Newby Question on Midi Volume Control

Cantabile
1

I just started with Cantabile.
I am struggling getting the following setup working.
Thank you in advance for your help.

I have a PC that is running the Musicnotes App, Cantabile and I have LoopB virtual midi loopback.
I also have a Kawai Piano that I use as both a midi controller and as an external synth for some sounds.

Musicnotes is playing “Riders on the Storm”, there are 3 partitions on 3 midi channels.
I output MusicNotes on the LoopB midi.

Inside Cantabile, I add 3 input routes from LoopB, the base (Channel 3) goes to a PlugIn, the voice (Channel 1) goes to another plugin. The piano (Channel 2) goes to my Kawai Piano.
It works except that I cannot control the (midi) volume from Cantabile for the midi output to my Kawai piano.
You would be tempted to tell me to use the Kawai volume.

Trouble is that I learn by playing along and as I learn my partition, I want to decrease the volume from the piano partition of Musicnotes as I am learning.

There a possibly a plugin that can do this? Or a way to do this using Cantabile I am not aware of.

Thank You for your help.

2

Hi @bbrault

If your Kawai piano is anything like mine then you can’t control the volume via MIDI. ie: mine has an analog slider on it that’s the only way to adjust the volume (from memory I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have any kind of MIDI volume control.) Though perhaps check your docs (MIDI Implementation Chart) to be sure.

Some other options:

  1. Adjust the gain on the MIDI route feeding the Kawai. This will make it quieter but unfortunately will also affect the timbre of the notes. This might be acceptable if you’re just playing along with it.
  2. Use a piano plugin instead of the Kawai and route the audio to the Kawai. This is how I setup my practice piano. ie: Kawai MIDI -> PC -> Cantabile -> Audio Out -> Audio Cable -> Kawai Audio Input and it works well enough.

Brad

3

Hi Brad,
The Kawai does respond to CC7 volume control.
I was hoping that the volume slider on a midi route could send cc7 commands.

I prefer to keep some of the piano sounds from the Kawai because I cannot find anything that comes close to it’s quality at an affordable price.

4

Hi @bbrault

Two questions:

  1. Are you running Cantabile Solo or Performer?
  2. How do you want to control the volume - with an on-screen setting in Cantabile, with preset volumes for different song files, with another MIDI controller on another device etc…

Brad

5

Hi Brad
I tried both Solo and Performer.
Nice software!
Using Performer, I found a way to send a CC7 volume command by using a few notes on my Kawai. Not ideal.

If I buy a
Korg nanoKONTROL2 Slim-Line USB Control Surface
Can I map one of the dial/slider to modify to volume via CC7 but without using a VST plug-in?

To recap, I have musicnotes software out to LoopB as an input to Cantabile with the piano channel out to Kawai and with the Korg Controller I would buy to adjust the volume via CC7

6

Yep, that’ll work - it’ll basically be a pass binding of CC from that controller to the Kawai.

7

Thanks
Now, do plug-ins exist that behave like “controllers”?

I appreciate your help because I am new at this.

8

HI Bernard,

Here’s one that I’ve seen, I’m sure there are others.

http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_RemoteControl/

Dave