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keymaps and controlling 2 synths at once
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Obelizk
Amoeba
Started Topics :
115
Posts :
836
Posted : Sep 5, 2011 20:59:21
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Hey guys. I'm starting a rock band right now, and I'm playing synths. I use Cubase, and I don't know what a good program to keymap is. I want the bottom half of the keyboard to be one synth and the top half to be another synth.
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willsanquil
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
93
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2822
Posted : Sep 5, 2011 21:33
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EDIT - this is kind of stream of consciousness and long.
I would highly suggest Ableton for this - Cubase isn't set up for live stuff.
You could do something really interesting with Nested Racks...
So, you want to play one synth with one key range and another synth with another key range. In Ableton, I took its Analog instrument (as shown in the far, far right of the picture) - just a simple subtractive synth.
I hit CTRL+G to group it to an Instrument Rack. Making sure to hit the expand icon (little yellow buttons on far left), I now see an option to insert an instrument or sample, so I just select the Analog and hit CTRL+D to duplicate it.
Now, I have two instruments that are triggering by the same MIDI input. Now, select 'Key' above the chains and you will see a piano roll. Simply drag out the green sections to where you want them on the keyboard for each synth you have. You can even crossfade between them, overlap them, etc.
Now, say you want to have Macros for each of those synths. Ok...this requires a bit of forethought, but its worth it. What functions do your synths have in common? Are they a bunch of subtractive synths with Cutoff/Resonance/Filter etc, are they samples you want to adjust the start/pitch of etc. Once you have that figured out, name your Macro Knobs accordingly.
Now, go into your first synth, map those controls to your macro knobs - but each time you do so, enter in custom min/max settings in the Mapping box in the upper right hand corner so that the setting sounds 'good' at both the minimum and maximum ranges.
Now do that for your second synth. Feel free to use random names for the macros, like refuckulater or destroy or what have you, for now just focus on making sure each macro button works for each synth. Only make a maximum of 7 - for reasons explained later.
So now, no matter where you play on the keyboard you can trigger the synths that you want and change their parameters in a pleasing way.
That's great, but that's only two instruments...and having more than a couple instruments on a single keyboard gets confusing fast...
So, select both of your Analog instruments or whatever you use, and hit CTRL+G to group them again. This creates a nested Instrument Rack. What we are wanting to do here is to be able to select from a bank of 7 different Instrument Racks, each of which has its own chain of Instruments/Samples that can be triggered dependent on the range of the keyboard that you're using.
So, to test this just duplicate the Instrument Rack in the furthest left part of the window (the one you just created). Now, where we selected "Key" before for a keyboard range we select "Chain" - instead of a piano roll you see an orange line. That is your chain selecter, and you expand the blue range markers to the ranges that you see fit. The orange line controls the range that is being triggered, so to control this I suggest assigning it to macro 8.
Now you can move that macro knob to select which chain of synths you are triggering.
OK - I just realized that grouping the Instrument Rack into a Nested Instrument Rack sends all the macros that you created initially to the front of the chain. That's wrong. I would retype it, but I really don't feel like re-wording all the stuff. Basically if you're going to do this, you set up your nested grouping and chain selecting and key ranges FIRST, *then* you set up your smart macros.
The end result though is that you can have pretty much a ridiculous amount of patches at your finger tips all with pre-configured parameters through macro knobs that sound great.
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mudpeople
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
113
Posts :
1785
Posted : Sep 9, 2011 00:44
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Eareckon Bloxpander might be up your alley, its designed entirely to use software synths in a live, not necessarily electronic-focused setting
http://www.eareckon.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=54&lang=en
All one screen, and it saves the entire state of whatever plugs as presets. Not something really suited for sequencing but for rocking out on keys
Also theres VSTBoard I think its called, apparently was developed by guitarists for accompaniment, its freeware
Or you could even try Sonicbytes Phrazor, its like a compact VST host with some interesting layering options. Sonicbytes is now part of Sugarbytes so its sorta abandonware.
All the above basically will do the trick unless youre going to be using fancy sequencing techniques or whatever, without being a whole big pile of DAW that you might not necessarily want to learn 
But if you do want a pile of DAW Live is certainly the ticket.
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Obelizk
Amoeba
Started Topics :
115
Posts :
836
Posted : Sep 9, 2011 05:28
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zero_the_hero
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
32
Posts :
146
Posted : Sep 9, 2011 12:09
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