Midi Control

[Lister Coleman]

Hi, this is probably very basic knowledge to most of you I am sure, but how do I assign MIDI controller messages (?) to a MIDI track after recording a pass?

I hope I am asking something that is even possible. Sorry, I have very limited MIDI knowledge.

In other words, if I have just recorded a MIDI track say of a cello, using a MIDI guitarcontroller or a keyboard, and I used my footpedal to sustain a single note over a couple bars. Now I want to add a little vibrato and perhaps even something to suggest the bowing action, something to make it sound more realistic. Is it possible to add this information after the fact?

I am using Pro Tools LE as my DAW platform and while I have Sibelius 5, GPO ,JABB and KP2.... I am interested in knowing how to do this mainly as standalone. For example if I was live tracking a cello part on an acoustic guitar song and was looking for some realism in the cello sound/performance.

Any help will be appreciated. As I said I have limited experience so anything will be taken in with much enthusiasm.

[chesterdesmond]

If you are doing it after the fact, you'll have to find the place in the track (in PT) to draw in controller info; usually it's a pane that shows up below the midi track and has a box where you pick which controller you want to draw and then you draw in the info. The GPO manual has a list of controllers which are applicable to each instrument and their CC#, but the process (drawing in the DAW) is the basically the same for each.
Many of the instruments also have keyswitches to change which sample\articulation is played (ie pizzicato, trills etc) . Since these are actually switched by playing notes rather than controllers, you would draw in notes for these.
Also keep in mind that in GPO, Sustain is used to play legato notes not to actually sustain, so if you recorded a sustain pedal press(as you mention) it will probably have recorded the midi message (viewable in the pane I mentioned above under "sustain") but it won't actually do what you may be expecting.
I apologize if this is unclear, it is kind of difficult to explain from scratch, but once you locate the controller drawing area in PT, it will hopefully make more sense. This (old) page has some info and pics about the area I am talking about.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/protoolsnotes.htm

[Hannes_F]

I don't know about PT but in all sequencers that I know it is possible to simply arm the track in question for recording and then record midi cc information additionally to the already recorded notes.

Maybe you have to activate "mix midi" or something similar in contrast to "overwrite midi" which would erase the notes record.

[reberclark]

In SONAR one can record additional information on the same track in multiple passes. In the past (especially while getting used to the Garritan interface) I have recorded the notes and their velocities. Then I have gone back and recorded the Mod Wheel info, then the pedal info. Seems to work for me. I would guess most sequencers can do this.

[Lister Coleman]

Hi and thanks so much for the info so far. Sorry it has taken me a while to get back here, I am recovering from spinal fusion surgery.

Ok well I guess I will fire up PT and try this out. Interesting about the "sustain" maybe going down as some other controller message.

I really appreciate this and I will study the info and link posted and refer to the GPO manual for a list of the controller #'s and see if I can tie it all together.

Thanks. Anything else that might come to mind....feel free to jot it down.

Much appreciated.