Writing a MIDI Plug-In

[Cro]

Hello,

I am keen to develop a tool to automate certain tasks that I do with MIDI in Pro Tools LE 7.3 (Windows).

Although the in-built tools are very good, I have some ideas I'd like to develop. For example, I'd to be able to create new MIDI tracks to accompany existing MIDI tracks - automatically.

My questions is:

Am I best using a SDK like jVSTWrapper http://jvstwrapper.sourceforge.net to acheive this? Or is there another tool / method I should be using?

Many thanks,
Cro

[at01music]

As far as I know, Digi's plug-in architecture doesn't support operations on MIDI data. A work-around would be to write your MIDI plug-in for an application that supports Rewire and can be synchronized with Pro Tools.

Hopefully as Digi improves MIDI support in Pro Tools they will add MIDI plug-in support - it would open up a lot of creativity as well as more efficient workflows. Then someday you would be able to host your plug-in on Pro Tools, too.

Allan

[Cro]

Thanks for the reply Allan. I will have to look into Rewire and will try and develop a solution that way.

Do any lightweight \ free Rewire applications come recommended?

Also, you said "As far as I know, Digi's plug-in architecture doesn't support operations on MIDI data". Is this documented somewhere? Or have you learnt this through experience?

Thanks,
Cro

[at01music]

Cro -

I looked into plug-in development about 6-7 years ago and had some specs that I can't find now... they may not have been for Pro Tools but look at the evidence - nobody has written plug-ins for MIDI on PT. You can join Digi's free dev partner program and have a look for yourself though: http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...78&itemid=4803

Lightweight program using Rewire: try Ableton Live Lite. Live Lite 4 has been bundled with Pro Tools LE & MP (not sure if it still is) and can be upgraded to the current Version 6 for free. Live adds an instrument plug-in using Rewire support for itself to Pro Tools when you install it. I don't know if Live supports plug-in manipulation of data on MIDI tracks... I'm really curious if it will - I'm interested in creating realtime harmony using synth voices without resorting to processing the audio.

Allan