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Old 04-04-2020, 05:45 AM
Michael Carnes's Avatar
Michael Carnes Michael Carnes is offline
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Default Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

Now that I don't make plugins any longer, I have some more time to go back to my first love of composing. I don't have the same focus as composers writing for film or TV, but I've learned a lot about efficient workflow from them. And one of those things is have a good template. Why build up a project from scratch when you can just load a template and use the parts you need?

I purchased a new Mac Pro 7,1 back at the end of 2019. I stuffed it with memory and fast PCI storage for VIs. So it's easily capable of doing what would have taken multiple machines before. But I've bumped into the 1024 MIDI track limitation and it won't take much longer to max out on the 512 instrument tracks as well. So even though my machine can handle it, I can't make the template I need. I'll still have to deal with a lot of track presets, loading only what I need, so that I can stay under the limit.

Seems like those track counts might simply be compile-time constants in PT code. But I've been programming long enough not to make such assumptions. I am curious if this limitation has begun effecting those of you doing music for picture. If it's not hitting you now, can you see it as a future issue?
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Old 04-04-2020, 06:05 AM
Sardi Sardi is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

Totally OT, but I thought when Izotope acquired Exponential Audio, that you were going to work for them. Is that not the case?

If so, that’s a real shame. Adore your reverbs.


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  #3  
Old 04-04-2020, 06:24 AM
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Michael Carnes Michael Carnes is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

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Originally Posted by Sardi View Post
Totally OT, but I thought when Izotope acquired Exponential Audio, that you were going to work for them. Is that not the case?

If so, that’s a real shame. Adore your reverbs.
I do work for them, but that's not going to be forever. I'm teaching what I know to a very able group of scientists and engineers and I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do. It's been a 40-year career in engineering for me and I do think that's about enough.
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Old 04-04-2020, 06:48 AM
Sardi Sardi is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

Hehehe... Fair enough.

Hopefully they keep up the solid foundation you’ve built with the reverbs. I’m a massive fan and user of Izotope products too.

Best of luck moving forward and sorry for the slight thread derail. Was just curious.


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  #5  
Old 04-04-2020, 08:32 AM
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massivekerry massivekerry is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Carnes View Post
Now that I don't make plugins any longer, I have some more time to go back to my first love of composing. I don't have the same focus as composers writing for film or TV, but I've learned a lot about efficient workflow from them. And one of those things is have a good template. Why build up a project from scratch when you can just load a template and use the parts you need?

I purchased a new Mac Pro 7,1 back at the end of 2019. I stuffed it with memory and fast PCI storage for VIs. So it's easily capable of doing what would have taken multiple machines before. But I've bumped into the 1024 MIDI track limitation and it won't take much longer to max out on the 512 instrument tracks as well. So even though my machine can handle it, I can't make the template I need. I'll still have to deal with a lot of track presets, loading only what I need, so that I can stay under the limit.

Seems like those track counts might simply be compile-time constants in PT code. But I've been programming long enough not to make such assumptions. I am curious if this limitation has begun effecting those of you doing music for picture. If it's not hitting you now, can you see it as a future issue?
It hasn’t been an issue for me, but since I’ve worked in Pro Tools for so long, I’ve learned to accept and find a way around it’s limitations. It’s not as flexible on the MIDI end as Cubase or Logic, but you can kinda get there eventually. Those of us who have been around awhile do know how to work with limits, right? I try to make sure that I don’t spread out articulations too much. I’ll have all of the String short articulations on one Instrument (nki anyway) for example, so that they can share one MIDI channel. That probably condenses what could be 4 channels down to 1.

But I agree, unlimited MIDI tracks would be a welcome addition for those of us doing that work.

And, congrats on the sale to iZotope. Phoenixverb and R2 have had good spots in my templates for years.
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Old 04-04-2020, 10:24 PM
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falcowe falcowe is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

I’ve had to make some concessions to make my template work, and I can certainly see the 1024 track limit becoming a problem in the future as I continue to expand my VI library. VEPro will never run out of expandability but there seem to be some annoying limits of ProTools that I will (or already have) run into first. Also on a related topic Mr. Cranes, have you tested Stratus/Symphony on 2020.3? Are 7.1.2 and 7.0.2 verbs working for you? I”m getting a weird compatibility error (AAE 20038) only on those two version of Stratus and Symphony.
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Old 04-04-2020, 11:07 PM
moshuajusic moshuajusic is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

Out of curiosity, what would ever need 1000+ instruments? Are there any examples of this I can check out? Or is it that you have separate midi tracks for the different articulations of each instrument?
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Old 04-04-2020, 11:19 PM
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falcowe falcowe is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

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Originally Posted by jscomposer View Post
Out of curiosity, what would ever need 1000+ instruments? Are there any examples of this I can check out? Or is it that you have separate midi tracks for the different articulations of each instrument?
Check out JunkieXL’s template https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB1twfL5b28. It’s a bit on the extreme side but not unreasonable. Percussion will eat up a lot of template space as each one is different, one snare is not like another. And then if you start on the road of making unique sounds for your projects that will eat up space too. I also know there are people who prefer working with separate tracks for separate articulations (like with EW Hollywood orchestra library) where to get it sounding any good you have to work that way. And what about VI synths like Zebra 2 or the like, what if you want to have a bunch of your own presets and factory presets there too. I imagine that will eat up quite a bit of MIDI tracks too so you are constantly switching presets.
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Old 04-05-2020, 12:55 PM
Michael Carnes's Avatar
Michael Carnes Michael Carnes is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

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Originally Posted by jscomposer View Post
Out of curiosity, what would ever need 1000+ instruments? Are there any examples of this I can check out? Or is it that you have separate midi tracks for the different articulations of each instrument?
It's mainly the latter (although the former isn't out of the question). Lots of instruments may have 8-10 articulations and it really is easier to put each articulation on a separate channel. Otherwise I'd have to keep a notebook of all the keyswitches and I'd have my nose in that notebook all the time
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Old 04-05-2020, 01:08 PM
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falcowe falcowe is offline
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Default Re: Out of MIDI tracks. May we have some more please?

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Originally Posted by Michael Carnes View Post
It's mainly the latter (although the former isn't out of the question). Lots of instruments may have 8-10 articulations and it really is easier to put each articulation on a separate channel. Otherwise I'd have to keep a notebook of all the keyswitches and I'd have my nose in that notebook all the time
Have you heard about ComposerTools Pro from MIDI kinetics? They make keeping track of key-switches really easy once you set it up. A life saver for me.
https://www.midikinetics.com/product...ser-tools-pro/
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