# Send MIDI to Outside world in LPX?



## nas (Feb 27, 2020)

I would like to record some of the MIDI notes from sequences and MIDI phrases/loops into LPX from Kontakt. I think I tried it once and it worked but I can't remember how it's done? . Can someone please let me know if this is still possible in Kontakt 6 and what the procedure is step by step?

Thanks in advance!


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 27, 2020)

First Logic Pro cannot record the midioutput from instrument plugins.


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## EvilDragon (Feb 27, 2020)

Yep, that's a limitation of AU format. It's fixed in AUv3, but Kontakt doesn't support AUv3.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 27, 2020)

There's probably a way to do it using the standalone Kontakt.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 27, 2020)

Yeah, just use an IAC MIDI bus into Logic. I'm not going to test it, but this should work.

1. Enable an IAC bus in Audio MIDI Setup:






2. Behind the gear icon in Kontakt, send its MIDI output to the IAC bus. If you're going to trigger it with MIDI from Logic, set its input to the same IAC bus.







3. Check the Click and Ports layer in the Logic Environment to make sure you either have the Sum or the IAC bus cabled to the Sequencer Input. MIDI should show up on a record-enabled External MIDI track.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 27, 2020)

Let me know if you need to set up audio loopback so the sound from Kontakt standalone goes into Logic.

If so, what audio interface are you using?

And if so, you'd be better of using an External Instrument plug-in on a Logic Instrument track (because it handles MIDI and audio).


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 27, 2020)

Regarding AU vs AU3 there is a lot of misunderstanding about that on the net. The AU spec does not mention midi output, but as it turns out, it is quite well possible for plugins to output midi from an AU plugin. In fact some AU's do that if the author knew how to do it. But most hosts don't bother checking for midi coming out of AU plugins (due to the spec), so they miss it. BlueCatAudio Patchworks is one AU host that does check for it, so if you have an AU plugin that secretly outputs midi, Patchworks will look for it and see it. Many times, plugins made with JUCE and cross compiled to both VST and AU will have this capability without any special work by the author. Its just that AU didn't make it officially part of the spec...and LogicPro was coded more strictly around the AU spec...so LogicPro made the assumption that instrument plugins don't output midi and there would never be any need to look for it. The entire LogicPro midi signal chain is setup wrong, so it won't ever get midi output from instruments, not AU and not AU3....until/unless Apple makes fairly substantial changes to the paradigm of the program the way the tracks and channels are setup.

I would hazard a guess that Kontakt AU also may not output any midi. But even if it did, or if there was an AU3 version..it still wouldn't matter, LogicPro wouldn't see it and there is no way to route that midi to a track to record it.

As Nick just said while I was typing this, using standalone Kontakt is one way.

Another way, which I prefer, is to host Kontakt inside BlueCatAudio Patchworks or PlogueBidule. There are various different ways to approach that, but its possible to patch the midi from Kontakt out to IAC, where it can loop around back into LogicPro and be recorded to a track. I prefer this option over the standalone approach in order to saved it with the LPX project.

But also, if you use MidiFX Freeze, its possible to capture sample accurate midi renderings also that way.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 27, 2020)

Yeah, Plogue Bidule is great.


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 27, 2020)

PlogueBidule has a direct IAC out module, so that is one way to get the midi out to IAC. But they also have a midifx version and you can host kontakt inside that in the LPX midi fx stack..then you can still use external instrument in the channel to send it to IAC. that is also how you can capture sample accurate midi rendering with MidiFXFreeze. The downside is that if you put kontakt inside midifx, then its not sending audio anywhere, only midi. IN order to get both audio and midi you have to put kontakt inside a normal instrument slot..so you can hear the audio. Put it inside Plogue in order to also send to IAC and loop around the midi. 

I haven't had to mess with kontakt midi out, but with other midi plugins its a little easier since you don't need both midi and audio from the same plugin. That gets more complicated in LogicPro.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 27, 2020)

Some audio interfaces can loop back audio, and if nas has one then it's probably easier to use the standalone Kontakt + External Instrument setup.


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## polypx (Feb 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> Regarding AU vs AU3 there is a lot of misunderstanding about that on the net. .



Yeah, I remember reading something similar. AU itself allows MIDI output fine, but Logic didn't implement it because of their internal structure... nothing to do with AU itself.


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 27, 2020)

Well the Apple spec doesn’t talk about it so it’s an undocumented feature of au if anything. But Logic Pro goes way beyond that and simply provides no way to route any midi from the instrument channel back to a track for recording. Including Logic Pro has a midifx section and provides a number of midi aumfx plugins and there is no way to record the output of those either.

By the way compiling an AU MIDI FX plugin is literally as simple as changing a type field of an AU plugin and building it. If the AU plugin works in the midi buffer then the aumfx version of that plugin WILL be recognized by logicpro as having midi out and it works in the instrument channel but still there is no way to record it


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## nas (Feb 28, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yeah, just use an IAC MIDI bus into Logic. I'm not going to test it, but this should work.
> 
> 1. Enable an IAC bus in Audio MIDI Setup:
> 
> ...




Thanks Nick - I will give this a try! Actually I think that's how I might have done it previously in K5 but couldn't remember. I do recall that LPX doesn't allow for recording MIDI output of instrument plugins.

I also just pulled the trigger on the RME UFX+ and indeed it does allow for loopback via Total Mix Fx so will try using External Instrument setup as well.


Cheers to everyone for chiming in - appreciate it. I will report back with my results.


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## pghnhung (Aug 21, 2021)

nas said:


> Thanks Nick - I will give this a try! Actually I think that's how I might have done it previously in K5 but couldn't remember. I do recall that LPX doesn't allow for recording MIDI output of instrument plugins.
> 
> I also just pulled the trigger on the RME UFX+ and indeed it does allow for loopback via Total Mix Fx so will try using External Instrument setup as well.
> 
> ...


Hi Nas,
Sorry for digging this back, but did you succeed? I just bought Komplete 13 and now run into this exact problem, I've tried everything, including Nick's suggestion above but it couldn't work, or I may miss something here. I'll be very happy to hear back from you!


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## nas (Aug 23, 2021)

pghnhung said:


> Hi Nas,
> Sorry for digging this back, but did you succeed? I just bought Komplete 13 and now run into this exact problem, I've tried everything, including Nick's suggestion above but it couldn't work, or I may miss something here. I'll be very happy to hear back from you!



You know I honestly can't remember as it was a while back. I think actually I may have abandoned the idea as I was under a deadline and couldn't afford to mess too much with the routing at the time... or I may have tried it once but never followed through. I'm on vacation now but when I'm back in the studio I may give it another go and if I succeed I'll post back here. 

BTW I'm on the latest version of Logic and still on Catalina.


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## pghnhung (Aug 23, 2021)

nas said:


> You know I honestly can't remember as it was a while back. I think actually I may have abandoned the idea as I was under a deadline and couldn't afford to mess too much with the routing at the time... or I may have tried it once but never followed through. I'm on vacation now but when I'm back in the studio I may give it another go and if I succeed I'll post back here.
> 
> BTW I'm on the latest version of Logic and still on Catalina.


Thanks for the update Nas, 
And I’m also using Logic’s latest version but still on Catalina.


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## morphling (Aug 24, 2021)

By chance I was testing this just earlier tonight. While I can get Logic to receive the midi it doesn't seem that Kontakt wants to send midi note-off data along with it for whatever reason so all the notes are getting stuck. If anyone knows a fix for this please let me know. Thanks.


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## A.G (Aug 24, 2021)

morphling said:


> While I can get Logic to receive the midi it doesn't seem that Kontakt wants to send midi note-off data along with it for whatever reason so all the notes are getting stuck.


Go to the Logic Click & Ports environment layer and have a look at the "Input Monitor", to see if there is any Note OFF sent after the Note ON. Try and let me know.


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## morphling (Aug 24, 2021)

A.G said:


> Go to the Logic Click & Ports environment layer and have a look at the "Input Monitor", to see if there is any Note OFF sent after the Note ON. Try and let me know.


I have and like I mentioned it isn't sending Note-off but there are other problems as well from what I can tell. The "script generated notes" function in general seems to be very broken as I tried this with 4 or 5 Kontakt libraries and they all behaved wrong. This is an example of a single C4 note using Session Strings Pro 2 (not even using the animator).


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## MCR (Oct 10, 2021)

Any more development on this process folks? Would be very helpful if I could trigger an outside standalone (older) Kontakt instance with midi from inside present Logic session sent to the external Kontakt and then have the triggered notes played by the outside instrument, then rerouted back into and recorded by Logic.


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## Kent (Oct 11, 2021)

MCR said:


> Any more development on this process folks? Would be very helpful if I could trigger an outside standalone (older) Kontakt instance with midi from inside present Logic session sent to the external Kontakt and then have the triggered notes played by the outside instrument, then rerouted back into and recorded by Logic.


Why does the Kontakt instance have to be older?


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## MCR (Oct 11, 2021)

It doesn’t. Just mine is. Not K6 but 5.


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## JEPA (Dec 10, 2021)

MCR said:


> Any more development on this process folks? Would be very helpful if I could trigger an outside standalone (older) Kontakt instance with midi from inside present Logic session sent to the external Kontakt and then have the triggered notes played by the outside instrument, then rerouted back into and recorded by Logic.


I think this video might be helpful for you for external routing!



And this other video for internal routing:



Best,
Jorge


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