How Do We Enable Things Like These Via MIDI Events (CC)

kellyfranklincraven · 2023-12-21T02:29:03+00:00

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Kontakt 7 VST3i. Windows 11. Reaper.

Things like drones in many of the India Instruments have patterns that are enabled when the transport starts playing and stop with the transport. Yet, some like the Asian Ensemble Koto have patterns that will play indefinitely, with no transport trigger. These play all the time (once enabled) even when the transport in the DAW isn't running. (enabled by the arrow button)

Either way, there must be a way to turn these on and off via CC events, or some other trigger in MIDI tracks.

Just having these free playing all the time makes them almost useless. The solution seems to be to render to a WAV and not use this feature in the VST3i.

The is the Koto. It doesn't have the trigger that the India instruments do. It's either always on or always off.

THANKS!

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Accepted answers

Nicki_NI

You could do that with MIDI automation, simply right click the play button and select "Learn MIDI CC automation", then move your controller that sends out MIDI CC messages, e.g. a kob or a controller.

Or drag the MIDI CC directly onto the Play button from the left pane (see attached screenshot).

You can also use the separate Tanpura.nki, either for automating the Play button as described above, or to play the notes of the accompaniment pattern yourself, either Eb1, F#1, Ab1, Bb1 (the four strings of the instrument), or in the range of C2 to C5 for custom patterns.

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Milos

I would recommend experimenting with automation instead.

Much easier and much more flexible and creative.

Nicki_NI

What is it exactly that you want to archieve? In EAST ASIA, the phrases of the melodic instruments are triggered via MIDI notes, and all phrases can easily be dragged from the instrument's GUI into a sequencer.

Syncing playback to the DAW's transport is useful for percussion instruments (if wanted), but due to several technical reasons it is not feasible for melodic instruments. Tempo sync of course is available for both instrument types.

kellyfranklincraven

Thanks for the help. These are all new to me, and I'm still learning about them, and that includes the differences between instruments, and with that, learning the proper terms for things.

I think the goal is to be able to activate/deactivate background sounds, such as the drone in the India Sitar. dynamically. This is not triggering the patterns via note events.

There is a drone that can be activated by clicking the arrow (as seen in the East Asia Koto image posted) or by selecting the Trigger, Host and Off. The host setting starts the drone immediately when the DAW transport starts and continues until the transport stops (there are rendering issues with this method). Likewise, manually clicking the arrow enables the drone immediately, regardless of DAW playback (it just continues until the arrow is clicked again - this is also not very useful in a DAW when it's time to render the song).

I want to be able to enable and disable the Sitar drone via MIDI Events.

This IS different than the Koto. The Koto does not have the Trigger, Host/Off setting nor a drone. It uses MIDI Key events only, as pointed out by Nicki. This was my mistake (and why I used the Koto image). I had clicked the arrow to instigate the pattern, whatever pattern was selected by default, and it seemed to be acting like the Sitar Drone to this newbie. Of course, it wasn't. For the Koto, using the keys for patterns is what I want to do and it works perfectly that way (now that I know the difference).

As for the Sitar, there are no keys that call up Drone patterns (whatever patterns a drone may use). The drone is a different thing and is usually not in sync with the tempo and does continue throughout. The issue is that I don't want this tied to the DAW transport, but to a MIDI event, whatever that event or those events may be. This is something I haven't figured out yet. (I can render a drone wav and use that, but that defeats the purpose of being able to dynamically do this in the MIDI track.)

I'm totally ignorant of automation in the Kontakt. If this is something that can be done via automation how is that accomplished? I am totally new and don't even know where automation is yet. (in the manual I assume....I have some reading to do). Any quick pointers are still welcome.

Sorry for confusing the way the Koto works with the Sitar.

Nicki_NI

Or drag the MIDI CC directly onto the Play button from the left pane (see attached screenshot).

kellyfranklincraven

Thanks!!! This is exactly what I needed. This is what I was looking for.

As with all new things, there's a learning curve. A little help up the first step (or more along the way) goes a long way.

I'm good (doesn't mean my music is good).

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