Program changes on VST

[abacab]

12 hours ago, Richie_01 said:

Someone said we live in the time of smart phones and stupid people ... 

I'm not sure what you are implying there. Why do you appear to be so hostile and angry? Who are you venting at?

Some of us are probably much older than you. I started MIDI sequencing with hardware before there was a VST. And used instrument definitions for MIDI program bank and patch change over MIDI cables to external hardware. As well as MIDI SysEx dumps and loads over the same cables.

There are lots of friendly folks around here with plenty of experience that would be happy to exchange ideas in a friendly, respectful manner.

[Craig Anderton]

11 hours ago, Glenn Stanton said:

however in the 21st century, the Jetsons promised us flying cars, universal happiness, and cool hairdos... still waiting... oh, and MIDI 2.0 someday... ? 

Well, at least you got MIDI 2.0     

As to program changes, I find them unnecessary in the studio, but important for live use because I switched over to using plug-ins for guitar processing well over a decade ago.

[John Vere]

When I open my old midi files I made in the 80's there's a PG change for every midi channel.  I dreamed of 24 midi channels! 

1 - Bass GR50 

2- Alesis Micro Verb

3-10 - Korg 05/rw  ( the band) 

11- Drums GR50

12- Piano GR50

13- Roland A 880 Midi Patch bay 

14- GR50 Patch Change

15-16 Yorkville DMX lighting. 

Lugging around an Atari 1040 with a huge old school monitor with all the above in a 4' tall box I built. No wonder I have a bad back! 

Edited December 15, 2020 by John Vere

[msmcleod]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

Lugging around an Atari 1040 with a huge old school monitor with all the above in a 4' tall box I built. No wonder I have a bad back! 

I had similar experiences with my Amiga 500.  It was solid indoors, but out of the 3 times I used it live, it let me down badly twice.

This however, was rock solid:

[John Vere]

The only issue we had with Atari's was the power would go out  and it took a good 10 minutes to get things up and running again. 

Was the Alesis a Midi player like the Roland Sound Brush?  My partner had that and the Sound Canvas as his gigging rig for a long time. 

My self at that time 1992-3  I transferred ( in real time) all my backing tracks to a Sony Mini disk.  Goodbye Atari. It was small and sounded great but I lost all that midi driven patch change stuff.  I also lost my foot controller that started and advanced songs. Since then I have had to manually select my Reverbs  But I did get my foot controller back when I started using a laptop. And I could certainly return to using midi do control lights and hardware.  This would involve the Cakewalk playlist. I'm to old to change again! There are virtually no gigs now anyhow.  

[msmcleod]

1 minute ago, John Vere said:

The only issue we had with Atari's was the power would go out  and it took a good 10 minutes to get things up and running again. 

Was the Alesis a Midi player like the Roland Sound Brush?  My partner had that and the Sound Canvas as his gigging rig for a long time. 

My self at that time 1992-3  I transferred ( in real time) all my backing tracks to a Sony Mini disk.  Goodbye Atari. It was small and sounded great but I lost all that midi driven patch change stuff.  I also lost my foot controller that started and advanced songs. Since then I have had to manually select my Reverbs  But I did get my foot controller back when I started using a laptop. And I could certainly return to using midi do control lights and hardware.  This would involve the Cakewalk playlist. I'm to old to change again! There are virtually no gigs now anyhow.  

It was similar to the Sound Brush - it used 3.5" DD disks, except that it used its own proprietary disk format, and didn't use standard MIDI files (unlike the Sound Brush which read/recorded SMF on DOS disks).

It did the standard recording/playing MIDI, but it also had sysex dump request formats for a bunch of different devices which was great for backing up synth / guitar processor patches.
 
The disk format was also specifically designed to support random access using MIDI song position. I used it in an ADAT / BRC equipped studio back in the early 90's to sync up the BRC with all my keyboard parts.  You could fast forward to any part within a song, and it'd pick up in exactly the right spot, with all controllers/notes chased in less than a second.

For live use, it was mainly for changing patches across my whole rig (it'd support a single program change to send everything out - sysex and all)... but we did have one 20 minute song that had a bunch of extra sound effects and doubled up parts throughout that ran as a sequence.

But yeah, I moved over to minidisc in the end too for backing tracks. 

[abacab]

4 hours ago, msmcleod said:

I had similar experiences with my Amiga 500.  It was solid indoors, but out of the 3 times I used it live, it let me down badly twice.

This however, was rock solid:

I have the Alesis MMT-8.

 

[Xoo]

I loved my MMT-8!

[Glenn Stanton]

i still have my MMT-8 and the HR-16 ? plug those baby's into my DW-8000, DSS-1, Poly 800, Proteus 1, and a few others along with the TR-707 and it's a band for goodness sakes!

[John Vere]

56 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said:

i still have my MMT-8 and the HR-16 ? plug those baby's into my DW-8000, DSS-1, Poly 800, Proteus 1, and a few others along with the TR-707 and it's a band for goodness sakes!

The Poly 800 was my first "Bass Player" I still have my Roland 505 and those where my first midi driven band. Man was it hard to squeeze a real bass sound out of that thing, Who would have known that those bass  sounds would eventually been seen as cool. But back then it was kind out there.

One day, hooking stuff up, I accidentally plugged the wrong power supply into the Korg and fried it. The tech who tried to fix it said it was a bad design to not have at least some diodes protecting the MOBO.  To make that story more painfull,  I had traded a 68 Fender Twin for it. That guy still has my Twin and I now have the Poly 800 again as a VST.  https://vst4free.com/plugin/3134/  so I don't feel so bad. 

 

And I had the DW 8000 up until a year ago when it just stopped working. I was going to fix it but gave it away. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by John Vere

[msmcleod]

6 hours ago, John Vere said:

The Poly 800 was my first "Bass Player" I still have my Roland 505 and those where my first midi driven band. Man was it hard to squeeze a real bass sound out of that thing, Who would have known that those bass  sounds would eventually been seen as cool. But back then it was kind out there.

For a few years my dad used the Korg PSS-50 for his backing, which I believe used the same synth engine as the Poly 800. I remember being totally blown away with the sounds on that thing.

It had a jack input with this really cool stereo widener effect, which I occasionally used with my 4 track as an effect.

All the DWGS synths ( Poly 800 , DW 6000, DW 8000, DSS-1 etc ) where very underrated IMO, but I guess Yamaha (DX series) & Roland (Juno / Jupiter series & D series) were huge competition.

IIRC the PSS-60 which replaced it used an 4-op FM chip like the DS8, which to my ears was no where near as nice.

[Glenn Stanton]

oh, and an Akai S612 with the MD280 disk as the Sampler unit ? back in the days when a real {insert-gender-identity-here} lived for 12-bit audio and slow spiral tracking disk loads ? on the plus side, you could sample it live in just as much time as it took to play the 10 second parts and replay it with some cool effects... i liked to use my guitar to form chords and simple leads which then could be played across the keyboard...

i recently sold most these as well as a Moog Liberation (Devo), Crumar Performer (Duran Duran), and Sequential Circuits Pro One (which was my bass of choice). Poly800 as pads and leads, DW and DSS as piano, organ, sax, pads, etc. I still keep the Proteus for live performances as it works well with my Keystation-49 (including program changes) (i'm mostly a bass player or rhythm guitar, only play keys live as backup parts or simple solos)

Edited December 16, 2020 by Glenn Stanton

[John Vere]

I think the point us old farts are making is we sort of just have to laugh when someone complains about the "new lazy" approach to making music and wondering why some VST instruments don't use patch changes.

If you think the old days were better? It would be fun to send you back there with $100 in your pocket and see how far you would get.  Spoiled rotten I say. Everything is free now. With the Poly 800 as an example - I certainly would not be able to afford to replace it with the real thing I doubt there is even one for sale.  The VST is actually better in many ways than the original and it's free. I love it! Bring it on.  patch changes?? . Oh, looks like this one does, if you open the Patch in the Midi track strip ( or ) the list if patches shows. I would have never know if this topic had not come to light because I always just use the GUI. Nice to have choices. 

[chris.r]

Still got this: 

immaculate condition, last used many years ago  

Edited December 16, 2020 by chris.r

[Richie_01]

On 12/15/2020 at 1:18 AM, abacab said:

Not true. I added that "it's up to the VSTi vendor. Cakewalk supports the feature if the plug-in is capable".

Which had already been stated in Noel's and my post before ...

Interesting, that those who blamed me for replying to an old post, are now the most active on this thread.  *g*

Of course I didn't intend to annoy anyone. I'm not a native speaker, so might make use of inappropriate vocabulary now and then. I get a little annoyed by misleading statements like "it can't be done" or "VST2 is obsolete".  From the technical point incorrect. Technical issues are not a matter of opinion but ask for mathematical accuracy more often. 

However - happy holidays to all of you !

Edited December 19, 2020 by Richie_01

[abacab]

17 hours ago, Richie_01 said:

Interesting, that those who blamed me for replying to an old post, are now the most active on this thread.  *g*

Just in case you didn't know, when you necro a dead thread it bumps it to the top of the list, often to the dismay of forum regulars, when it's really nothing new.

Proper net etiquette is to start your own new thread instead. ?

Cheers, and Happy Holidays!

[azslow3]

17 hours ago, Richie_01 said:

 I get a little annoyed by misleading statements like "it can't be done" or "VST2 is obsolete".  From the technical point incorrect. Technical issues are not a matter of opinion but ask for mathematical accuracy more often.

If you are annoyed by something, that is not a prove it is incorrect. Let me cite you: "technical issues are not a matter of opinion".

VST2 is obsolete: https://forums.steinberg.net/t/permission-to-develop-vst2-host-that-will-never-be-distributed/202042
in other words, it is illegal to develop VST2 plug-ins for anyone who has not signed related license before 2018, so before it was finally declared obsolete (the first time it was declared obsolete was 2013). Note that Steinberg has full rights for VST.

Note that VST has plug-in and host side. So no new DAW is allowed officially support VST2, till it is developed by someone with existing license.

* I am aware that in EU (and probably some other countries) binary API (ABI) re-implementation is allowed (by precedents) without permission from the rights-holder. And such implementation exists.  But that is "gray" area in general.

To understand why Program Changes MIDI messages are tricky to use in VST3, you will need to read (and understand) official VST3 SDK documentation and the source code.

 

But sure, in case "your world" is not the same as "my world" (BTW I am from the planet Earth), VST2 license (gravity, etc.) can be different for you. At least from your last message you also have holidays now, so we have something common ?

[Jp Hopkins]

All of you have helped me immensely, with my specific issue in my specific setup!

I want to thank all of you for leaving the comments that you did, you lot may think that it's just a thread that should've been retired (and maybe it should, no effing clue) but it's far from pointless in my case! You've helped me solve issues that I've been table-flipping RAWR pissed about for +-7 months. I've just been manually working the long way around these nuisances, wasting so much time. 

Thank you, everyone of ya.

Don't read any further, I'm drinking and time for drunk thoughts after hours and hours going through the comments and FINALLY SOLVING ME ISSUES WOOOOO!! 

<BEGIN RANT> I've played piano, guitar, bass and drums for about 25 years in 15 bands plus studio hired gun spanning myriad genres ranging from country, jazz, fusion, progressive rock, rock, hair metal, heavy metal, thrash, math rock, punk, funk, r&b, rap and hiphop. Usually someone else was there to soundproof, run the cabling, mic the instruments, man the ProTools, troubleshoot all the things...I just had to show up in whatever condition as long as I could nail anything, and more importantly could listen and work well with others. I more than I can count saw talented musicians get replaced by less experienced ones just because they wanted to learn, they didn't bitch about other peoples' styles or techniques or that they'd been playing all day and night and their fingers were bleeding, they were effing hungry to learn! I see learning as necessary, listening as crucial and humility a very appropriate virtue. I have learned a metric f@ckton from the rabbit holes that these two pages have tossed my nappy ***** down. I'm rejoicing!! Some of you guys are really grumpy, that's all I'm getting at. It's a learning experience. No one's stupid. I can design a multi-layered complex multi-site inter-vlan hybrid onsite HIPPAA/PCI/NIST/SOX/Etc compliant corporate network but still have no idea what Jill in Accounting does other than break her fzcking printer constantly, needs Quickbooks restored  weekly, needs network folder access but doesn't know to what folders...relax, dudes! We're here to learn, to progress, to spread dat knowledge! Thanks for helping me, once again everyone. Cheers to all. I'll shut up now </END RANT>

I lied, I'm not shutting up:

I'd like to share some of the music I'm creating. I'm looking for people to collaborate with; any genre, any style. I'm also an animator/illustrator and voiceover artist looking for people to create with. I'm actually very social media *****, as in for 20 years I've focused on IT and music and have always found social media to be really self-centered, vain, dumb...but it's me that was dumb and I'm just now getting around to thinking about messing with it. lol that reads so pathetic. Anyways I'll send anyone links to things, I have yet to put my personal creations onto one platform maybe someone can influence me. Peace. Thanks again (AND AGAIN AND AGAIN) for these posts, way helpful.