Hello, I posted previously expressing some difficulties I was having getting acclimated to C3, but since then I have upgraded to Performer and have made good strides in getting to know the program.
I use C3 to improvise live looping compositions (with Mobius) and what I’d like to know is if there is a way for me to easily switch between racks/instruments using either a MIDI control surface or a keyboard controller (I use the Oxygen 25)? In other words, can I use a controller to suspend or activate racks? I don’t always know what I want to play ahead of time, so I need to make quick changes. What is the easiest way for me to do so? Keep in mind I am using many VSTs (at least 15-20) of synths, strings, etc in addition to my MIDI steel guitar (my main instrument).
Also, I use the routing diagrams, which seems far more intuitive to me.
Yes of course, just set up a binding from whichever controller you want to use to the run/suspend state of the rack… Be aware though that suspending the rack will cut the sound from that rack, so of you’re looking for seamless transitions this is not the way to do it. For that, you want to switch the midi routes to the racks.
Have a look at the bindings video here for more info.
I would suggest using song states to do that - set up the routing for your specific “scenes” in separate song states, and use a convenient binding method to jump between states.
You could use the pads on the Oxygen to have direct access to 8 song states. If you need a lot of different sounds without a clear sequence, I’d suggest using a dedicated controller like the Korg NanoPad 2, which will give you direct access to another 16 different configurations via bindings. Together with your Oxygen, this allows you to directly address 24 song states - I would put my favorites directly on the Oxygen pads in direct reach, and the more exotic ones on the NanoPad; put easily readable lables on the pads, and you’re all set.
I’d echo what @Toaster wrote above - better not to suspend or activate racks between song states if your CPU can handle having them all active (even if not all generate sound at the same time). Much easier to simply set the MIDI routes to your racks to active / inactive depending on song state (see “State Behavior” of routes).
Thank you, gents! This has been enormously helpful. At this point, I have just experimented with bindings to activate and suspend but I will look further into utilizing the other methods. Baby steps….
the good thing about using song states is that it actually reduces your binding complexity - using song states can wrap a lot of changes (de-activate dozens of routes, activate just a few, adjusting the volumes of different racks, adjusting effect sends) into one simple change of the current song state. So this is ideal for orchestrating complex setups with a lot of moving parts.