External Instruments and One midi Controller help!

[KennaOkoye]

Okay I have a bunch of racks, and some old analog gear, however I have a Virus TI to control everything. I don't know how to properly set this up. I have midi ins from my racks gear going into my Motu midiexpress XT out. Then I have my virus ti going in and out into my XT, because I want to use the virus TI to control EVERYTHING. How do I do this correctly! I am very confused. Thanks

[flommer]

Originally Posted by KennaOkoye

I have midi ins from my racks gear going into my Motu midiexpress XT out.

Not sure exactly how you mean this, but you should have Midi outs on the XT connected to MIDI ins on your rack gear. You only need to send MIDI TO the external synths (in most cases)

Then the main difference is that you will want to "sever" the internal MIDI connection in the Virus that connects the actual keys to the sound module. I have no idea what terminology Access uses but I am mostly familiar with it being called "local control" and you will want to turn local control off. Now when you play the keys, it will only send MIDI to the MIDI output, it will not trigger the virus directly. the virus' synth will only respond to MIDI coming in from the MIDI inputs.

Next, you need a MIDI track ( or an instrument track ) for every synth, including the virus, that you want to trigger and record MIDI for. If your synth(s) is/are multi-timbral then you might need multiple midi tracks, one per MIDI-channel/patch (basic MIDI stuff)

Leave the MIDI input selectors set to any. Set the MIDI output selectors to the specific synths and channels that you intend to trigger.

MIDI Thru needs to be checked in the options menu. You don't say if you are on Mac or PC but having MIDI Studio set up with your named MIDI instruments makes choosing outputs and channels much easier..

You will also, presumably, need to add aux inputs (or instrument tracks) to monitor the synths or audio tracks to record the audio…

You select which synth you want to "play" by highlighting it's MIDI track, or by record-enabling a track you are ready to put down. There are some more specific options for how this works in the MIDI preferences..

That's the basic outline. If this is not making sense, then I suspect you are not very familiar with ProTools tracks and how they are used. In that case it is hard to know where to start..