Mixbus as a composition tool : MIDI loops

[jonetsu]

I have to use Mixbus with some synths since Bitwig do not work that well with then. So for the first time I did a MIDI loop in Mixbus with some synths playing recorded notes while another synth was playing 'live' on top. A live sustained note is played at the green square just before the end of the loop. When the loop restarts Mixbus insists on dropping the sustained note. Is this expected behaviour or a bug ?

[madmaxmiller]

I have to use Mixbus with some synths since Bitwig do not work that well with then. So for the first time I did a MIDI loop in Mixbus with some synths playing recorded notes while another synth was playing 'live' on top. A live sustained note is played at the green square just before the end of the loop. When the loop restarts Mixbus insists on dropping the sustained note. Is this expected behaviour or a bug ?

So you mean to sustain a note from the end of the loop into the next cycle? I'm afraid your observed behaviour is expected, there is no detection of "pressed keys" when a region starts, the note has to be played within the region. I faintly remember there was a thread about it and there are works to change this in a future version...

MMM

[jonetsu]

I forgot to include the screen shot with the green square near the end opf the loop. The screen shot is now gone. As I will have to use partly Mixbus as a composition tool in order to cope with some excellent synths running using linVST (until Bitwig gets their act straight regarding displaying the UI of these synths after they're minimized, and better audio support for some) I'm afraid I could come up with a bug-per-day since I'm totally used to the easy flowing Bitwig regarding creation. I think I won't say that much though and concentrate and getting things done and finding a couple of functional workflows going back and forth between Bitwig and Mixbus.

If not, for instance, I could open a thread regarding why is Mixbus emitting a glitch each time in starts a MIDI loop even when there are NO notes played at the beginning of the loop ? Is that because Mixbus is busy killing off all audio from the synths at the end of the loop ?

If not, I could open a thread about why is it that MIDI keyboards must always be reconfigured for each track when reloading a saved session ? I have 4 tracks now, I will absolutely try everything to avoid having 20 MIDI tracks in Mixbus. Aside from reconnecting 20 times the Axiom 25 keyboard to each track, I fear the effect of the glitch at the end of a MIDI loop with 20 synths.

Or why one must flip every track header in order to find out which connection to the Axiom 25 is active (by observing the 'In' button) ? Selecting a track is not enough to bring the MIDI focus ? When creating/composing one goes from one track to the other **toggling each synth UI** (which are on the flip side of the track header with the plugins). Imagine 25 MIDI tracks... now when I play a C on the keyboard, which synth will play ?

Actually I wrote a feature request about the last one.

Cheers.

[madmaxmiller]

If not, for instance, I could open a thread regarding why

Yay and I was happy to find SFZero as a lightweight sound font player for my orchestral sounds... starting out soon.
So should I give Rosegarden another shot? At least RG knows notation and the midi device organisation is strange but reliable...
Too bad that LMMS has no separate live tracks (yet)...
MMM

[Frank]

If not, for instance, I could open a thread regarding why

So should I give Rosegarden another shot? At least RG knows notation and the midi device organisation is strange but reliable...

MMM

I use Rosegarden and ore Noteedit to create midi tracks and scores : Via Lilypond.

No need to add those features in Mixbus, they share the essential: same data

regards

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Hmm

what about using ¨proper¨ tools?
Use a sequencer to make a sequence ?
let it go and Play along, record the output ..

If you need a repeated section in mixbus, copy paste it the amount of times one needs
with automation one can add the variations.

The tools are all there : in almost endless variations. Choose the one(s) which fit you best.
Instead of trying to get a common demoninator in one program ..

regards

Frank

[Frank]

Or why one must flip every track header in order to find out which connection to the Axiom 25 is active (by observing the 'In' button) ? Selecting a track is not enough to bring the MIDI focus ? When creating/composing one goes from one track to the other **toggling each synth UI** (which are on the flip side of the track header with the plugins). Imagine 25 MIDI tracks... now when I play a C on the keyboard, which synth will play ?

Actually I wrote a feature request about the last one.

Cheers.

You do not use Midi channels ?
Mixbus has lots of miditools to filter.

and think of users with several keyboards ? ( My setup has more than seven devices) How will you manage that from Mixbus?
regards

[jonetsu]

Or why one must flip every track header in order to find out which connection to the Axiom 25 is active (by observing the 'In' button) ? Selecting a track is not enough to bring the MIDI focus ? When creating/composing one goes from one track to the other **toggling each synth UI** (which are on the flip side of the track header with the plugins). Imagine 25 MIDI tracks... now when I play a C on the keyboard, which synth will play ? Actually I wrote a feature request about the last one.

You do not use Midi channels ?
Mixbus has lots of miditools to filter.

and think of users with several keyboards ? ( My setup has more than seven devices) How will you manage that from Mixbus?
regards

I do not use MIDI channels. I only have 3 keyboards, 1 Launchpad and 1 Control Pad (Alesis).

In Bitwig I often play on the small Axiom 25 keyboard. When I need to use 88 keys, I do something totally incredible: I power-switch the Prokeys88 keyboard ... and .... I start to play immediately on the current track. Magical.

I can also play "Rick Wakeman" style one synth with one hand and the other synth with the other hand on another keyboard. There's absolutely no need to use MIDI channels. How is this accomplished ? Bitwig recognizes MIDI devices. (Not only recognizes, but remembers session after session and even for new sessions.) So I tell Bitwig please use the Prokeys88 for Biotek and please use the Axiom 25 for the Diva synth. Et voilà.

If I want to layer synths I simply hold the Ctrl key to click to enable two or more tracks in Bitwig.

Another use case: I play the Biotek synth using the Axiom 25 keyboard. Then I switch to the Synplant synth by clicking once to enable the other track. At all times I see directly (as 'in my face') which track(s) is/are enabled to receive the notes I play. No need to click to find out, no need to flip a track header.

So you see, it's a bit of a drop when it comes to using Mixbus for creation (sorry, not for composition as the subject line says, I do not compose)

Cheers.

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If not, for instance, I could open a thread regarding why

Yay and I was happy to find SFZero as a lightweight sound font player for my orchestral sounds... starting out soon.

I'm afraid I do not see the relevancy of using lightweight CPU in this context.

So should I give Rosegarden another shot? At least RG knows notation and the midi device organisation is strange but reliable...

Maybe there's a misunderstanding from the subject line. I have very wrongly used the term "composition" when in fact I do not compose at all. Never did, never will. I create. I'll leave the subject line as is for now, but this is rather about creating music.

Cheers.

BTW, this is very likely the only thread I will start on using Mixbus as a music creation tool. There are too many drawbacks in using Mixbus in such a way that it would be quite unfair. Mixbus at the moment excels at mixing/mastering. Creating music in the 21st century is another matter.

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To illustrate. Just reopened a session I used yesterday. Different synths I'm exploring/learning on each track. Yesterday I used all of them. How come today Mixbus shows the following:

   

The same keyboard as yesterday is obviously connected to the computer. Even Mixbus shows that it's connected. So why do I have to reconnect it to each and every track ? Good thing I only have a few tracks... if there were 20 MIDI tracks, there would be 20 connections to be made before being able to easily go from one synth to the other. "Easily" is the keyword here.

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Another illustration. Just opened the session as per above. Tell me to which track the MIDI keyboard is currently connected:

   

And if I connect it to Ogun, will there be another synth playing at the same time ?

How many clicks are needed to find out ? Why isn't this right in the face of the user ?

BTW # 2: If I would not care about Mixbus32C, I would not take the time to make the screen shots and describe. I do that since I care about Mixbus32C which I'm using exclusively for mixing/mastering. However, in the creation dept....

[madmaxmiller]

If not, for instance, I could open a thread regarding why

Yay and I was happy to find SFZero as a lightweight sound font player for my orchestral sounds... starting out soon.

I'm afraid I do not see the relevancy of using lightweight CPU in this context.

That orchestral stuff can easily take 40+ tracks, each with its own sound font. That's getting heavy together with Mixbus' own weight. And, as I mentioned, while LMMS is probably not a bad tool for that - it doesn't fan out its tracks, you can only render them down separately if you compile the latest Beta.

So should I give Rosegarden another shot? At least RG knows notation and the midi device organisation is strange but reliable...

Maybe there's a misunderstanding from the subject line. I have very wrongly used the term "composition" when in fact I do not compose at all. Never did, never will. I create. I'll leave the subject line as is for now, but this is rather about creating music.

Creating, composing... composing translated means "putting things together", so I don't mind how you call it. What I meant with RG is, while you can fan out the channels live, it's no less fiddly but has a variety of different editors, namely note editor (which comes handy when I "play" some classical partitures as training for my own creations)

Never mind, it's complex and sometimes you must cope with imperfections because the only tool you have is a hammer when you actually need a brush...

MMM

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To illustrate. Just reopened a session I used yesterday. Different synths I'm exploring/learning on each track. Yesterday I used all of them. How come today Mixbus shows the following:

While you are using Mixbus for creation (for the explained reasons): You might use the Jack MIDI patchbay, ther you can save different setups. This is still far from intuitive but can save you from connecting every track one by one.
But yeah, a simple button like the record button to connect the input with the respective channel would help, or connect automatically to the separated track(s) would be even better.
[/quote]

MMM

[jonetsu]

That orchestral stuff can easily take 40+ tracks, each with its own sound font. That's getting heavy together with Mixbus' own weight. And, as I mentioned, while LMMS is probably not a bad tool for that - it doesn't fan out its tracks, you can only render them down separately if you compile the latest Beta.

I see. I used some soundfonts years ago. Then for whatever reason dropped their use. I liked some, especially trombone and violin. Maybe I should try them again. What are your sources for excellent soundfonts ? I add "excellent" because there are also not-so-good ones out there.

For now though on my list is learning Sakura. Which is part of my opening up (via linVST) to the Wonderful World of Commercial Competition. Sakura is a string modeling synth. It is quite expressive I find, as a quick browsing/playing of the sounds shows.

So should I give Rosegarden
Creating, composing... composing translated means "putting things together", so I don't mind how you call it. What I meant with RG is, while you can fan out the channels live, it's no less fiddly but has a variety of different editors, namely note editor (which comes handy when I "play" some classical partitures as training for my own creations)

Well, RG makes me think more of written music than a DAW or a 'creation' tool like Bitwig.

While you are using Mixbus for creation (for the explained reasons): You might use the Jack MIDI patchbay, ther you can save different setups. This is still far from intuitive but can save you from connecting every track one by one.

I'll keep it in mind when I'll be starting creating again with this new setup. For now all I do is learning about new synths... Sytrus is an incredible FM synth. I never did FM before and I like the idea that a slight modulation can have such impact on a carrier. I already made a couple of pad sounds. What I also explore are the components of a FM sound in a 'composition' context. For instance I look at a spectrum analyzer with a more or less complex modulation and identify the notes where the harmonics are and take that as a hint to develop a creation. And then there's Ogun which boasts 4294967296 presets, making sounds with up to 32000 harmonics. So for the time being my observations on Mixbus stems from this exploring/learning of synths, not from actual creation workflow using both Bitwig and Mixbus.

[Frank]

You do not use Midi channels ?
Mixbus has lots of miditools to filter.

and think of users with several keyboards ? ( My setup has more than seven devices)

The Midid recieve button will not be of use in such a case. And having more than one device is rather common. I carry three or four in my backpack


I do not use MIDI channels.

I suggest you use midi channels.