Recording - November 2010 - 50

Cubase alone: check them out at www.rivetedstudios.com/ cubase-downloads.html. In Cubase, it’s possible to make GUI (Graphic User Interface) patch panels that send MIDI data to your synthesizer of choice. This is convenient, but also frustrating because no data comes back from the synth. For example, on my previously owned Roland MKS-50, I could tweak the synth from the patch panel. However, when I flipped between patches, the panel would not adjust the MIDI parameters to reflect the currently loaded patch. Editor/Librarian programs Computer programs have been written to deal with the patches on the hundreds of synthesizers that have come out over time. Some of these programs attempt to know and talk to every synth known to man and woman, others specialize in just one and only one synth. Let’s call them “general” vs. “dedicated” to keep them apart, shall we? There is another distinction to be made: A Librarian program only lists, stores, sends and receives complete patch data “as is”. An Editor program brings up the programmable parameters of a synth on your computer screen, and instead of pushing buttons and twiddling knobs on your instrument, you change all the parameter values on the computer screen, while the computer sends the data to the synth—remote control, if you will. When you’re happy with your work, you can lock it in and save the patch on your computer. You may or may not have to push a button on the synth to lock the edited patch into its memory—that depends on the synth’s design. A new synth may come with an editor/librarian program from the manufacturer. If it becomes a popular instrument, sooner or later someone will write a program for it. SoundQuest’s MidiQuest and MOTU’s Unisyn are programs of the “general” kind that know about a great many instruments out there. With older synths you may run into the problem of computers having marched on and left the old operating systems behind. For example, there were lots of great editor/librarians written for the Atari ST, in its time a popular computer for music making, but not many of those editor/librarians were rewritten for subsequent computers and their operating systems. The intermediary—the control surface MIDI control surfaces, while technically not part of your DAW, work with your DAW, and can even control VSTi’s, the virtual synthesizers within your DAW, along with your freestanding synthesizers. Control surfaces come in two flavors, exclusive and ‘generic’. There have not been many exclusive pieces— to mind come the earlier Roland PG line of controllers and the Kawai K5000 with the Macro Control Box. Most control surfaces can deal with a multitude of devices. Generic control surfaces have been available for many years with banks of faders, knobs, buttons, joysticks, ribbons, and more. From the old Peavey PC-1600x and Keyfax Phatboy to the recent Korg Nano series, Novation Remote SL Zero, and Wave Idea BitStream 3X, the options have been plentiful.
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Take a closer look at these devices—they are not uniform in their capabilities. As a minimum they send MIDI CC data, but some can send SysEx, RPN, NRPN, and more. (RPN and NRPN are Registered and NonRegistered Parameter Numbers, special MIDI messages that allow devices with hundreds of parameters to be remotely tweaked; many synthesizers don’t use them at all, but certain complex workstations can use them to give users a fine degree of remote control.) You can, to varying degrees, assign functions to the controller’s knobs and faders, and you may be doing this from your DAW. And, again, how that happens, with which kinds of data, can depend on choices a manufacturer made. Some gear, like Roland, is looking to receive SysEx data for control, so keep that in mind when shopping for a controller—not all control surfaces will send user-customizable SysEx messages. Other control options MIDI control doesn’t mean you need MIDI ports. Many modern control surfaces work over USB as well as MIDI. Other devices, such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad, use WiFi for connectivity. For example, users of Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere can select patches on an iPhone app. Another iPhone application, TouchOSC, lets you create your own custom control surfaces that use OSC (Open Sound Control, a modern music control language that some call a suitable successor to MIDI) to control your OSC-enabled hardware remotely over WiFi. What’s more, you can use inexpensive programs like OSCulator or even the free PD to translate OSC messages into familiar MIDI CCs, so virtually any hardware is game. An innovative idea has come in the flavors of MOTU’s Volta and Expert Sleeper’s Silent Way. These plug-ins allow users to take control over their vintage gear by sending control voltage, trigger and gate messages through a selected audio interface. One of my friends has an old early-1970s EMS VCS3 (a notoriously ill-tempered instrument... but with a legendary sound, think “On The Run” from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon), which he can now, for the first time ever, keep in tune without constant tweaking. Take nothing for granted MIDI works like a charm when all participants cooperate. But with so many different implementations over the last three decades on thousands of devices, and with old gear getting, well, old, often tired and downright cranky with receiving loads of MIDI data, things may not always go as planned. Even the newest dedicated editors for USB-enabled synths can have issues when working in some DAWs as plug-ins. Getting answers for older gear isn’t always easy, either, even Google might not immediately generate answers for your questions. But keep looking, sooner or later someone may have the answer. All that is not to say it’s not worth trying; it truly is rewarding when it works. Devon Brent (devon@recordingmag.com) is a keyboardist and electronic music hardware and software enthusiast living and working in Jacksonville, FL.

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Recording - November 2010

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