Can't hear MIDI

[Virginia]

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this is a very basic inquiry but I'm new to Pro tools (and DAWs in general) and I'm still working things out...plus I'm a bit of a tech dinosaur

Sooo I'm trying to listen to a piece MIDI I just recorded, but with no success. I imagine I need to have a plug-in (e.g. xPand2) to select an instrument with which to play the MIDI, but there are no INSERTS in MIDI tracks...

Suggestions?
Many thanks!

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by Virginia

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this is a very basic inquiry but I'm new to Pro tools (and DAWs in general) and I'm still working things out...plus I'm a bit of a tech dinosaur

Sooo I'm trying to listen to a piece MIDI I just recorded, but with no success. I imagine I need to have a plug-in (e.g. xPand2) to select an instrument with which to play the MIDI, but there are no INSERTS in MIDI tracks...

Suggestions?
Many thanks!

You can simply create a aux track and inster the xpand plugin, select a preset and on the midi track the xpand will show up in its output selector.

That's how we did it in the old days, then PT came with instrument tracks, which essentially is a aux track with a midi part.

You could also just create a instrument track with a xpand, and simply drag your midi over to it.

[philgrab]

I try to keep it visually understandable.

One midi track
One Audio track with VST instantiated

Then you have to set up routing.

The output of the midi points to the VST
The input of the midi selects the keyboard already setup to use your midi interface in protools

The input of the VST is set to none
The output of the VST to whatever channel outputs for playback you choose.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by philgrab

I try to keep it visually understandable.

One midi track
One Audio track with VST instantiated

Then you have to set up routing.

The output of the midi points to the VST
The input of the midi selects the keyboard already setup to use your midi interface in protools

The input of the VST is set to none
The output of the VST to whatever channel outputs for playback you choose.

Sorry, this is just unhelpful.
There are no VSTs in Pro Tools.
The rest is just jibbersish.

[JFreak]

Hi, welcome to the community.

In the current versions you would create Instrument Track that can hold MIDI and Audio. For the oldskool way there are a lot of tutorials, but you don't necessarily want to go there if you can choose Instrument Track.

[mandal]

YouTube is your friend...search for instrument track

[Virginia]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

You can simply create a aux track and inster the xpand plugin, select a preset and on the midi track the xpand will show up in its output selector.

That's how we did it in the old days, then PT came with instrument tracks, which essentially is a aux track with a midi part.

You could also just create a instrument track with a xpand, and simply drag your midi over to it.

This worked! I dragged the MIDI to the instrument track and now I can hear it perfectly through XPand
Many thanks!

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by Virginia

This worked! I dragged the MIDI to the instrument track and now I can hear it perfectly through XPand
Many thanks!

Great,,,, yes the Advent of "Instrument" tracks simplified things a great deal

But just to clarify some of the other posts

There are 3 ways to use midi in Protools

#1 (the newer one track simple method ) create and "instrument track" put the VI on it, start recording (or playing if dragging in midi from elsewhere)
As others said an Instrument track includes a midi note field and also outputs audio

# 2 Create a Midi track (for the midi notes) and an Audio track to output the sound ,,, put the VI on the audio track and route accordingly

#3. For multi output VI Instruments ( like say 3 rd party drum VI's for one example )
Create an Instrument track put the VI on that,,, then create the appropriate number of Aux tracks (for the number of VI outputs) and route the specific individual outputs from the VI to the specific Aux tracks .
I can post a screen shot if you like

[philgrab]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

Sorry, this is just unhelpful.
There are no VSTs in Pro Tools.
The rest is just jibbersish.

Apology on the VST usage, although they do work in Protools with an adapter plugin however. Let's change that to Virtual instrument or VI.

The rest is an accurate routing description unless you are a novice in midi.

I personally don't like using instrument tracks. When the VI goes south i.e. stops working, they tend to be difficult to get working again. Each to his own.