Ableton 9 and HW VST midi help

I have the Hauptwerken VST enabled in Ableton Live 9, but I only have midi playing through the pedalboard (St. Anne's). In the keyboard setup it shows the middle activity light (blue) for the pedals, but no matter what setting I change for midi inputs I only can control the pedals.

I am trying to get my single CMK keyboard to be able to play all three inputs (great, swell, pedal) at the same time if I can.

Any advice is appreciated!

[mdyde]

Hello Chris,

The 'MIDI sequencing, the Hauptwerk AU/VST Link and applying real-time reverb' section in the main Hauptwerk user guide (on the Help menu in Hauptwerk; pages 181-199 in the current v4.1.1 version) covers several different ways you can use Hauptwerk with MIDI sequencers. In particular there are sub-sections for
'Recording, playing back and editing live solo performances with a MIDI sequencer dedicated to Hauptwerk
(Bi-directional control of the sequencer from Hauptwerk)' (pages 184-189) and 'Composing pieces off-line from a MIDI sequencer configured conventionally (Hauptwerk as a ‘slave’ MIDI device)' sub-section (pages 189-194).

Which of those two scenarios primarily describes how you plan to use Hauptwerk? That choice determines how you need to configure the MIDI ports and settings.

Not sure what the difference is. I want to be able to use my single CMK keyboard to control each manual and pedal as needed - all together at once or individually so I can layer in parts of music, and then perform along with what was recorded. That way I can edit the midi files inside Ableton and use HW as an external instrument along with the Ableton patches.

[mdyde]

Hello Chris,

In that case, I'd recommend following the configurations instructions in the 'Composing pieces off-line from a MIDI sequencer configured conventionally (Hauptwerk as a ‘slave’ MIDI device)' sub-section (pages 189-194).

You can then configure each virtual keyboard in Hauptwerk to respond to distinct MIDI channels of your choice, and set the output channel of each track/part in your MIDI sequencer to correspond to the channel you set for the virtual keyboard on which you want it to play. (I don't have first-hand experience with Ableton, but I'm assuming it's similar in that regard to other MIDI sequencers like Logic, Cubase or Reaper.)

Does that mean I am going to bypass the VST link completely then?

[mdyde]

No. The instructions in that section of the user guide cover specifically how to set it up, including when and where to select the VST Link. (You route MIDI from the MIDI sequencer to Hauptwerk via the VST Link, and also audio from Hauptwerk to the sequencer, but no MIDI output from Hauptwerk.)

Ok I'll keep working on it.

-edit-

The smiley must have worked! I am not 100% sure what I did to get it working, but one thing I needed to do was make individual tracks that pointed to the VST with their midi outputs. Ok.. I thank the Lord for it!

[mdyde]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the update. Glad to hear you have it working now.

My next step is to try to get the crescendo/swell pedal and stop/registers to record midi to Ableton. I am not sure how to approach it at this point. Yes, I do read through the manuals, but the solutions aren't easy for me to see when working in a DAW not covered in the explanations.

[mdyde]

Hello Chris,

Basically you would normally just right-click on the desired virtual control (swell pedal, crescendo pedal, stop, piston, etc.), select 'Adjust MIDI... settings manually', then pick a MIDI message type and values (MIDI channel, MIDI CC number, etc.) that are convenient for you to enter in your VST host. E.g. control change messages are usually the simplest to enter/edit for expression pedals.

(I don't know Ableton, so I'm afraid I can't advice on how to enter the events there.)

For sequencing you might want to consider triggering combinations (e.g. Hauptwerk's stepper) from your sequencer project, rather than entering stop-on/off messages directly. MIDI program changes are easy to enter in most hosts and are ideal for triggering combinations. However, that does of course mean that you need to make sure you load the intended combination set in Hauptwerk to correspond to your sequencer project (but that would probably also be necessary if using the crescendo).

Thank you for the advice ! It's a big help for where to start.

[mdyde]

Thanks, Chris.

You're most welcome.

I've learned a lot about configuring the VST through Ableton to where I have full and independent control of each manual through separate channels. The two things I still haven't surmised is how to get control/program changes to initiate registration and swell pedal changes through the VST. There are options to initiate Bank, sub-Bank, and Program changes in the Ableton UI, but as far as how to get that to mean anything to Hauptwerk I am at a loss.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g42 ... fhavnp.png

[mdyde]

Hello Chris,

(I've merged your new topic into this previous one, to keep it in one place, and so that we can see the relevant background information easily.)

From your screenshot I see that you have the expression pedal in Hauptwerk set to respond to MIDI controller 11 on MIDI channel 8 on any enabled MIDI IN port, which should be fine (assuming that you also correctly have the 'Hauptwerk VST Link' enabled in the *left-hand* 'Console MIDI IN' column on Hauptwerk's 'General settings | MIDI ports | MIDI IN ports' screen, as previously covered in this topic).

Hence you should just need to make sure that your MIDI sequencer (Ableton) sends its expression changes on the corresponding MIDI channel and controller. I have no experience with Ableton (and it isn't a host that we officially support, although I know of no reason that it shouldn't work), so I'll probably have to leave that one to you and/or other Ableton users, I'm afraid.

You could conceivably enable Hauptwerk's MIDI logging temporarily ('General settings | General preferences | Advanced ... : Diagnostics: log all MIDI messages ...'), then use 'Help | View activity log' each time after getting your sequencer to send the relevant MIDI messages, so as to see the exact MIDI messages that it actually sent to Hauptwerk.

I had the MIDI in set to 'Sequencer In (Advanced Use)', and when I changed it to 'Console In', my inputs from Ableton to Hauptwerk for the Positiv and Swell organs weren't sounding. Does it really matter if it is Console In or Sequencer In?

I enabled the log, so I'll see what I can do with that.