Insert an instrument Track with Halion Sonic SE (´First Contact´ patch loaded);
Go to Quick Control panel in the track inspector and replace the first QC with a CC (I used CC3);
In HS, right click the first Quick Control in Halion Sonic SE (Cutoff) and select ´Learn CC´;
Now move track Quick Control CC3 in the inspector again and that’ll takeover control of Cutoff;
Now create an empty Expression Map;
In the Expression Map, create a Sound Slot and assign something to Art.1 (i.e. arco);
In the just created Sound Slot, create a Slot in the Output Mapping;
Set this slot to Controller, CC3 in data 1 and an arbitrary value in data 2 (i.e. 127);
Assign the Expression Map to the track;
Now create an empty part in the Instrument Track : You´ll notice that now the Quick Control in HS jumped to what you assigned in data 2, 127 in my case, that’s correct;
Now create some notes in the part and set the articulation we set to Art. 1 in step 7) in Articulation/Dynamics lane to start in 1.2.1.0 (second beat of the first bar);
Touch the Quick Control in HS to some arbitrary value and go to the beginning of the project;
Now play, the CC3 won’t be sent to the Quick Control in HS anymore, neither it will chase from any other place.
• Sometimes, double clicking stop sets the control in the articulation, but I find it to be erratic and impossible to determine when it’ll work.
Sorry for so many steps, I tried to describe a consistent way of reproducing the problem.
Without going through all those steps myself (too lazy ), am I reading correctly that you are expecting the CC#3 event in the MIDI track (in this case, the VST Expression event) to also trigger the Quick Controls slot?
That won’t happen (and has nothing to do with VST Expression)… the only way to achieve that, would be to route that MIDI track to something like MIDI Yoke (on PC… or the Apple IAC Bus on Mac) and set the MIDI input in the Quick Controls Device Panel to the same external bus.
But you should still be able to manipulate that QC slot manually via whatever external controller you had set up in the QC Device Panel.
Or am I grabbing the wrong end of the stick at both ends?
Sound Slots in VST Expression Maps can be set to send CCs in the output mapping. I have made a map that sends CC3, but it has the problems I described. The idea is, whenever I set an articulation in the Score/Key Editor, it should send the CC I defined in the output mapping, but it doesn’t in a consistent way. I guess the step you misunderstood is that I set the Quick Control slot to send CC3 to the VSTi only to set a Halion Sonic Quick Control to respond to this. When you create a HS instrument track, it automatically sets quick controls, but for my purposes, I have to use specific CCs, and Expression Maps only send CCs, not Quick Controls per se.
Yes, but how is the receiving instrument supposed to respond to that CC3, when sent as a VST Expression event? (and, if you reply that it is supposed to adjust the Quick Controls slot #1, then it is you that have misunderstood me )
Let me have another go at explaining, what could be the source of confusion here…
The Track Quick Controls slots, in the MIDI Track’s Inspector, are piloted by the Input Device, as set in the Track Quick Controls Device Panel, not by the output/thruput of the MIDI track (although these two may be, coincidentally, the same). Therefore, any VST Expression events inside a MIDI Part will never arrive at the Quick Controls slots (in the Inspector).
I believe your answer is in the steps 10) to 14), do you want to know in what situation the Expression Map will send the CC of the first Sound Slot? Whenever you play the sequence, since the first Sound Slot is the default, I have not created another and should send whatever output mapping assigned, right?
Also, let HS open and change Art. 1 in the Expression Map editor: the output mapping will be sent to the instrument, but not when you playback, when it really should.
Yes, and I don’t need it at all. The Quick Control I’m talking about in step 14) is the HS one, not the inspector one, hence the confusion. The only time I’m talking about inspector’s Quick Control is in steps 3) and 5), so the confusion is my bad
But you have assigned the eight knobs on HALion Sonic SE to be controlled by the eight QC slots in the Inspector, not directly by the controller that is assigned to the QC slots, so sending those controllers, directly from the MIDI track, to HS_SE, whether via VST Expression or not, will not pilot those eight knobs.
I think that (finally! ) I have figured out what you need to do…
Forget about Track Quick Controls altogether (in fact, switch it off)
On the GUI of HALion Sonic SE, right-click on each of the eight knobs in turn, and Learn CC (set to the CC that you will output from the VST Expression).
[EDIT: we keep cross-posting/editing! … so our replies are sometimes in the wrong order! )]
(one more thing… just to go full circle )…
It seems that, if you send that CC (manually), before Cubase has played the first VST Expression event in the Part, it does indeed override that first event (which is what I think you were saying in the first place, in step #14, right? )
I’ll wait a little more before posting from now on
but…
I think that (finally! > > ) I have figured out what you need to do…
Forget about Track Quick Controls altogether >
On the GUI of HALion Sonic SE, right-click on each of the eight knobs in turn, and Learn CC (set to the CC that you will output from the VST Expression).
Unfortunately not . Why did I use the inspector’s Quick Control in my steps? so you can do everything from inside Cubase, but I will simplify now. If you replace the steps 3) to 5) with these:
Go to MIDI inserts, insert ´MIDI Control´
In HS, right click the first Quick Control in Halion Sonic SE (Cutoff) and select ´Learn CC´;
Now enter any value to CC 2 in ´MIDI Control´.
…and 9)…
Set this slot to Controller, CC 2 in data 1 and an arbitrary value in data 2 (i.e. 127);
You see the difference? The important in my example was to set the ´Cutoff´ knob in HS to any CC (CC 2, in this case) that I could use in my Expression Map. I could have entered this through an external MIDI controller, or use another knob, or yet another VSTi, but I wanted to be sure that most people with C6 would be able to reproduce the steps. The important is to set this knob so I can control it with the Expression Map.
No matter which instrument and which controller (now that we forgot about the inspector Quick Controls), the Expression Map does not send it when it should. I mean, when the articulation is started in any editor, the CC is not sent to the instrument.
(heehee; we crossed again! )…
Just check whether the problem is just with the first VST Expression event in the Part. (I think we may even be getting there )
If an Expression Map contains one or more CC assignments, these CC´s are not passed to the track anymore, they are ´blocked´ by the EM. I don’t know what the reason is for that, but I can’t send these CC´s manually anymore (even if they are in MIDI Inserts). So that’s not really it, but the afact that the Expression Map doesn’t send he CC´s when they should (at least not always).
I should have waited even more to post, shame on me
Heheh Well, In this cross-posting, I think you got something important: my prelkminary tests show that it’s really the first (default) articulation that poses the problem. I’ll take a better look at that. Even so it should chase or send the controller, right?
The first VST Expression event in the MIDI Part happens to be also the Default slot
You move the knob to which it is assigned before Cubase has played it from the MIDI Part
(btw, I am eventually confirming that there is indeed something going wrong there ). But it does seem that (as a workaround), if I set up a different Default slot, or insert a different VST Expression event before the first default one, the problem goes away.
It doesn’t seem to matter if I already moved the knob
My workaround it to never use the first Sound Slot with something meaningful, use the second as a main slot. As I’m trying on a project I was working which caught my attention to this, it seems that it’ll work. But still a workaround, and I hate workarounds
So, the default slot behavior is wrong, I believe.
), am I reading correctly that you are expecting the CC#3 event in the MIDI track (in this case, the VST Expression event) to also trigger the Quick Controls slot?
)
. Why did I use the inspector’s Quick Control in my steps? so you can do everything from inside Cubase, but I will simplify now. If you replace the steps 3) to 5) with these: