Following on from a recent post on supporting real instruments, I would like to request a feature to allow pre-defined midi messages to be created and saved as midi presets. This could be fired off on particular events, such as loading a song or moving to a new part. MIDI presets could be saved in a collection in a new MIDI section under media bay perhaps?
I see this as providing the same features a midi pedal would. I can create a series of messages, covering every type of midi such as note on/off, PC, CC, SysEx. I can then attach this midi preset to a stomp button, that fires the lot when I press the button.
VST Live can send PC messages when loading songs but that isn’t sufficient. Midi tracks are a workaround. Recorded midi can be played on the timeline. This works for the start of a song but is tied to a linear time sequence (I think). I don’t use tracks for performance. I want to switch a part any time, not just on a timed event. As I understand, midi tracks are for the song, not the part. So if I switch parts, the tracks don’t reset, so I can’t fire a new event off. Midi tracks are a limited work around, rather than a full solution.
There’s many real world uses for setting up and controlling both hardware and software instruments like this. As a simple example, I could create midi messages for a fade effect. On song exit, the preset would fire and fade down all layers in the current song.
This feature would need an editor to create messages. It should be able to to pick standard midi note/PC/CC messages off a list. It would need a text editor for sysEx support. It should allow the messages to be put into an ordered list with options to reorder and insert/delete.
When attaching presets, this would need a list of defined events, such as load song/part and leave song/part. It would also be good to allow midi presets to be linked to current actions and also even fired from other Midi CC events (so I can fire a midi preset from a button on my keyboard for example).
For those of us who don’t work to a track, this kind of interactive performance feature would be great.
Thanks in anticipation.