Am I retarded?
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Due to a customer question, I was poking around Logic today trying to figure out how to send MIDI to an insert. (Basically, the dude wants to use the midi-to-pitch feature of Discord 2 in Logic 7.) Back in the bad old VST days of Logic 5, in order to facilitate this sort of thing, you would put the MIDI-aware effect as the input on an instrument track, and send audio from the appropriate audio track to its sidechain input.
I was thinking that CAN’T POSSIBLY still be the case, what with the Magic Of AudioUnits and Thinking Differently and all that type of stuff. Can it? Is there still no way to send MIDI to an insert in Logic? Or am I, in actual fact, retarded?
12 comments
that's been one of my long standing frustrations with logic. i've been waiting for 8 years and counting...
Midi to plugins would still be hyperdata, or 4.x style control of parameters. So until they decide to dump that functionality (which is replaced with TBA anyway) sending normal midi data conflicts with this.
Long story short, I'm not retarded. That's a relief.
-CR
The retardedness of Logic is reassuring in that sense, isn't it?
And then, to make matters worse, you can't directly route an instrument object into the sidechain, you have to go through a bus first. And then, you can't freeze the bus and aux objects (yes, I am aware of the difficulties involved, and could offer a solution) so then, if you work like I do, you end up using up all your CPU time processing buses and the like. So then you have to bounce things to disk. But, to do that you have to go through and change the mix so that whatever is coming out the desired output is what you want to bounce. etc. etc.
I like a lot of things about Logic, but there are some areas that seem a bit retarded.
Let's not even get in to the massive issues you're going to have with plugin latency in the above scenario.
-CR
When I start mixing at that level of complexity I really don't mind bouncing. I always just see it as resampling or mixing to stems (depending on what I do with it after) and I really find it liberating not to have so many controls in the current signal chain to tempt me into tweaking madness.
I never cease being amazed by the seemingly basic functionality that still gets left out of some of these "mature" DAWs (sidechaining anyone?).
The is definitely a way to send MIDI to inserts in Logic. I do it all the time as I have my Doepfer R2Ms hooked up to control things such as Tape Delay etc...
I'm not in front of it right now so I don't remember the details but I'll respond in case this is a time sensitive thing. You seem pretty able to figure things out.
Create a MIDI Track
In the Environment route that to your audio track
Open up you FX plugin and change the mode to get rid of the graphics (I think it's called edit mode)
Now this is where I get a bit foggy working from memory.
There are channel numbers which select what you're sending your MIDI signals too. The default will send your signal to the fade, pan etc.... Add one and you'll be on the first insert. After that, you can change the Program (?) number to choose which slider/dial/pot you want to move. The number of the pot is related to its place in the edit mode. The one on top is 0, the one below is 1 etc...
I'll look at my environment and write something more sensical later. I haven't looked at the layout in months. I just thought I'd give you a head start.
Most things in Logic can be done if you know the environment.
Schmüdde
Yeah, but that doesn't work for what we're talking about. All it does is turn MIDI CC data in to whatever Logic uses for telling plugins a hardware controller is running the show.
The MIDI data is hijacked, in other words. To wit: if I make an instrument and send its output to the audio channel's input, the reverb and chorus knobs on the channel drive Discord 2's delay mod amt left and delay time right knobs respectively. This is interesting because there is NO CODE WHATSOEVER in the AU version of Discord to parse MIDI CC data. The only MIDI data that the AU version of Discord understands and uses is MIDI note data for the shifters.
-CR
Exactly. That is hyperdata, or more correctly the subset of hyperdata known as Object Based Automation (OBA). Viewing the plugin in 'edit' mode instead of the gui just shows you what values are assigned to each parameter **by Logic** (not in the plugin itself as Chris makes clear above). The audio object itself is channel 1 (CC7=vol and so on) and then each insert is an additional channel.
Try sending a note value to that plugin, and you'll discover why there are people here complaining.
Personally there are times when I find Hyperdata/OBA useful although rarely with plugins since you can quite easily convert between OBA & TBA (Logic's vst style automation) using a transformer or a fader object. Imo the easiest thing for ApplEmagic to do would be to add an extra parameter in the object properties that would enable/disable OBA for that audio object. Disabling by default would probably even be the best choice so that newer users don't have to complain about digging to find it.
Ahhh, thanks for clarifying that you just wanted MIDI data-as-is to go to your insert. The first thing I thought of when Chris responded was to use a transformer but I understand what you guys are after now.
I do wish the environment were more robust. There are so many little things (like the difficulty of sending a note-on without an immediate note-off). It a shame to have such incredible possibility in a DAW and have it so limited. I'm worried that the next incarnation of Logic might even remove it all together.
Apple seems to dislike anything with a flow chart style layout. It took forever to get into DVD Studio Pro after we last it in their ye olde Media Tool.
Schmüdde
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