Pro Tools, Virtual Instruments and Program Changes

[egyptmatta]

I couldn't find any info on this except a little in the manual. I am a composer who uses Vienna Ensemble Pro extensively and I am attempting a switch from Cubase to PT but I'm running into a potential issue (at least for me). Articulation/Patch switching particularly with my Spitfire BML libraries. I don't want to do key-switching because I don't want to see that in the score, there isn't anything like Cubase's expression mapping so it won't be easy to know what patch is up via Pro Tools and it means I have to have multiple tracks because there are so many articulations. Ideally I'd be using CC32 / Program Change. Pro Tools has a way to make patch names and everything for it and Spitfire has the whole UACC thing. Why does Pro Tools not allow program changes to virtual instruments and only allows with external midi devices? This doesn't make sense to me. What am I missing? Any solutions or advice? Can this change as it would solve a lot of problems if it caught on?

[Courtlaw]

I'd like to know as well

[Seafoam_Green]

I cannot understand why you (as an existing Cubase "composer") would even consider using Pro Tools with it's primitive MIDI features

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Seafoam_Green

I cannot understand why you (as an existing Cubase "composer") would even consider using Pro Tools with it's primitive MIDI features

Yup.
Be aware that not all vi's expose their patch change abilities to a daw. Anything running in Kontakt 5 for example is just one. Actually I don't think any NI vi exposes it's patch change ability to the outside world.
And if anyone is asking about .midnam patch lists - they've not worked in PT for ages.

[DonaldM]

One thing you might consider doing is set up a separate track for keyswitching only and send it to whatever instrument you want the keyswitch to affect. So, you have one MIDI track playing the instrument and a separate one just for keyswitches to change articulations for that instrument. That way, when you want to look at or print a score, you can just make the keyswitch tracks inactive.

[Courtlaw]

Originally Posted by DonaldM

One thing you might consider doing is set up a separate track for keyswitching only and send it to whatever instrument you want the keyswitch to affect. So, you have one MIDI track playing the instrument and a separate one just for keyswitches to change articulations for that instrument. That way, when you want to look at or print a score, you can just make the keyswitch tracks inactive.

Good tip!

[cmbourget]

Originally Posted by DonaldM

One thing you might consider doing is set up a separate track for keyswitching only and send it to whatever instrument you want the keyswitch to affect. So, you have one MIDI track playing the instrument and a separate one just for keyswitches to change articulations for that instrument. That way, when you want to look at or print a score, you can just make the keyswitch tracks inactive.

Good !

[cmbourget]

Originally Posted by Seafoam_Green

I cannot understand why you (as an existing Cubase "composer") would even consider using Pro Tools with it's primitive MIDI features

What other DAW offers real-time edits as good as in PT? Cubase is not even able to allow a significant delay from one track to another (Cubase is of course excellent in other respects, despite its video game interface...), and PT even calculates them in note length if necessary. The tempo and measure functions are also very good.

[hanstondo]

using uacc and program change to control articulations does work well in protools.

if you manually insert a program change in protools, with bank to zero, and correct cc32 value in upper right corner of the dialogue box,
Kontakt will switch to the correct articulation.
Easy setup is using touch osc, with the template for spitfire, or other libraries: you can switch articulations with the app, but protools doesn't allow you to record them live. But you can insert a program change manually, and when the dialogue box opens, you just push the correct articulation on the touch osc app, and the correct articulation will be in place as program change. You only can't read which articulation it is, since it will be called 'bank' (double click the program change inserted will open the dialogue box, you can see in the upper right corner the cc32 value, which will correspond to the uacc list.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by hanstondo

using uacc and program change to control articulations does work well in protools.

if you manually insert a program change in protools, with bank to zero, and correct cc32 value in upper right corner of the dialogue box,
Kontakt will switch to the correct articulation.

What is uacc? Google provides nothing music-related. Seems like according to your explanation it's needed to get Kontakt to respond to embedded program changes in the MIDI stream. All I know is without it Kontakt does not see program changes.

Or are you talking about articulation changes? Those usually are taken care of by MIDI notes.