Hello there. I’ve been happily using Cantabile for over a year now. I performed live with it a number of times and had no issues so far. The songs I play generally involve me playing different sounds from different plugins. I need to switch from one sound to another very quickly (at the click of a button). The way I setup my songs is that each sound is routed to a different midi channel (sound 1 from VST plugin 1 on midi channel 1, sound 2 from VST plugin 2 on midi channel 2, etc.). The midi keyboard controller I currently use is a Roland RD piano that, with a click of a button, allows me to easily switch the midi channel I am playing on. This allows me to quickly change midi channel mid-song.
Now I’m at a point where I want to use my midi controller to change certain sound parameters in real time (e.g. cutoff, FX parameters, arpeggiator-related stuff, etc.). My current piano doesn’t allow that. So I’m thinking of investing in a midi keyboard controller with fancy sliders and knobs, that is also more lightweight than my current one. I am aware that there are many such controllers out there and I currently have my eye on the Novation Impulse. However, I am noticing that most midi controllers do not let you change the outgoing midi channel very easily. It usually involves pressing two or more buttons and then rotating a knob. This makes me think that I possibly shouldn’t be using midi channels to switch sounds, but maybe use some other (more standard) technique (?) e.g. cantabile song states. If so, how easy is it to use something like Impulse to switch states on Cantabile? Can I for example, set it up so that I use the drum pads to choose song state? (e.g. pad 1 for song state 1, pad 2 for song state 2, etc.). Or is there a better technique that you currently use for switching sounds quickly mid-song?
I really don’t want to touch my laptop during a performance so I want to be able to switch sounds across different plugins using just my midi controller. And the switching needs to happen with just one button. How do you guys go about this?
PS apologies for the long post and thanks for reading!
Why not using a pad to advance state (next state binding) and another to go backwards (previous state)? In that way, just two buttons will be enough.
See also here:
Thanks for your reply. Some stupid questions (I never used such midi controllers):
What if my midi controller is already automatically mapping that pad to something else in the currently loaded VST plugin? Can I somehow remove that mapping and create the binding you’re suggesting?
If I have 4 different states (for 4 different sounds in 4 different VST plugins), is it possible to jump from one sound (state) to any other sound (state)? Or if I want to go from state 1 directly to state 4, I need to cycle through 2 and 3 first?
That’s the beauty of Cantabile, you can make any button, slider, pedal, tin can, kitchen sink that your keyboard possesses do whatever you want. The section of Cantabile you want to look at is bindings, there’s videos of how they work on the website so check that out and have a play, then come back here with the specifics so we can help you out!
Have fun, it opens up a huge set of possibilities.
Thanks for the reply. However my main concerns with this approach are outlined in my above 2 questions.
For example, my current Roland RD piano has 2 sliders that cantabile should let me use for binding. If I use learn mode to find them, they both come up as Controller CC 7. These sliders are both actually already, automatically, controlling the volume of the sound. When I try binding them to something else (e.g. the cutoff of the filter), it still effects the volume of plugin. I cannot seem to override the volume binding which comes out-of-the box. This is why I asked my first question above - I worry that the same thing will happen with other midi controllers.
Assuming you don’t want or cannot change the MIDI message that your pad is sending, you can use “filters” in Cantabile to block or remap almost any MIDI message before forwarding it to the rack or plugin. You could remap CC7 to CC4 or something else before sending the CC to the rack. If the two sliders on your RD piano are assigned to different MIDI channels, you could still treat them separately in Cantabile, since the filter can be set to act on a specific channel.
You can use a binding to load a particular state but in that case you’d need a different pad for each state. If you have more pads than states, it’s ok.
One secret is to use filtering on the route between your controller and the plugins (“suppress events”) so that any controllers that should not affect your plugins get eliminated.
Also, there is a setting on bindings that allows you to stop the source events being processed further. I’m not at my PC right now , but a bit of searching in the Bindings documentation should get you there.
