I am still running 3179 and haven’t used a background Rack yet, but all the discussion has spurred me on. I created a background Rack to control gains on different midi keyboards setup in a rehearsal room. These are not the midi controllers I normally use. I set up the rack with bindings and it worked great on the song I had loaded. Problem is. It won’t work globally on any other songs. Is there something I missed, or should I have not set it up while a song was loaded?
Can you post screenshots of your background rack routing and bindings?
Neil
Hi @Corky
Yes, some screenshots of what was working in the rack vs what’s not working in the background rack would be very useful.
Brad
This is where I started. Key1 is on channel 1 , and is an E-MU Proteus MPS i bought in 1992, and is still working great, but I am using it at rehearsal as a MIDI controller, with a REAL MIDI cable (remember those?) . I am using the MOD wheel as a gain control, because the volume slider on the Proteus will not send MIDI out (strange I agree). Normally, my Key 1 is an M-Audio 88 key and I use the volume slider on channel 1 at cc# 7.
Rehearsal Key 2 is an old Roland 49 key, usb MIDI, on channel 3, with volume slider on cc#7. My normal Key 2 is an E-MU 49 key, on channel 3, but I use a rotary knob at cc#21 to control gain. My goal was to be able to take my laptop to this rehearsal room and use the two MIDI controllers already staged there.
As I created songs over the last several months, I used plugins at the song level. I graduated to racks later, and have replaced many of my plugins with racks. I thought at first that I could change MIDI controllers with filters at the options level, and many times it worked. I found that Key 2 many times had to have a binding at the song level to control gain with cc#21.
With the Background Rack I simply created above, I was having progress with some of the songs, but when I loaded a song with a rack on Key1, the binding read plugin #1 as the 1st plugin in line, which was on Key2. I could use the MOD wheel on Key 1 to control gain on Key 2, even though they are on different channels. I am still experimenting and learning, and will probably figure it out soon, but sometimes it takes a kick in the seat from the wizards on this site to give me my deserved “DUH” moment.
Thanks
Corky
If I understand correctly you wish to have 2 different controller setups, one for rehearsal and one for normal use. So create 2 states in the background rack, one called rehearsal and one called regular and create the correct bindings in each state for the particular keyboards you are using. Also you could target the rack gains with your bindings by selecting the named rack as the target. Bear in mind if you do this you must block the control signals from going to the plugin itself using midi suppressing filters if it also accepts volume cc 7 etc… Please post if this is the right track.
Dave
Yes…this is on the right track. I think I will need to make sure that I have Key 1 exclusively Racks as not to send plugin 1 to Key 2. I also think the control signals were going to a few of the plugins causing some problems.
Thanks for the help Dave. Much appreciated !
So this is where I am going now, assuming all racks in Key1 and all plugins in Key 2.
I will eventually make all plugins into racks to lesson any problems.
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Hi @Corky I’m not sure I’m fully understanding everything that’s going on here but it sounds like you’re making progress. Is there still something outstanding here that you need help with?
Thanks for asking Brad. I was just trying to be able to use different midi controllers to play my normal setlists. I normally use two keyboards when gigging. I am fortunate enough to be able to rehearse, or perform, at different places, with different musicians, and leave a two keyboard rig setup without having to lug my usual rig around with me. The problem I have is that all of my keyboards are different, and I was having difficulty mainly with gain. CC7 is the usual, but considering which keyboard I am using, I may have to use CC1, CC21, etc. All I was trying to acheive was to take my laptop, plug in the keyboards, and be brilliant!! LOL. I am still in the process of setting this up and should know soon if it works. Thanks again for asking, and many thanks to @dave_dore.
Hi Corky,
Normally for this I recommend using multiple configurations with one config for each location.
This way you can create two MIDI input ports called say “Keyboard1” and “Keyboard2” and in one environment map them to one MIDI device and in another to a different one. You could then put midi filters on MIDI ports to say remap CCs as required.
Brad