VST Filter Plugin

I am trying to test a VST plugin which is designed to change the commands sent by my console when stops are changed.

I have installed Cantabile Light as a VST host and I can see Hauptwerk VST as a plugin, and my plugin. However, no matter what I do I don't seem to be able to get it to pass any midi data to Hauptwerk at all. As the simplest possible test, I simply set it up with the console as input, and put Hauptwerk in the instrument rack. I selected the VST as the input in Hauptwerk. Nothing. I tried using a virtual cable as well, but still nothing.

Am I missing something basic here?

Thanks,
Lee.

[mdyde]

Hello Lee,

To confirm, you mean that you're having difficulty getting MIDI to flow from your console, through Cantabile, to Hauptwerk, even without any VST plug-ins apart from the Hauptwerk VST Link loaded in Cantabile?

Assuming so, my general suggestions would be:

- Try to get it working first with just the Hauptwerk VST Link loaded in Cantabile (to try to narrow down where the problem is).

- Make sure your physical MIDI IN ports are enabled in Cantabile, but are *not* enabled in Hauptwerk.

- Make sure that the 'Hauptwerk VST Link' entry is enabled in the *left-hand* ('Console MIDI IN') column on Hauptwerk's 'General settings | MIDI ports | MIDI IN ports' screen, and that no other entries at all are enabled in either column.

- Make sure that you only have one instance of the Hauptwerk VST Link plug-in loaded in your sequencer project.

- Make sure that the relevant track(s) in your sequencer project are each set to 'all MIDI channels' or equivalent (as opposed to single MIDI channels).

- Load St. Anne's, play some keys on your physical MIDI console, and see whether any virtual MIDI activity LEDs flash on Hauptwerk's 'Audio, MIDI and Performance' large control panel ('View | Large control panels'). They should, if it's working. If they do, try using right-click auto-detection in Hauptwerk.

Although Cantabile isn't a VST host that we officially support or test with (or actually have any experience with), I know of no reasons that it shouldn't work -- the Hauptwerk VST Link is intentionally simple and 'light-weight' for maximum compatibility.

(Reaper is probably the most popular of the hosts we do test with, especially for adding real-time use:

https://www.hauptwerk.com/clientuploads ... isites.pdf
http://www.reaper.fm/ .)

That's what I had. And yes, your assessment of what I'm trying to do is correct.

I had a quick look at Reaper but there's so much there it wasn't obvious how to set it up for what I want. Are there any quick guides available?

Thanks,
Lee.

[mdyde]

Hello Lee,

That's what I had. And yes, your assessment of what I'm trying to do is correct.

Do you mean that you've definitely already tried my suggestions exactly, but that no virtual MIDI activity LEDs flash on Hauptwerk's 'Audio, MIDI and Performance' large control panel ('View | Large control panels') when you press keys on your MIDI organ console?

I had a quick look at Reaper but there's so much there it wasn't obvious how to set it up for what I want. Are there any quick guides available?

Reaper can indeed be a little complex and intimidating, but it's very powerful (and very reasonably priced). We don't have a specific tutorial for it for what you're aiming to achieve, but effectively you would want to start by setting it up in the same way as described in my steps above. Once you have that working properly, you could then introduce the additional MIDI translation plug-in into the chain. (I haven't tried chainng MIDI plug-ins in Reaper myself, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't possible.)

This turned out to be useful for finding all the little buttons you gotta push before anything happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3rwTpyvZs

This morning I was able to load my little VST plugin, twice, as a pre and post processor for the Hauptwerk VST, and an initial test with a single stop suggests that my code is working. The tricky part was getting the two instances to pass data to each other so they could identify the messages I wanted to drop. Wish I'd known about shared data segments when I was doing this sort of thing for a living.

Tonight I will try it with 100 stops and see if it scales up.

[mdyde]

Hello Lee,

Thanks for the update, and glad to hear you seem to have it working you want it now.