What can a Midi track do that an Instrument track can't?

[GOOOTOOO]

I don't understand why midi tracks are kept around as an option. It seems like everything they do can be done with a Instrument track, plus more.

[massivekerry]

Originally Posted by GOOOTOOO

I don't understand why midi tracks are kept around as an option. It seems like everything they do can be done with a Instrument track, plus more.

You trolling?

Some people still use Outboard Gear. Sometimes you only want a MIDI track to feed data to plugin that follows pitch or CCs (like VocalSynth, Auto-Tune, etc) and for folks like me, who have hundreds and hundreds of Instruments loaded in a server like Vienna Ensemble Pro, it's just better and more stable to have Pro Tools only sending MIDI to all of those tracks, instead of adding the load of hosting those instruments being put on the CPU.

[GOOOTOOO]

This is definitely just because I'm a noob but could you elaborate on a few of these examples?

Sometimes you only want a MIDI track to feed data to plugin that follows pitch or CCs (like VocalSynth, Auto-Tune, etc)

I don't understand what you mean by this. For example with autotune, are you saying you would use some aspect of midi data to control the automation of autotune being applied to an audio track?

have hundreds and hundreds of Instruments loaded in a server like Vienna Ensemble Pro, it's just better and more stable to have Pro Tools only sending MIDI to all of those tracks, instead of adding the load of hosting those instruments being put on the CPU.

So you have a server full of VSTs, and it is easier to send midi out to the server and then back into pro tools, then to just have the VSTs in pro tools?

[massivekerry]

Originally Posted by GOOOTOOO

This is definitely just because I'm a noob but could you elaborate on a few of these examples?



I don't understand what you mean by this. For example with autotune, are you saying you would use some aspect of midi data to control the automation of autotune being applied to an audio track?

All good.

Here's a video showing how to use a MIDI Track to set pitch and harmonies in VocalSynth 2.
https://youtu.be/WCaIlGXikjw

You can do similar things with AutoTune. Also Stutter Edit is placed on an Audio, Aux or Master Tracks, but you trigger the different scenes via MIDI, so it's nice to have a MIDI Track assigned to that.

Originally Posted by GOOOTOOO

So you have a server full of VSTs, and it is easier to send midi out to the server and then back into pro tools, then to just have the VSTs in pro tools?

Yes, exactly. If you start loading up instances of big orchestral sample libraries in Pro Tools, you'll notice it dragging pretty hard after more than a handful. It's more CPU-efficient to have them hosted outside of the DAW, with multi-timbral instances being "played" by MIDI tracks, with the audio returning via Instrument or Aux tracks.

Here's an example using Pro Tools:
https://youtu.be/yd5ChozAys4

and here's a good explanation of how/why you'd want to do that in any DAW if you're doing this kind of work.
https://youtu.be/bB1twfL5b28

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by GOOOTOOO

I don't understand why midi tracks are kept around as an option. It seems like everything they do can be done with a Instrument track, plus more.

I work with instrument tracks 95% of the time, but sometimes midi tracks come in handy. Mostly for older VI's that are multitimbral, but don't have separate outputs.

[GOOOTOOO]

@massivekerry

Thank you those videos were very helpful for understanding. Do you do composition in pro tools for film or anything? If so, I was wondering how you got into that.

[jeffro]

It can also give you easier access and control to work on parts (on separate MIDI tracks) that are triggering one VI (on an Aux track), especially if the parts/notes overlap ranges.

[bashville]

I also like seeing all the instrument setup information without losing that extra column of right-left space. If I use a midi track to control an instrument in an aux, it creates an extra track, but for some reason that bothers me less than losing the horizontal space in the edit window.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by jeffro

It can also give you easier access and control to work on parts (on separate MIDI tracks) that are triggering one VI (on an Aux track), especially if the parts/notes overlap ranges.

+1

[Eric Lambert]

I very often feed multiple MIDI tracks into a single VI, using different MIDI channels of that VI. Instrument tracks don't allow that.