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VST Instruments
8. Play the VST Instrument from your MIDI keyboard.
You can use the Channel Settings window to adjust the sound, add EQ or
effects, etc. – just as with regular audio channels. Of course, you can also
record or manually create MIDI parts that play back sounds from the VST
Instrument.
Setting up instrument tracks
Instrument tracks can be created in several different ways:
• By selecting “Add Track” on the Project menu and then se-
lecting “Instrument” from the submenu.
• By right-clicking in the Track list and selecting “Add Instru-
ment Track” on the context menu.
Selecting any of the two options opens a dialog where you
can specify an instrument for the track from a pop-up. You
can leave this until later if you wish. You can also specify
the number of Instrument tracks you wish to create.
• Once an Instrument track has been added, it appears in
the Track list and as an Instrument channel in the mixer.
The instrument panel does not open automatically (re-
gardless of whether an instrument was selected in the
“Add Instrument Track” dialog or not). If a device was se-
lected, the track will have the same name as the instru-
ment, otherwise it will be named “Instrument Track”. Note
that VST Instruments loaded into Instrument tracks do not
show up in the VST Instruments rack. If you need a quick
overview of all VSTi’s used in a Project, use the Plug-in In-
formation window (opened from the Devices menu).
An Instrument track in the Track list.
• In the Inspector, you can select a VST Instrument from
the Instrument pop-up.
Only VST Instruments are available on the pop-up. When you select an
instrument on this pop-up menu, its control panel is opened.
• On the Input Routing pop-up you can select a MIDI input.
Instrument tracks only have one MIDI input.
• To open the control panel for the VST Instrument, click
the “Edit Instrument” button in the Inspector.
• The available Track controls and items available in the
Inspector reflect the mixed nature of Instrument tracks, as
it combines audio, VST Instruments and MIDI.
See the chapter “Instrument Tracks” in the Operation Manual for a com-
plete listing of what items and controls are available.
• Recording/playing the instrument is done just like for
MIDI tracks.
Using VST presets
About VST presets
VST presets store all panel settings for an instrument, but
no track/channel settings.
As explained in the chapter “Audio effects” on page 5
there are also two types of VST presets that can be used;
the VST 2 standard “.fxb/.fxp” files and the new VST 3
preset standard with the extension “.vstpreset”. It works
exactly the same way for VST Instruments.
All VST 2 instruments can import “.fxb/.fxp” files and also
convert them to the VST 3 standard. Once converted you
can use all the Preset browser features. See “About ear-
lier VST Instrument presets” on page 38.
Selecting VST presets
VST Instruments come with a large number of VST pre-
sets for instant selection. Presets can either be accessed
from the control panel for the effect or from the Inspector.
To select a VST Instrument preset, proceed as follows:
1. Load a VST Instrument either by activating it from the
VST Instruments rack or by creating an Instrument track.
2. If you use a VST Instrument channel, select the MIDI
track connected to the instrument. If you use an Instru-
ment track, select this.
!
You can have up to 2 VST Instruments activated at the
same time, different models or several instances of the
same instrument.