it's filtered out (MIDI / Filtering / Control Change checkbox in Cubase VST5.1)

3) hard to say where the glitch is without being there :) are tracks' outputs set to correct MIDI channels, and have "GPO" set as MIDI output? Are the receive channels in GPO set to different values (1, 2, ... 8)? play around a bit until it works
Cheers Matt

[jazmaan]

Hi everybody, thanks for all the friendly hellos! I'm pleased to report that I was able to solve all my problems before even checking back here to read these answers.

1. Regarding the Korg Triton, I read the Triton manual and easily assigned the Mod Wheel control to Assignable Knob #1. Now I can just twist the knob and it stays where I put it. Alternatively, you can use SW 2 (switch #2) right above the joystick, which is already preset on most patches to lock the stick mod wherever you leave it.

2. I don't know what I was doing wrong before, but yes I am now able to overdub mod and pedal changes.

3. I'm still having a little bit of trouble with midi channels, but I was able to get 8 different instruments into 8 different midi channels by loading all 8 instruments into 1 VSTi instance of GPO. Still having trouble though trying to get a 2nd instance of GPO to work with midi channels 9-16.

Considering I've only had the program for 24 hours, I guess I'm not doing too bad!

[KevinKauai]

Jazmaan, I must not have been fully awake before.

The other alternative to using two hands to play is two-fold:

[1] First, use the convenient "mod wheel" on the particular instrument in the GPO Kontakt player to set a reasonable "default" volume while you are playing the original line (so that you can hear the part decently, albeit without the full expression that you later want for it).

[2] Second, open the part in the "key editor" and make sure that you have a "Modulation" control track (which I usually use in combination with the "Velocity" track). Now you can "paint" your expression using the paintbrush tool as you hear the playback. (You can also go back and tweak velocities as well.)

i hope this helps ... KevinKauai

[deadbeat]

JM,
It's good you've got the mod wheel worked out.
About midi channels, I just use channels again 1-8 for the second and subsequent instances. There only are 16 midi channels, so you'd have to double up anyway if you want to run more than 2 instances. I can't think of any paticular benefit in assigning a second instance to channels 9-16 though, even if I knew how to do it.
Of course each instrument has it's own VST channel, so you can adjust pan, level and effects separately.
Is that what you mean?

[jazmaan]

JM,
It's good you've got the mod wheel worked out.
About midi channels, I just use channels again 1-8 for the second and subsequent instances. There only are 16 midi channels, so you'd have to double up anyway if you want to run more than 2 instances. I can't think of any paticular benefit in assigning a second instance to channels 9-16 though, even if I knew how to do it.
Of course each instrument has it's own VST channel, so you can adjust pan, level and effects separately.
Is that what you mean?

But here's the problem, correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe that pitch bend on one Cubase track will also affect every other Cubase track using that same midi channel. And I wouldn't be surprised if other mod changes do the same thing. So in order to avoid that kind of crossover, isn't it best to use as many different midi channels as possible?

[Joseph Burrell]

That would be the case but each instance of the VST has 16 channels. Each VST instrument is considered seperately in Cubase. You may have GPO VST 1, GPO VST 2, etc. Each one has 16 channels.

[jazmaan]

That would be the case but each instance of the VST has 16 channels. Each VST instrument is considered seperately in Cubase. You may have GPO VST 1, GPO VST 2, etc. Each one has 16 channels.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Now here's another question. When I pull up the Cubase mixer, I can see the levels moving for each of the GPO instruments, but the volume and panning controls in the mixer for the different instruments don't seem to have any effect. Only the Master channel controls seem to have any effect. What's up with that? How do I pan individual instruments?

[deadbeat]

I'm not sure I can think of how that could happen. Are you definitely looking at the VST channels (not the Midi channels) in the mixer?

[Joseph Burrell]

Firstly, I should have said 8, each VST instrument can be assigned midi channels 1-8. However you can assign them 16 different audio ouput channels. This is where I think you are running into issues. Each slot in GPO defaults to 'audio' output channels 1&2 (the stereo pair.) You can change this to any other pair of your choosing. If you want to see each output in the mixer in Cubase you need to change each instruments output to a different stereo pair. Also, for each VST instance of GPO, you will have another 16 available outputs that are different from the others, so you'd have VST 2's outputs in the mixer as well for a grand total of 128 different available mixing channels if you had 16 instances loaded with 8 instruments assigned to a different stereo output. Also, there is no need to pan the instruments, they are pre-panned based on orchestral seating. If you'd like to, I recommend panning them in the VST instrument and not in the mixer.

[jazmaan]

Yes I was looking at the midi channels outputs in the mixer. I guess once those get assigned to VST instruments the mixer controls for the midi channels don't do much of anything anymore even though I can still see the VU meters bouncing up and down for the midi tracks.

With one instance of GPO loaded I can also see a stereo pair audio channel for VSTi where I can can pan the whole orchestra or control the volume of the whole orchestra. What I wanted to do was control the volume of individual instruments from the Cubase Mixer, but I guess I'd need to have a separate instance of GPO/Kontakt for each instrument to do that.

[KevinKauai]

Jazmaan - -

We both have Cubase SX 2 and GPO, so I'm confused as to why you aren't seeing what I am.

(Deep breath.) First, you pick your instruments for your GPO Kontakt. As you do that you have a chance to select the MIDI channel and the "KP" output channels that the instrument will go to. That choice is made to the right of where you pick the MIDI channel (I wish we were able to post simple graphics here!) and reads "1/2", "2/3", etc., to correspond to the 8 channels that each instance has. The choice there determines where it will show up in your Cubase SX mixer strip, correspondingly labelled "KPIPO. 1/2", "KPIPO 3/4", etc. Note that additional instances of the Kontakt Player will show up as "KPIPO. 1/2 (x)" -- where x will be 2 or more. (By the way, I noted the earlier discussion about MIDI channels and whether you needed more than 8. As some astute person pointed out, you get eight MIDI channels for each instance of the Kontakt Player. You can use these as if they were 8 MIDI channel to a completely separate instrument -- there is, as far as I know, no confusion about a pitch bend for channel 2 of instance 3 being confusingly applied to channel 2 of instance 5.)

Regarding pans and volume: In the beginning, I wanted the Cubase SX mixer to be the final arbiter of pan and volume, but recently, I've taken the approach of letting the Volume and Pan controls in the Kontakt Player be the "initial setting". It happens that Garritan has positioned most of the instruments in their "traditional" positions, so unless you need to override them, taking the "Pan" default puts them in the right place as long as you leave the corresponding mixer channel in the center. Similarly, if I need more or less volume (overall) from a particular instrument, I adjust the "Volume" knob in the Kontakt player. Now down the road, in the final mixing process, if I need real-time (automated) tweaks here and there, I use the Write and Read features of Cubase to accomplish this. Similarly, if you really needed to actively pan a flute, for example, during the course of a piece, I would position the Kontakt Player Pan to center and do all of the panning with the Cubase SX automation.

I think the key thing you may have missed is the positioning of the instruments into separate KPIPO channels in the Kontakt Player settings.

i hope this helps ... KevinKauai :)

[jazmaan]

Jazmaan - -

I think the key thing you may have missed is the positioning of the instruments into separate KPIPO channels in the Kontakt Player settings.

i hope this helps ... KevinKauai :)

Yes indeed that was my problem. Thank you.

Now here's a couple of NEW questions? :o

1. I read the Cubasis tutorial and it outlined a whole 'nother way of using GPO without using VSTi's at all. Is there any advanatage to going that route instead of using VSTi's like I've been doing?

2. I have GP0 version 1.11. Is that the latest version? I went to the update page and it didn't show a version number for the GPO update there.