Native Instruments / PT 8 Leopard compatibility with midi and instument tracks

[tunespin]

topics:

-using battery with instrument and midi tracks
-using kontakt with instrument and midi tracks

sorry for the rather long read - and please add any helpful tips to this thread.


1.using battery with instrument and midi tracks

observations:

a) when using an instrument track as a parent and midi tracks as children of that parent I have encountered 100% reproducible flakiness in regards to the midi track's fader and how that affects the master level meter in the actual battery plug in G.U.I.
b) when using several midi tracks to control several cells in battery, the use of an individual midi track's fader affects all other cells midi channels as well.

to repro: open up the battery plug in on an instrument track, load up a battery kit. assign kick to channel 1, snare to channel 2 and hats to channel 3.
next add a few midi tracks and assign the output of them to the instrument track with battery on it battery (channels) 1,2,3 kik, snare, hats.
create a beat on the instrument channel.
split/demix the midi region to separate regions via cut/new track by note pitch. now your drum loop will be split into as many individual regions as you used notes on the piano roll.
now take the newly created midi regions and put them on your midi channels.
-kick midi region on kick midi track with output set to battery channel
-snare midi region on snare midi track with output set to battery
-hats midi region on hats midi track with output set to battery

now change the fader position on any of the midi tracks and voila - SOMEHOW, you've recorded automation to battery's master volume. no matter how many times you try to change battery's master volume after making an adjustment to ANY midi track assigned to that battery intrument track, you will not be able to change battery's master volume. ok- perhaps temporarily, but as soon as you hit return and go to the start of the pattern, battery's master out will revert to the attenuated volume (whatever that may be...seems random but possibly related to the midi volume data 0-127)

Next battery issue.

Say you have your kik, snare and hats routed to battery and everything is hunky dory. bring down the volume on any one fader to adjust the level of say the kik - all of a sudden you've affected the level on all midi tracks assigned to battery! WHY???

In logic for instance, you can have assign multiple tracks to one instrument and then change the level of the individual track without affecting all tracks assigned to the instrument.

Next issue regarding midi tracks assigned to battery.

why does pro tools record the midi info from each individual channel and duplicate the same info to all regions?
e.g assign the following:

kick midi track with output set to battery channel 1
snare midi track with output set to battery 2
hats midi track with output set to battery 3

play your kick/snare pattern

notice that both the kick and snare midi info are both being recorded to both tracks?

kick and snare on the kick midi track
kick and snare on the snare midi track.

but they are assigned to two separate midi channels!!! how can it possibly do this??? (kick to midi channel 1, snare to midi channel 2)

sorry this was soooo effin long and so difficult to explain. but it was a long time coming.

KONTAKT on the other hand works properly using the same conventions (midi channel 1 would not affect any other midi channel)
- EXCEPT - tweaking the midi fader can also have unexpected results on the kontakt patch's instrument's master output volume.

basically I want t0o mix levels of instruments and midi tracks in pro tools without them having any affect on any other midi tracks faderand or instrument...just like you would do with audio.

I will try to repost this with more simplicity over the next little while. Apologies for the complex nature of the steps to repro.

summary: as it stands, from a composers point of view pro tools is still not there midi wise.
Some may say "well d'uh" but I say this. digi has very talented people developing this software with many composers and musicians amongst the team. I long for the day when I don't have to use Logic ANYMORE because "it's better for midi than pro tools". Oh how I long for that day....cos we all know logic is pretty much useless for editing audio.

[tunespin]

so does anyone want to explain how to properly use battery with an instrument track as a parent and midi tracks as children?

I want to be able to adjust (levels, solos, mutes, panning) of each individual midi track being sent to battery's instrument track without affecting any of the other midi tracks going to battery.

So far muting is the only adjustment that works on a per midi track basis when sending all midi tracks to battery.

logic and digital performer both do what I'm asking correctly.

basically I want control of each individual midi track being sent to battery.

this seems to work fine when using kontakt - aside from the flakey master output of kontakt being affected by riding a midi track's fader.

[yellowjacket]

In the Battery options, turn off 'Use CC7/CC10 Data on Master Volume/Pan".

[tunespin]

yellowjacket! are you serious???

how did you figure that out?

that is seriously awesome! I'll try that tomorrow :)

I owe you one indeed.

[yellowjacket]

That option causes the exact same problem in any other DAW. Not really sure why NI would've included that as an option, but alas, you have the fix for it.

[tunespin]

YellowJacket and others.

would you be able to explain how to achieve this with kontakt?

here is my example:

I an instrument channel in pro tools with kontakt loaded - and have two instruments loaded in kontakt (kontakt 3 in this case) cello on midi ch 1 and double bass on midi ch 2.
Below this I have two midi channels. I am sending midi track 1 one to midi channel 1 in kontakt and midi track 2 to midi channel 2 in kontakt.

when I move kontakt's volume slider on any ONE instrument it affects the volume on both instruments.

I really don't understand my it would function that way. What is the point of having multiple instruments with multiple volume sliders within kontakt if touching the volume on one instrument affects all the others?
This "might" make sense if I was using kontakt in midi omni mode but I'm not. So, this makes no sense to me.

thanks again,

Allan

[yellowjacket]

Here's how things work with your configuration:

Kontakt on Instrument 1
MIDI 1 -> Kontakt ch. 1
MIDI 2 -> Kontakt ch. 2

Adjusting the fader on MIDI 1 will adjust the volume of ch. 1 of Kontakt and adjusting the fader on MIDI 2 will adjust the volume of ch. 2. Pushing the MIDI fader all the way up will put the volume of your Kontakt channels at max level of -6.0dB.

The way that I would use Kontakt is to make instrument tracks for all of the different channels. So, in your example, I would have Kontakt inserted on Instrument 1, then I would create Instrument 2... set it's MIDI output to Kontakt ch. 2 and set the track input to an available output in Kontakt. That way, you can mix the levels in Pro Tools and not have to worry about them in Kontakt.

[pablo2]

Hey guys,
Here is a question. I have Kontakt set up exactly like you state above. I have 3 instruments set up in 1 instance of Kontakt. There are 3 MIDI faders associated with each instrument respectively. The second two MIDI tracks work great: when I pull down the fader, the volume for the corresponding sound goes down. However, with the first MIDI track, the MIDI fader does nothing. Do you have any idea why this would be?

Thanks for your help.