Force a tracks MIDI input to monophonic?

Is there anyway I can use one of Cubase’s MIDI plugins to force a track to be monophonic?

The context I want to use it in is layering multiple tracks when playing live but I don’t want all tracks to play the chords i’m playing.

(Obviously I can just set this on some instruments but i’m talking about for instruments which don’t have a monophonic option)

Maybe the MidiPolyphony plugin from the Piz collection?

http://thepiz.org/pizmidi/?p=pizmidi

Mmm, nice idea, i’d forgotten about those old plugins. I can’t seem to get them working in Cubase though. :cry:

Well Steinberg haven’t made it easy but they do work.

  1. Put it in your vst2 plugin folder
  2. load it as a vst rack instrument (F11)
  3. Create a midi track which will be your controller channel. You can select the midipolyphony as it’s output.
  4. Add the instrument you want to mono-ize as an instrument track and set the midipolyphony as it’s input

In the midiPolyphony plug set low and high channels to 1, polyphony to 1 and note priority to whatever you want…Low if you want it as bass note I guess.

Don’t forget you’ll need to turn monitor on for both the midi track and the instrument track to complete the chain

Ah i’d just found it was a setting that was wrong. As well as polyphony being set to 1, I needed to set High Channel to 1 as well as you say. Now I can use it on an instrument track that is the MIDI source for another instrument track which hosts the instrument I want it to effect and only need to monitor enable the instrument track that has my instrument on it. Simple enough. Along with the actual instruments track’s MIDI modifier set to -12 or -24 for example I can now play monophonic bass lines under my live chords that are on another instrument for example. :sunglasses: Great for layering in general as well as I don’t usually want a stack of chords.

It’s a shame the strum MIDI plugin doesn’t work very well for chords. I’d like to use that when playing big layered parts for my chords sometimes.