How do I Record Midi data from a VST instrument

Cubase
1

Hi,

I have purchased the Kontakt run software:‘DM-307 Drum sequencer’ from Heavyocity and it does not have a drag and drop midi pattern option - no problem but…how do I record the drum sequencer into midi data in Cubase as it is playing.

I am aware that I can record it straight to Audio but would like to record the midi data and so far this has proven to be a much more complicated task.

The DM-307 sequencer is triggering the notes in Kontakt (the host application for Heavyocity samples) but I cannot find any straight forward explanation as to how I would record the output of this data into midi.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Thank you.

2

I don’t have any kontact software, but isn’t this covered in section 7.3 of the Heavyocity user manual?
Also, what about this guy?

3

Thanks for the help but the YouTube video is a guide for Mac users only (windows users do not have the option to tick the box ‘Kontakt 5 Virtual Midi’ in the Midi options of settings) and the drag and drop option from the manual is only for the single loops not the drum kits or multis.

However, I have found a solution (at least for Cubase users) and will outline it here in respect to the DM-307 sequencer from Heavyocity.

  1. Take your VST track with Kontakt and the DM-307 loaded up into it

  2. Add a Midi track to the instrument track (highlight your instrument track and choose add track to it - choose ‘midi’)

  3. Alter the routing of the midi track to allow it to ‘play’ the midi data from Kontakt
    NB to help with this paste this link into your browser and watch the YouTube video: Recording MIDI Output from VST Instruments - YouTube
    (I am using Cubase 9) and only need the one midi track not multiple like the chap does in the video.

  4. Once both tracks are linked make sure you have the midi track highlighted and press record then press play on the DM-307 sequencer and the midi data is recorded in the midi track

NB. for some reason I always hear the midi track producing piano notes as the midi notes are triggered as well as the DM-307’s beats - not sure why and I, as yet, cannot remedy this but it does not affect the overall desired result.

  1. Once you have your midi data you can move it into the instrument track (the one with Kontakt and the DM-307 loaded up)

  2. You can then play back the track with the midi as normal and can alter the timing and note value as you see fit to suit your music.
    NB the midi track you created will also playback (as it is linked via routing) so you can delete it, alter the routing or mute the track to just hear the midi playing back on the instrument track with Kontakt.

NB this solution works for a single kit (the single kit has 5 tiers to it and all the midi notes will playback respectively for each tier of notes: ie kick drum/snare/hats etc.)….
However…if you choose a performance or production template track from the DM-307 Multis section you will have a new problem; that is that you now have five different instrument tracks playing simultaneously and each track has it’s own five tiers of potential samples.

So if you record the midi in the way I outlined above then when you play it back (the midi file) you get a crossover of all the five drum parts with their five tiers of sounds clashing together in one ‘track’ which produces an incorrect ‘mish-mashed’ playback.

To remedy this you ned to split all the tracks up into their individual parts:(so make five separate instrument tracks - one for each drum part kick/clap/snare etc. whatever the parts are in the multi) - You can do this in two ways:

  1. Go into Kontakt and alter the output selection to split the tracks into five separate outputs: paste this link into your browser to see how in Cubase:
    Setting up multiple outputs in Kontakt - YouTube

Once you have done this you can then write your drum patterns in the sequencer in Kontakt and when you’re happy just draw in a midi line of A#-1(the midi note two semitones below the C0) - that’s two half steps for all you Americans; to the length you want the drum patterns to play for.

After that you can ‘Render’ the instrument track with this single long midi note and it will automatically split up into 5 individual audio tracks - easier to mix with and all in time with one another in respect to the DM-307.

NB a drawback I noticed to this method is that the sonics are altered - for example I noticed a kick sound was given more transient peaks at the start of each hit and thus had lost some of it’s warmth and also the overall volume of the tracks is reduced - I have no idea why, sorry.

So that brings us to option 2:

  1. As in point one - You create 5 instances of the VST instrument track and delete the all the tracks except the one you want from each multi until you have a full set from them all. You do not divide the outputs in Kontakt but instead leave them alone. Then you can draw in the midi line at value A#-1 as outlined in the above idea and then you can render each track and you will five audio tracks with all the sonics as you heard them from the original sample.

A codicil to this last idea is that you could, once you have created your 5 separate tracks, add a midi track to each instrument track and then record the midi data of each separated track as I outlined at the start of this essay. This is however a lengthy and tedious task but it is an option. You would just need to route each new midi track you add to it’s respective instrument track - I tried this but only got it to work partially and got bored.

Apologies for the lengthy explanation but I just wanted to see if I could help someone save two days of researching the internet (like I did) to slowly discover a comprehensive solution to this problem.

Thanks,

Anthony