What's new

Now here...MOTU DP11

David Das posted an excellent video on the new articulation maps feature:


Some questions raised by this video:
- Does DP always separate instrument tracks into audio channels and MIDI tracks as two separate tracks? Or does it have a combined version?
- Are the articulations marked in the piano roll editor using one lane per articulation (like Cubase does for "Direction" articulations) or can you assign them per note in another manner (like Cubase / Logic do for "Attribute" articulations)? If you have like 30-40 articulations, using lanes can be a nightmare to deal with.
 
Some questions raised by this video:
- Does DP always separate instrument tracks into audio channels and MIDI tracks as two separate tracks? Or does it have a combined version?

Yes they are seperate.


- Are the articulations marked in the piano roll editor using one lane per articulation (like Cubase does for "Direction" articulations) or can you assign them per note in another manner (like Cubase / Logic do for "Attribute" articulations)? If you have like 30-40 articulations, using lanes can be a nightmare to deal with.

Near as I can tell, DP is a note by note (ie attribute), but it is displayed on the lane...I haven't found a way yet to see the articulation assigned anywhere on the note itself...or by colorizing the notes themselves or something like that. So its using a Cubase style lane yes...

You can for example select notes in the piano roll and assign them to an articulation and its possible to have a chord with different articulations on different notes of the chord (not possible with cubase DIRECTION's)

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Yes they are seperate.




Near as I can tell, DP is a note by note (ie attribute), but it is displayed on the lane...I haven't found a way yet to see the articulation assigned anywhere on the note itself...or by colorizing the notes themselves or something like that. So its using a Cubase style lane yes...

You can for example select notes in the piano roll and assign them to an articulation and its possible to have a chord with different articulations on different notes of the chord (not possible with cubase DIRECTION's)

Screen Shot 2021-07-10 at 2.12.09 PM.jpg
Thanks - for "chord with different articulations on different notes", how is that possible with the sampler? Most samplers I believe only play a single articulation at a time - does this actually work?
 
when there are notes in a chord, the chords are not actually processed at the same time by any software instrument. They are processed one note at a time, and rendered to the audio buffer with the sound starting at the same time. Midi is fundamentally a serial protocol, so even if the midi events are set on the exact same timestamp...as long as the keyswitches are inserted into that serial order of KS-note-KS-note... they end up getting rendered as audio with the audio starting at the same sample point in time...but the actual processing happens linearly....one after the other as seperate midi events. Most software instruments can respond to those keyswitches and actually render the articulation with a different sound for each note of the chord.

Of course, whether DP actually makes sure to send those ks-note-ks-note sequences in correct order is left to be tested. It works that way in LogicPro and cubase. I assume DP probably does too.

Note - the above won't work when using CC switches to change articulations in Kontakt or any VST3 instrument due to "flaws" in their design, but key-switches work fine.

its not a common scenario.

But just pointing out that articulations in DP are assigned per note...they are not broad-stroke DIRECTION style. It kind of functions similar as a DIRECTION in that it continues to play subsequent notes with the same articulation unless otherwise explicitly changed otherwise...that is more like cubase direction's...but since it can be separately assigned to notes, its also like attributes. I think its more like attributes...it just happens to have somewhat of a DIRECTION style of entering it into the lanes.
 
when there are notes in a chord, the chords are not actually processed at the same time by any software instrument. They are processed one note at a time, and rendered to the audio buffer with the sound starting at the same time. Midi is fundamentally a serial protocol, so even if the midi events are set on the exact same timestamp...as long as the keyswitches are inserted into that serial order of KS-note-KS-note... they end up getting rendered as audio with the audio starting at the same sample point in time...but the actual processing happens linearly....one after the other as seperate midi events. Most software instruments can respond to those keyswitches and actually render the articulation with a different sound for each note of the chord.

Of course, whether DP actually makes sure to send those ks-note-ks-note sequences in correct order is left to be tested. It works that way in LogicPro and cubase. I assume DP probably does too.



its not a common scenario.

But just pointing out that articulations in DP are assigned per note...they are not broad-stroke DIRECTION style. It kind of functions similar as a DIRECTION in that it continues to play subsequent notes with the same articulation unless otherwise explicitly changed otherwise...that is more like cubase direction's...but since it can be separately assigned to notes, its also like attributes. I think its more like attributes...it just happens to have somewhat of a DIRECTION style of entering it into the lanes.
Interesting - I tried this in Cubase with Kontakt and CSS and two MIDI tracks targeting it playing two different articulations and it doesn't work. The last played articulation at any given time will takeover and only one note / articulation across both tracks can play at a time.
 
I'll try a test in a few minutes. I could have sworn I tried this in cubase. I have tested it to work many times in LogicPro. If it doesn't work, its a flaw in the DAW in my view that may rear is head in other situations too.

This is getting off topic though...happy to start another thread to discuss this issue with you if you like...or PM me for more details...
 
I'll try a test in a few minutes. I could have sworn I tried this in cubase. I have tested it to work many times in LogicPro. If it doesn't work, its a flaw in the DAW in my view that may rear is head in other situations too.

This is getting off topic though...happy to start another thread to discuss this issue with you if you like...or PM me for more details...
No worries - I didn't know this was possible in any DAW / sampler, so if DP does support it, that seems pretty cool! Thanks for the new knowledge.
 
and quick last point again...but lets move on to DP discussion...but yes...Kontakt is fundamentally flawed in that the exact ordering of mixed midi events is not preserved as sent from the DAW to the instrument. You can use NoteOn and PC events to trigger poly-articulation chords and it should work fine, but you can't use CC switches and expect it to work correctly. The Kontakt scripting always receives all the CC switches in front of the Notes..so the script basically only know about the last one by the time its processing the Notes

VST3 in general is even more flawed, it can't use PC events that way either..only the exact ordering of NoteOn will be preserved...all other midi event types will not be in the correct order to be handled properly by an instrument with exactitude of order.
 
ps - I just did a quick test in Cubase and it doesn't work there either. In that case, Cubase should not be allowing us to create poly-articulation chords...since they don't work. Or they should fix it so that it does work, but I digress.. will test DP now...

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something else worth pointing out about Cubase vs DP on this thing that I'm just now noticing...

DP handles keyswitches the same way LogicPro does...which until recently I was ambivalent about but a recent experience with ModoBass made me realize this may actually be important in some cases.

Specifically...

Notice in the logging above...that Cubase sends each keyswitch NoteOn, immediately followed by its corresponding Noteoff.

The DP logging however, notice that the keyswitch NoteOn of each keyswitch happens....but not the NoteOff...the NoteOff doesn't happen until later on after the sound notes have actually stopped sustaining...

In other words, DP mimics as if you are holding the keyswitch down while playing the notes.

LogicPro handles keyswitching the same way.

does it matter? In a lot of cases no. but recently I was working with ModoBass and it actually does have a number of keyswitches designed to operate while being held down only....and guess what...Cubase expression map can't really handle that as far as I can tell. DP and LogicPro can.
 
something else worth pointing out about Cubase vs DP on this thing that I'm just now noticing...

DP handles keyswitches the same way LogicPro does...which until recently I was ambivalent about but a recent experience with ModoBass made me realize this may actually be important in some cases.

Specifically...

Notice in the logging above...that Cubase sends each keyswitch NoteOn, immediately followed by its corresponding Noteoff.

The DP logging however, notice that the keyswitch NoteOn of each keyswitch happens....but not the NoteOff...the NoteOff doesn't happen until later on after the sound notes have actually stopped sustaining...

In other words, DP mimics as if you are holding the keyswitch down while playing the notes.

LogicPro handles keyswitching the same way.

does it matter? In a lot of cases no. but recently I was working with ModoBass and it actually does have a number of keyswitches designed to operate while being held down only....and guess what...Cubase expression map can't really handle that as far as I can tell. DP and LogicPro can.
Dewdman:

Just want to say that your posts are a real asset to this community. Thank you, and don't stop posting!
 
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