Question

Hi folks,

I’m recording our band audio plus my midi vst instrument live. During the song I’m changing the instrument or just the preset/patch through the browser in Komplete Kontrol. When Mixing the song I recognized that the changes of vst preset/patch were not recorded. The track plays with the last selected sound for the whole track instead of playing the sounds I selected intuitively while recording the live improvisation session.

Why is s the information of change of vst instrument/patch not simply recorded with the midi notes within the track? How can that be done, or do I need to record the audio signal to fully preserve my live editing of the vst instruments and the change of presets?

Thanks for helping!

Answer 1

Selecting banks is indeed a CC control parameter. But it's not a CC parameter linked to a specific CC number. For example, try find your transport parameters in your MIDI controller guide. There are none. It's a fixed communication channel, and cannot be programmed. It requires a different path to program them to your DAW, but it isn't part of the CC automation within any DAW.  Selecting banks is also part of these transport channels. If recording bank selection would exist, it also means you could record 'play', 'stop' and even 'record' itself. That would mean you have some crazy/buggy things going on if you would play it back.

Second, consider this: If bank selection recording was a thing. How is your DAW able to figure out which bank selection it is? It would only register 'patch up' or 'patch down' during recording. That would bring another set of difficulties. For example: Every time you playback the track and return to intro, you have to manually set the bank to the starting position. And when you start a new song, and accidentally mess up the bank, you will mess it up for your previous recording as well, as it does not saved the plugin state during recording.

Using two tracks with both the same plugin, but a different bank is much easier to maintain. When saved it will always be that state. You will have two seperate entities, each track has its own sounds, which makes it easier to mix and master.

Anyway have fun making music! Good weekend!

Answer 2

Changing banks isn't part of Midi CC automation. There is no DAW capable of recording this and there is no way to get this done, since there are other ways to do this.

Why not copy the track and use a different patch/bank on one of them? Then when recording, instead of trying to get bank selection recorded, why not switch these tracks? It does the same and gives you a way more organized and versatile product to edit later.  Much better workflow guaranteed.

Cheers!

Answer 3

Thanks for the crisp and helpful answer  

I thought that there was a midi control message for changing banks, sub banks and presets? That’s how a control keyboard like NI Komplete Kontrol controls the patches of an instrument. At least I edited sequencers decades ago to do so.

  But after reading your suggestion how to approach changing and recording preset sounds in live situation I understand how to handle it much better, also for later editing the song in S1 or any other daw as you write.

After having had a bad surprise that I didn’t record the sounds I played, I will still go safe by recording an audio output of the vst instrument through routing a “send” from every separate instrument track to one bus and select that bus as an input on one audio track. Another method for an individual vst instrument track is, to record each ONE instrument channel by selecting it as input in ONE audio track.

Thanks again for bringing me “on the right track” and for the confidence to achieve a much better workflow.

Answer 4

Thanks for the further in depth explanation. Now this is crystal clear and logic to me! It makes my musical life easier :)