Working with MIDI
Original Manual: Synkron Revision and Quality Control for Nuendo 3: Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Sabine Pfeifer, Claudia Schomburg The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement.
Table of Contents
7 MIDI realtime parameters and effects 8 8 Introduction The Inspector – General handling Basic track settings Track parameters MIDI effects Managing plug-ins Merge MIDI in Loop The included MIDI effects Arpache 5 Arpache SX Autopan Chorder Compress Context Gate Density Micro Tuner MIDIControl MIDIEcho Note to CC Quantizer Step Designer Track Control Track FX Transformer 10 14 19 24 25 27 27 29 32 34 37 38 40 40 41 42 45 46 47 51 55 56 57 58 59 70 76 MIDI processing and quantizing Introduction Quantizi
211 The Logical Editor, Transformer and Input Transformer 212 214 214 215 216 227 229 233 234 235 Introduction Opening the Logical Editor Window overview Selecting a preset Setting up filter conditions Selecting a function Specifying actions Applying the defined actions Working with presets The Input Transformer 239 Working with System Exclusive messages 240 240 243 244 Introduction Bulk dumps Recording System Exclusive parameter changes Editing System Exclusive messages 247 VST Instruments 248 249 254
NUENDO 4 Table of Contents
1 MIDI realtime parameters and effects
Introduction This chapter describes the included MIDI realtime effects and their parameters and how to apply and handle MIDI effects. For each MIDI track, you can set up a number of track parameters and MIDI effects. These affect how the MIDI data is played back, “transforming” MIDI events in real time before they are sent to the MIDI outputs. On the following pages, the available parameters and effects are described.
• The Inspector for a MIDI track is divided into eight sections. You can fold or unfold the sections individually by clicking on the section name. Clicking the name for a hidden section brings it to view and hides the other sections. [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking the tab allows you to hide or show a section without affecting other sections. Finally, [Alt]/[Option]-clicking a tab shows or hides all sections in the Inspector.
Basic track settings The topmost Inspector section contains the basic settings for the selected MIDI track. These are settings that either affect the basic functionality for the track (mute, solo, enable record, etc.) or send out additional MIDI data to the connected devices (program change, volume, etc.).
• Parameter Description Lock button Activating this disables all editing of all events on the track. Lane display type button Allows you to divide the tracks in lanes. Edit In-Place button This opens a type of Key editor in the Project window that allows you to edit events in context with other tracks - see page 115.
Other Inspector sections Apart from the basic track settings (above), the Track Parameters and the effect sections (both described on the following pages), the Inspector for a MIDI track also contains the following: The Channel section This contains a single channel strip, allowing you to set volume, pan, mute/solo and other parameters for the track. This is a “mirror” of the track’s channel strip in the Nuendo mixer – see the chapter “The mixer” in the Operation Manual.
VST Instrument section If the MIDI track is routed to a VST Instrument, an additional section will appear at the bottom of the Inspector, labeled with the name of the VST instrument. Clicking this section shows a duplicate of the Inspector settings for the VST Instrument channel. This makes it easy to adjust the channel settings for the VST Instrument while you are editing the MIDI track.
Track parameters The following settings will affect the MIDI events on the track in real time during playback. They will also be in effect if you play “live” with the track selected and record enabled (provided that “MIDI Thru Active” is activated on the Preferences–MIDI page). This makes it possible to e.g. transpose or adjust the velocity of your live playing.
Transpose This allows you to transpose all notes on the track in semitones. The available range is -127 to +127 semitones, but remember that the total range of MIDI note numbers is 0 to 127. Furthermore, not all instruments can play back notes over the whole range. Therefore, extreme transpositions can give rather strange and unwanted results. • You can also transpose individual MIDI parts using the Transpose field in the info line.
Velocity Compression This function multiplies the velocity values with the factor you specify. This factor is set using a numerator (left value) and a denominator (right value), resulting in a fractional number (1/2, 3/4, 3/2 etc.). For example, if you set the factor to 3/4, the velocities will be three quarters of their original values. The point is, that this will also affect the difference in velocity between the notes, thereby compressing or expanding the velocity scale.
Random The Random settings let you introduce random variations to various properties of MIDI notes. Anything from very subtle variations to dramatic changes can be applied. There are two separate “Random generators”, each of which are set up in the following way: 1. Pull down the Random pop-up menu and select which note property should be randomized. The options are position, pitch, velocity and length.
Range The Range function lets you specify a note (pitch) or velocity range and either force all notes to fit within this range, or exclude all notes outside this range from playback. As with the Random function, there are two separate Range settings. Set them up as follows: 1. Pull down the Range pop-up menu and select one of the following four modes: Mode Description Vel. Limit This function affects all velocity values outside the specified range.
MIDI effects Nuendo comes with a number of MIDI effect plug-ins, capable of transforming the MIDI output from a track in various ways. Just like the MIDI track parameters, MIDI effects are applied in real time to the MIDI data played back from the track (or to MIDI you play live “thru” the track).
Inserts section This allows you to add up to four MIDI insert effects. The section contains the following items: Item Description Edit button Opens the Channel Settings window for the MIDI track. Bypass button Click this to temporarily disable all insert effects for the track (useful for comparing with the unprocessed MIDI, etc.). Inserts section tab This lights blue if any insert effect is activated.
Sends section This allows you to add up to four MIDI send effects. Unlike audio send effects, you can select and activate send effects individually for each track. The section contains the following items: Item Description Edit button Opens the Channel Settings window for the MIDI track. Bypass button Click this to temporarily disable all send effects for the track (useful for comparing with the unprocessed MIDI, etc.). Sends section tab This lights blue if any send effect is activated.
Item Description Channel setting (x4) This determines on which MIDI channel the effect should send the processed MIDI events. Pre button (x4) • If this is activated, the MIDI signals will be sent to the send effects before the track parameters and insert effects. Effects that display their controls in the Inspector can be forced to appear in a separate control panel window by pressing [Alt]/[Option] and clicking the Edit button.
Applying a MIDI insert effect – an example Here is a step-by-step example of how to add a MIDI insert effect to a MIDI track: 1. Select the MIDI track and open the Inspector. 2. Click the Inserts tab in the Inspector. • Alternatively you could use the mixer: bring up the extended mixer panel and select “Inserts” on the view options pop-up menu for the track’s channel strip. 3. Click in one of the insert slots to show the MIDI effect pop-up menu. 4. Select the desired MIDI effect from the pop-up menu.
Managing plug-ins Selecting Plug-in Information from the Devices menu opens a window in which all loaded plug-ins, audio and MIDI, are listed. • To view the MIDI effect plug-ins, click the MIDI Plug-ins tab. • The leftmost column allows you to deactivate plug-ins. This is useful if you have plug-ins installed that you don’t want to use in Nuendo. Only plug-ins that are activated (ticked checkbox) will appear on the MIDI effect pop-up menus.
Merge MIDI in Loop As mentioned, the parameters and effects described in this chapter do not change the MIDI events themselves, but work rather like “filters”, affecting the music on playback. However, sometimes you may want to make these settings permanent, i.e. convert them to “real” MIDI events on the track. You might for example want to transpose a track and then edit the transposed notes in a MIDI editor. For this, you need to use the Merge MIDI in Loop function on the MIDI menu.
5. Fill in the dialog that appears. The options in the dialog are: Option Description Include Inserts If this is activated, any MIDI insert effects activated for the track(s) will be applied. Include Sends If this is activated, any MIDI send effects activated for the track(s) will be applied. Erase Destination If this is activated, all MIDI data between the left and right locator on the destination track will be deleted. 6. Click OK.
The included MIDI effects Arpache 5 A typical arpeggiator accepts a chord (a group of MIDI notes) as input, and plays back each note in the chord separately, with the playback order and speed set by the user. The Arpache 5 arpeggiator does just that, and more. Before describing the parameters, let’s look at how to create a simple, typical arpeggio: 1. Select a MIDI track and activate monitoring (or record enable it) so that you can play “thru” the track.
7. Try the different arpeggio modes by clicking the Playmode buttons. The symbols on the buttons indicate the playback order for the notes (up, down, up+down, etc.). The Play Order settings are described below. Parameters The Arpache 5 has the following settings: Setting Description Playmode buttons Allows you to select the playback order for the arpeggiated notes.
Arpache SX This is an even more versatile and advanced arpeggiator, capable of creating anything from traditional arpeggios to complex, sequencerlike patterns. The Arpache SX has the following parameters: Parameter Description Arp Style Determines the basic behaviour of the Arpache SX. In the Seq mode, the arpeggiator uses an imported MIDI part as a starting point for the pattern – this is described below.
Parameter Description Velocity Source Determines the velocity of the notes in the arpeggio. The options are Seq (used in Seq mode only), Input (the same as the velocity values of the corresponding notes in the chord you play) or Fixed, in which case all arpeggio notes will get the velocity set in the value field to the right. Thru If this is activated, the notes sent to the arpeggiator (i.e. the chord you play) will be passed through the plug-in (sent out together with the arpeggiated notes).
The two lists of numbers will now be matched – the Arpache SX tries to play back the pattern from the dropped MIDI file but using the notes from the MIDI input (chord). The result depends on the Trigger Mode setting: Trigger Mode Description Trigger The whole pattern from the dropped MIDI file will be played back, but transposed according to one of the notes in the MIDI input. Which note is used for transposing depends on the Sort Mode setting. Trigger Cnt.
Autopan This plug-in works a bit like an LFO in a synthesizer, allowing you to send out continuously changing MIDI controller messages. One typical use for this is automatic MIDI panning (hence the name), but you can select any MIDI Continuous Controller event type. The Autopan effect has the following parameters: Waveform selectors These determine the shape of the controller curves sent out.
Density This determines the density of the controller curves sent out. The value can be set in ticks (1/480ths of quarter notes), or as rhythmically exact note values (by clicking the arrow buttons next to the value). The higher the note value, the smoother the controller curve. For example, if you set this to 60 (shown as “32th”) a new controller event will be sent out every 60th tick (at every 1/32 note position).
Chorder The Chorder is a MIDI chord processor, allowing you to assign complete chords to single keys in a multitude of variations. There are three main modes of operation: Normal, Octave and Global. You switch between these modes by clicking the respective button to the left below the keyboard. Normal mode In this mode, you can assign a different chord to each single key on the keyboard. Proceed as follows: 1.
Octave mode The Octave mode is similar to the Normal mode, but you can only set up one chord for each key in an octave (that is, twelve different chords). When you play a C note (regardless of whether it’s a C3, C4 or any other octave) you will hear the chord set up for the C key. Global mode In the Global mode, you only set up a single chord, using the Chord Setup keyboard display (the lower keyboard display is hidden).
Using switches The Switch Setup section at the bottom of the panel allows you to set up variations to the defined chords. This works with all three modes and provides a total of eight variations for each assignable key (that is, a maximum of 8 different chords in Global mode, 12x8 chords in Octave mode and 128x8 chords in Normal mode). The variations can be controlled by velocity or note range. Here’s how you set it up: 1. Select one of the two switch modes: velocity or note.
• Switch mode Description Note In this mode, the chorder will play one chord at a time – you cannot play several different chords simultaneously. When the Note switch mode is selected, you play a key to determine the base note for the chord, then press a higher key to select a variation. The variation number will be the difference between the two keys. To select variation 1, press a key one semitone higher than the base note, for variation 2, press a key two semitones higher, and so on.
Context Gate The Context Gate allows for selective triggering/filtering of MIDI data. It can be used for context selective control of MIDI devices. The following parameters are available: Poly Mode – Chord Gate When Chord Gate is activated, only notes in recognized chords are let through. There are two modes of chord recognition available; Simple and Normal. In Simple mode, all standard chords (major/minor/b5/ dim/sus/maj7 etc.) are recognized, whereas Normal mode also takes more tensions into account.
Mono Mode – Channel Gate When this is activated, only single note events in a specified MIDI channel are let through, which can be used with MIDI controllers that can send MIDI over several channels simultaneously, for example guitar controllers which send data for each string over a separate channel. You can either set this to a specific channel (1-16), or to “Any”, i.e. no channel gating. Mono Mode – Key Range Gate This can be used independently or in conjunction with the Channel Gate function.
Density This generic control panel affects the “density” of the notes being played from (or thru) the track. When this is set to 100%, the notes are not affected. Lowering the Density setting below 100% will randomly filter out or “mute” notes. Raising the setting above 100% will instead randomly add new notes. Micro Tuner The Micro Tuner lets you set up a different microtuning scheme for the instrument, by detuning each key.
MIDIControl This generic control panel allows you to select up to eight different MIDI controller types, and use the value fields/sliders to set values for these. A typical use for this would be if you’re using a MIDI instrument with parameters that can be controlled by MIDI controller data (e.g. filter cutoff, resonance, levels, etc.). By selecting the correct MIDI controller types, you can use the plug-in as a control panel for adjusting the sound of the instrument from within Nuendo, at any time.
MIDIEcho This is an advanced MIDI Echo, which will generate additional echoing notes based on the MIDI notes it receives. It creates effects similar to a digital delay, but also features MIDI pitch shifting and much more. As always it is important to remember that the effect doesn’t “echo” the actual audio, but the MIDI notes which will eventually produce the sound in the synthesizer.
Repeat This is the number of echoes (1 to 12) from each incoming note. Echo-Quant. The Echo-Quant. parameter sets the delay time, i.e. the time between a played note and its first echo note. You can either use the slider or type to set the value in ticks (1/480 ticks of quarter notes) or click the arrow buttons to step between the “rhythmically exact” delay times (displayed as note values – see the table below).
Length Decay This parameter lets you adjust how the length of the echoed notes should change with each successive repeat. The higher the setting (25 – 100), the longer the echoed notes will be compared to their original notes. About ticks and note values The timing- and position-related parameters (Echo-Quant., Length and Quantize) can all be set in ticks. There are 480 ticks to each quarter note.
Note to CC This effect will generate a MIDI continuous controller event for each incoming MIDI note. The value of the controller event corresponds to the note number (pitch) and the single parameter allows you to select which MIDI controller should be sent out (by default controller 7, MIDI volume). The incoming MIDI notes pass through the effect unaffected.
Quantizer Quantizing is a function that changes the timing of notes by moving them towards a “quantize grid”. This grid may consist of e.g. straight sixteenth notes (in which case the notes would all get perfect sixteenth note timing), but could also be more loosely related to straight note value positions (applying a “swing feel” to the timing, etc.). • For a description of the main Quantize function in Nuendo, see page 58.
Step Designer The Step Designer is a MIDI pattern sequencer that sends out MIDI notes and additional controller data according to the pattern you set up. It does not make use of the incoming MIDI, other than automation data (such as recorded pattern changes). Creating a basic pattern 1. Use the Pattern selector to choose which pattern to create. Each Step Designer can hold up to 200 different patterns. 2. Use the Quantize setting to specify the “resolution” of the pattern.
• The display spans one octave (as indicated by the pitch list to the left). You can scroll the displayed octave up or down by clicking in the pitch list and dragging up or down. This way you can insert notes at any pitch. Note that each step can contain one note only – the Step Designer is monophonic. Click and drag to view other octaves. • To remove a note from the pattern, click on it again. 5. Select “Velocity” on the Controllers pop-up menu.
Adding controller curves The Controllers pop-up menu has two more items: two controller types. • You can select which two controller types (filter cutoff, resonance, volume, etc.) should be available on the pop-up menu by clicking the Setup button and selecting controllers from the lists that appears. This selection is global to all patterns. • To insert controller information in a pattern, select the desired controller from the pop-up menu and click in the controller display to draw events.
Automating pattern changes You can create up to 200 different patterns in each Step Designer – just select a new pattern and add notes and controllers as described above. Typically, you want the pattern selection to change during the project. You can accomplish this by automating the Pattern selector, either in real time by activating the Write automation and switching patterns during playback or by drawing in the automation subtrack for the Step Designer’s MIDI track.
Track Control The Track Control effect contains three ready-made control panels for adjusting parameters on a GS or XG compatible MIDI device. The Roland GS and Yamaha XG protocols are extensions of the General MIDI standard, allowing for more sounds and better control of various instrument settings. If your instrument is compatible with GS or XG, the Track Controls effect allows you to adjust sounds and effects in your instrument from within Nuendo.
About the Reset and Off buttons Regardless of the selected mode, you will find two buttons labelled “Off” and “Reset” at the top of the control panel: • • Clicking the Off button will set all controls to their lowest value, without sending out any MIDI messages. Clicking the Reset button will set all parameters to their default values, and send out the corresponding MIDI messages. For most parameters, the default values will be zero or “no adjustment”, but there are exceptions to this.
XG Effects + Sends The following controls are available when the XG Effects + Sends mode is selected: Control Description Send 1 Send level for the reverb effect. Send 2 Send level for the chorus effect. Send 3 Send level for the “variation” effect. Attack Adjusts the attack time of the sound. Lowering this value shortens the attack, while raising it gives a slower attack. Middle position means no adjustment is made. Release Adjusts the release time of the sound.
XG Global Settings In this mode, the parameters affect global settings in the instrument(s). Changing one of these settings for a track will in fact affect all MIDI instruments connected to the same MIDI output, regardless of the MIDI channel setting of the track. Therefore, to avoid confusion it might be a good idea to create an empty track and use this only for these global settings. The following controls are available: Control Description Eff.
Track FX This plug-in is essentially a duplicate of the Track Parameter section. This can be useful if you e.g. need extra Random or Range settings, or if you prefer to have your track parameters in a separate window (to get this, [Alt]/[Option]-click the Edit button for the effect). The Track FX also includes an additional function that isn’t available among the track parameters: Scale Transpose This allows you to transpose each incoming MIDI note, so that it fits within a selected musical scale.
Transformer The Transformer is a real-time version of the Logical Editor. With this you can perform very powerful MIDI processing on the fly, without affecting the actual MIDI events on the track. The Logical Editor is described starting on page 211. As the parameters and functions are almost identical, the descriptions for the Logical Editor also apply to the Transformer. Where there are differences between the two, this is clearly stated.
2 MIDI processing and quantizing
Introduction This chapter describes the various MIDI processing functions available on the MIDI menu. These offer various ways to change MIDI notes and other events, in the Project window or within a MIDI editor. MIDI functions vs. track parameters In some cases, the result of a MIDI function can also be obtained by using MIDI track parameters and effects (see page 8). For example, the MIDI functions transpose and quantize are also available as a track parameter and a MIDI effect, respectively.
Quantizing What is quantizing? Quantizing in its fundamental form is a function that automatically moves recorded notes, positioning them on exact note values: For example, if you record a series of eighth notes, some of them may end up slightly beside the exact eighth note positions. Quantizing the notes with the quantize grid set to eighth notes will move the “misplaced” notes to exact positions.
Setting Up At its most basic, setting up quantizing consists of selecting a note value from the Quantize pop-up menu on the toolbar (in the Project window or a MIDI editor).
By default, this allows you to quantize to exact note values (straight, triplet or dotted notes) only. If you want more options, select “Quantize Setup...” from the MIDI menu (or “Setup...” from the Quantize pop-up menu) to open the Quantize Setup dialog. Any settings you make in the dialog are immediately reflected in the Quantize pop-up menus. However, if you want your settings permanently available on the Quantize pop-up menus, you have to use the presets functions (see page 63).
Grid display The grid display shows one bar (four beats), with blue lines indicating the quantize grid (the positions that notes will be moved to). The Grid and Type pop-ups These are used to determine the basic note value for the quantizing grid. In other words, these have the same functionality as the Quantize pop-up menu on the toolbar. Swing The Swing slider is only available when a straight note value is selected for the grid and Tuplet is off (see below).
Magnetic Area This allows you to specify that only notes within a certain distance from the grid lines should be affected by quantizing. • When the slider is set to 0%, the Magnetic Area function is deactivated, i.e. all notes are affected by quantizing. If you move the slider gradually to the right, you will note how the magnetic areas are shown around the blue lines in the grid display. Only notes within the indicated zones will be affected by quantizing.
Auto and Apply These functions allow you to apply quantizing directly from the dialog, as described below. If you don’t want to apply the quantizing you have set up in the dialog, you can close the window by clicking its standard close box. You can also leave the dialog open while you continue working. The Non Quantize setting This is an additional setting that affects the result of the quantizing. It allows you to set a “distance” in ticks (120ths of sixteenth notes).
Extracting a groove You can extract the groove from an audio event or MIDI part and turn it into a Quantize preset: • To extract the groove from an audio event, you use Hitpoints and the “Create Groove Quantize” function. See the chapter “Working with hitpoints and slices” in the Operation Manual. • To extract the groove from a MIDI part, you select the part and select “Part to Groove” from the Advanced Quantize submenu on the MIDI menu.
The Auto Quantize function If you activate the Auto Q button on the Transport panel, all MIDI recordings you make are automatically quantized according to the settings you have made in the Quantize Setup dialog. Iterative Quantize Another way to apply “loose” quantization is to use the Iterative Quantize function on the MIDI menu. It works like this: Instead of moving a note to the closest quantize grid position, Iterative Quantize moves it only part of the way.
Quantize Lengths This function is only available from within the MIDI editors. This function (on the Advanced Quantize submenu on the MIDI menu) will quantize the length of the notes, without changing their start positions. At its most basic level, this function will set the length of the notes to the Length Quantize value on the MIDI editors’ toolbar.
Quantize Ends The Quantize Ends function on the Advanced Quantize submenu will only affect the end positions of notes. Apart from that, it works just like regular quantizing, taking the Quantize pop-up menu setting into account. Undo and Freeze Quantize As mentioned above, the original position of each quantized note is stored. Therefore, you can make the selected MIDI notes revert to their original, unquantized state at any time, by selecting Undo Quantize from the Advanced Quantize submenu.
Transpose The Transpose item on the MIDI menu opens a dialog with settings for transposing the selected notes: Semitones This is where you set the amount of transposition. Scale Correction Scale Correction transposes the selected notes by forcing them to the closest note of the selected scale type. This can be used for creating interesting key and tonal changes, either by itself or in conjunction with the other settings in the Transpose dialog. • To activate Scale Correction, click the checkbox.
Keep Notes in Range When this checkbox is activated, transposed notes will remain within the Upper and Lower Barrier values. • If a note ends up outside the barriers after transposition, it will be shifted to another octave, keeping the correct transposed pitch if possible. If this isn’t possible (if you have set a very narrow range between the Upper and Lower Barrier), the note will be transposed “as far as possible”, i.e. to the Upper or Lower Barrier note.
Fixed Lengths This function is only available from within the MIDI editors. This function resizes all selected notes to the length set with the Length Quantize pop-up menu on the MIDI editor toolbar. Delete Doubles This function removes double notes, i.e. notes of the same pitch on the exact same position. Double notes can occur when recording in Cycle mode, after Quantizing, etc. This function always affects whole MIDI parts.
Delete Notes Allows you to delete very short or weak notes. This is useful for automatically removing unwanted “ghost notes” after recording. Selecting “Delete Notes...” opens a dialog in which you set up the criteria for the function: The parameters have the following functionality: Minimum Length When the Minimum Length checkbox is activated, the note length is taken into account, allowing you to remove short notes.
Minimum Velocity When the Minimum Velocity checkbox is activated, the velocity of notes is taken into account, allowing you to remove weak notes. You specify the minimum velocity (for notes to be kept) in the value display. Remove when under This setting is only available when both Minimum Length and Minimum Velocity is activated. By clicking the value display, you select whether both length and velocity criteria must be met for notes to be deleted, or whether one of the criteria will suffice.
Delete Overlaps (poly) This function shortens notes when required, so that no note begins before another ends. This happens regardless of which pitch the notes have. Velocity This function opens a dialog that allows you to manipulate the velocity of notes in various ways. To apply the function, select one of the three processing types from the Type pop-up, adjust the settings and click OK (to close the dialog without applying, click Cancel).
• To compress (“even out” velocity differences), use ratio values below 100%. After compression, you would probably want to add a velocity amount (with the Add/ Subtract function) to maintain the average velocity level. • To expand (create greater difference in velocity), use ratio values above 100%. Before you expand, you may want to adjust the velocity with the Add/Subtract function, so that the average velocity is somewhere in the middle of the range.
Dissolve Part The Dissolve Part function on the MIDI menu has two separate uses: • When you work with MIDI parts (on MIDI channel “Any”) containing events on different MIDI channels. Dissolve Part separates the events according to MIDI channel. • When you want to separate MIDI events according to pitch. A typical example would be drum and percussion tracks, where each pitch usually corresponds to a separate drum sound.
Now, for each MIDI channel used in the selected part(s), a new MIDI track is created and set to the corresponding MIDI channel. Each event is then copied into the part on the track with the corresponding MIDI channel. Finally, the original part(s) are muted. An example: This part contains events on MIDI channel 1, 2 and 3. Selecting “Dissolve Part” creates new parts on new tracks, set to channel 1, 2 and 3. Each new part contains only the events on the respective MIDI channel.
NUENDO 2 – 78 MIDI processing and quantizing
3 The MIDI editors
About editing MIDI There are several ways to edit MIDI in Nuendo. You can use the tools and functions in the Project window for large-scale editing, or use the functions on the MIDI menu to process MIDI parts in various ways (see page 58). For hands-on graphical editing of the contents of MIDI parts, you use the MIDI editors: • The Key Editor is the default MIDI editor, presenting notes graphically in an intuitive piano roll-style grid.
About this chapter This chapter describes how to use the Key, Drum and List Editors. Please note that a lot of features are identical in these editors (especially in the Key and Drum Editors) – they are all described in the Key Editor section. The sections about the Drum Editor (see page 117) and the List Editor (see page 132) describe the specific features of these editors only.
• If the part you open for editing is a shared copy, any editing you perform will affect all shared copies of this part. Shared copies are created by pressing [Alt]/[Option]+[Shift] and dragging, or by using the Repeat function with the “Shared copies” option activated. In the Project window, shared copies are indicated by the part name in italics and an icon in the right corner of the part (see the chapter “The Project window” in the Operation Manual).
• The button “Edit Active Part Only” lets you restrict editing operations to the active part only. If you for example select “All” from the Select submenu on the Edit menu with this option activated, only events in the active part will be selected. Similarly, if you select notes by dragging with the Arrow tool (making a selection rectangle), only the notes in the active part will be selected. “Edit Active Part Only” activated on the toolbar.
The Key Editor – Overview The toolbar As in other windows, the toolbar contains tools and various settings. The user can configure what toolbar items should be shown or hidden and store/recall different toolbar configurations – see the chapter “Customizing” in the Operation Manual.
Quantize settings Step Input Step/Midi input controls Midi Input Mouse pointer display: Current pitch- and meter position Independent track loop on/off Color pop-up menu Loop range (see page 91). Chord recognition display Open Device Button The info line The info line shows information about selected MIDI notes. You can edit all values on the info line using regular value editing (see page 100 for details).
At the bottom of the pop-up menu there are two additional items: • If “Time Linear” is selected, the ruler, note display and controller display will be linear in relation to time. This means that if the ruler shows bars and beats, the distance between the bar lines will vary depending on the tempo. • If “Bars+Beats Linear” is selected, the ruler, note display and controller display will be linear in relation to tempo. I.e. if the ruler shows bars and beats, the distance between beats will be constant.
The note display The note display is the main area in the Key Editor. It contains a grid, in which MIDI notes are shown as boxes. The width of a box corresponds to the note length, and the vertical position of a box corresponds to the note number (pitch), with higher notes higher up in the grid. The piano keyboard to the left serves as a guide for finding the right note number.
The controller display The area at the bottom of the Key Editor window is the controller display. This consists of one or several controller lanes, each showing one of the following properties or event types: • • • • • • Velocity values of the notes. Pitch Bend events. Aftertouch events. Poly Pressure events. Program Change events. Any type of continuous controller event. To change the size of the controller display, drag the divider between the controller display and the note display.
Events in the controller display (that is, anything other than velocity values) are shown as “blocks”, the heights of which correspond to the “values” of the events. However, events that have been recorded (or drawn with a low quantize value) may appear more like “filled curves”, simply because they are positioned very closely: If you zoom in on the upper “curve”, you will find that it consists of separate events. • Unlike notes, events in the controller display have no length.
Key Editor operations Zooming Zooming in the Key Editor is done according to the standard zoom procedures, using the zoom sliders, the Zoom tool or the Zoom submenu on the Edit menu. • When you drag a rectangle with the Zoom tool, the result depends on the option “Zoom Tool Standard Mode: Horizontal Zooming Only” in the Preferences dialog (Editing page). If this is on, the window will only be zoomed horizontally; if not, the window will be zoomed both horizontally and vertically.
The Autoscroll button on the toolbar of each MIDI editor is independent for the editor. For example, this means you can have Autoscroll deactivated in the Key Editor and activated in the Project window. The independent track loop function The independent track loop is a sort of “mini-cycle”, affecting only the MIDI part being edited.
Auditioning If the speaker icon on the toolbar is activated, individual notes will automatically be played back (auditioned) when you move or transpose them, or when you create new notes by drawing. This makes it easier to hear what you’re doing. Creating and editing notes To draw new notes in the Key Editor, you use the Pencil tool or the Line tool.
• If you just click once, the created note will have the length set on the Length Quantize pop-up menu on the toolbar. You can create a longer note by clicking and dragging the pointer with the mouse button pressed. The length of the created note will be a multiple of the Length Quantize value. Drawing notes with the Line tool The Line tool can be used for creating series of contiguous notes. To use the Line tool, click and drag to draw a line and then release the mouse button.
Setting velocity values When you draw notes in the key editor, the notes will get the velocity value set in the insert velocity field on the toolbar. You can use one of three different methods for determining the velocity: • Selecting a predefined velocity value from the insert velocity pop-up menu. The menu contains five different predefined velocity values. The “Setup...
Selecting notes Selecting notes is done using any of the following methods: • Use the Arrow tool. The standard selection techniques apply. • Use the Select submenu on the Edit menu or Quick menu. The Select menu options are: • Option Description All Selects all notes in the edited part. None Deselects all events. In Loop Selects all notes that are partially or completely inside the boundaries of the left and right locators.
• If the option “Auto Select Events under Cursor” is activated in the Preferences dialog (Editing page), all notes currently “touched” by the project cursor are automatically selected. Moving and transposing notes To move notes in the editor, use any of the following methods: • Click and drag to a new position. All selected notes will be moved, maintaining their relative positions. If Snap is activated, this determines to which positions you can move the notes, see page 140.
Duplicating and repeating notes Notes are duplicated much in the same way as events in the Project window: • Hold down [Alt]/[Option] and drag the note(s) to a new position. If Snap is on, this determines to which positions you can copy notes (see page 140). • Selecting Duplicate from the Edit menu creates a copy of the selected note and places it directly after the original. If several notes are selected, all of these are copied “as one unit”, maintaining the relative distance between the notes.
• “Paste Time” inserts at the project cursor position, but moves (and if necessary, splits) existing notes to make room for the pasted notes. Selecting “Paste Time” with this data on the clipboard and the project cursor here… …will give you this. Resizing notes To resize a note, use one of the following methods: • Position the arrow tool at the start or end of the note, so that the pointer takes on the shape of a small double arrow. Click and drag to the left or right to resize the note.
Splitting notes There are three ways to split notes: • Clicking on a note with the Scissors tool splits the note at the position you pointed (taking the Snap setting into account if activated). If several notes are selected, they are all split at the same position if applicable. • If you select “Split at Cursor”, all notes that are intersected by the project cursor are split at the cursor position.
Deleting notes To delete notes, either click on them with the Eraser tool or select them and press [Backspace]. Editing on the info line The info line shows the values and properties of the selected event(s). If a single event is selected, its values are displayed on the info line. If several events are selected, the info line shows the values of the first of these events, in yellow. Several events selected. You can edit the values on the info line using regular value editing.
Editing Notes via MIDI You can change the properties of notes via MIDI. For example, this can be a fast way to get the right velocity value, since you will hear the result even as you edit: 1. Select the note you want to edit. 2. Click on the MIDI connector symbol on the toolbar. The symbol should be lit. This enables editing via MIDI. 3. Use the note buttons on the toolbar to decide which properties should be changed by the MIDI input. You can enable editing of pitch, note-on and/or note-off velocity.
Step input Step input, or step recording, is when you enter notes one at a time (or one chord at a time) without worrying about the exact timing. This is useful e.g. when you know the part you want to record but are not able to play it exactly as you want it. Proceed as follows: 1. Click the Step Input button on the toolbar to activate Step Input mode. 2. Use the note buttons to the right to decide which properties should be included when you input the notes.
4. Specify the desired note spacing and length with the Quantize and Length Quantize pop-up menus. The notes you input will be positioned according to the Quantize value and have the length set with the Length Quantize value. For instance, if you set Quantize to 1/8 notes and Length Quantize to 1/16 note, the notes will be sixteenth notes, appearing on each eighth note position. 5. Play the first note or chord on your MIDI instrument.
Editing in the controller display About controller lanes By default, the controller display has a single lane, showing one event type at a time. However, you can easily add lanes by right-clicking (Windows) or [Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) in the display and selecting “Create new controller lane” from the Quick menu. This allows you to view and edit different controllers at the same time. The controller display with three lanes set up.
Selecting event type Each controller lane shows one event type at a time. To select which type should be displayed, use the pop-up menu to the left of the lane. • Selecting “Setup...” opens a dialog in which you can specify which continuous controller event types you want available on the pop-up menu. Controller types in this list are already listed on the popup menu. Click this button to remove the controller type selected in the left list from the pop-up menu.
• Each MIDI track has its own controller lane setup (number of lanes and selected event types). When you create new tracks, they get the controller lane setup last used. Controller Lane presets Once you have added the required number of controller lanes and selected the event types you need, you can store this combination as a controller lane preset. You could for example have a preset with one velocity lane only, another with a combination of velocity, pitch bend and modulation, and so on.
• If the option “Controller Lane Editing: Select Tool defaults to Pen” is activated in the Preferences dialog (Editing page), the Arrow tool automatically switches to the Pencil tool when you move the pointer into the controller display. If you need to use the Arrow tool to select events in the controller display, press [Ctrl]/ [Command].
• Use the Line tool’s Line mode for creating linear velocity ramps. Click where you want the ramp to start and drag the cursor to where you want the ramp to end. When you release the mouse button, the velocity values are aligned with the line between the two points. • Parabola mode works in the same way, but aligns the velocity values with a Parabola curve instead. Use this for smooth, “natural” velocity fades, etc.
Adding and editing events in the controller display When any option other than “Velocity” is selected for viewing in a controller lane, you can create new events or edit the values of existing events using the Pencil tool or the Line tool in its various modes: • Clicking with the Pencil tool or the Line tool in Paint mode creates a new event. Note the “Select Tool defaults to Pen” option - see the chapter “Editing velocity values”.
• Clicking and dragging with the Line tool in Line mode shows a line in the controller lane, and creates events with values aligned with this line. This is the best way to draw linear controller ramps. If you press [Alt]/[Option], no new events are created – use this mode for modifying existing controller curves.
• In Line and Parabola modes, the length quantize value determines the “density” of created controller curves (if Snap is activated). For very smooth curves, you should use a small length quantize value or turn off Snap. To avoid over-dense controller curves (which may cause MIDI playback to “stutter”), use a medium-low density. • The Sine, Triangle and Square modes create events with values aligned to continuous curves.
Moving and copying events You can move or duplicate events in a controller lane, much like you can with notes: 1. Click with the Arrow tool to select the events you want to cut or copy. If the option “Controller Lane Editing: Select Tool defaults to Pen” is activated in the Preferences dialog (Editing page), you need to press [Ctrl]/[Command] to get the Arrow tool. 2. Click and drag the events to move them. If Snap is activated, this determines to which positions you can move the events (see page 140).
Deleting events in the controller display You delete events by clicking with the Eraser tool or by selecting them and pressing [Backspace]. Please note: • Deleting a controller event makes the last event before this valid up until the next event. It does not “zero” any controller changes. See page 89. • You can delete notes by deleting their velocity bars in the controller display.
To view and edit existing Poly Pressure events, proceed as follows: 1. Select Poly Pressure on the event type pop-up menu. 2. Click on the arrow button next to the note number field to the left of the controller lane. A pop-up menu appears, listing all note numbers for which there already are Poly Pressure events. 3. Select a note number from the pop-up menu. The Poly Pressure events for the selected note number are shown in the controller lane. 4. Use the Pencil tool to edit the events as usual.
Edit In-Place The Edit In-Place function makes it possible to edit MIDI parts directly in the Project window, for quick and efficient editing in context with other tracks. To open the In-Place editor, click the Edit In-Place button for a MIDI track in the track list or the Inspector. This expands the MIDI track to show something like a miniature Key editor, allowing you to edit MIDI notes and controllers.
• Clicking in the upper right corner of the track list for the edited track brings up a local toolbar with some MIDI editor-specific settings. For descriptions of these settings, see page 84. • Just like in the Key editor, you can edit velocity or continuous controllers at the bottom of the In-Place Editor. To change which controller type is shown, click in the controller name field directly below the piano keyboard and select a controller type from the pop-up menu.
The Drum Editor – Overview The toolbar and info line These are much the same as the toolbar and info line in the Key Editor, with the following differences: • • • • • The Drum Editor has no Pencil tool – instead there is a Drumstick tool (for inputting and removing notes) and a Line tool with various line and curve modes (for drawing several notes in one go or editing controller events). There are no Scissors and Glue Tube tools in the Drum Editor.
The drum sound list The purpose of the Drum Editor is to edit MIDI tracks where each note (pitch) plays a separate sound, as is typically the case with a MIDI drum kit. The drum sound list to the left lists all drum sounds by name (according to the selected drum map or name list – see below), and lets you adjust and manipulate the drum sound setup in various ways. Note: • The number of columns in the list depends on whether there’s a drum map selected for the track or not. See page 123.
The note display The Drum Editor’s note display displays notes as diamond symbols. The vertical position of the notes corresponds to the drum sound list to the left, while the horizontal position corresponds to the note’s position in time, just as in the Key Editor. Note however, that the diamond symbols don’t indicate the length of the notes. This makes sense, since drum sounds most often are “one-shot” samples that play to their end regardless of the note lengths.
Controller display The controller display in the Drum Editor is exactly the same as in the Key Editor. You can add or remove controller lanes from the Quick menu, and create and edit events as described on page 104. Drum Editor operations The basic handling (zooming, playback, auditioning, etc.) is the same as in the Key Editor (see page 90). The following sections describe the procedures and features that are specific to the Drum Editor.
• If both Snap and Use Global Quantize are activated, the note will snap to positions according to the Quantize setting on the toolbar (next to the Use Global Quantize button). The length of the inserted note is determined by the Insert Length setting on the toolbar. However, if this is set to “Drum-Map Link”, the note will get the length of the quantize value for the drum sound. • You can quickly audition the drum sounds by clicking in the leftmost column in the drum sound list.
Moving, duplicating or repeating notes To move or copy notes in the editor (to other positions or other drum sounds), you use the same methods as in the Key Editor: click and drag, use the arrow keys or Edit menu functions, etc. – see page 96. There is one thing to note: When you are moving or copying several selected notes by dragging them and Snap is activated but Use Global Quantize turned off, the notes will snap to positions according to the quantize values for the drum sounds.
Deleting notes To delete notes, click on them with the Drumstick tool or Eraser tool or select them and press [Backspace]. Other editing methods As in the Key Editor, you can edit notes on the info line or via MIDI, and enter notes using step input. Please refer to page 100. Working with drum maps Background As discussed earlier, a drum kit in a MIDI instrument is most often a set of different drum sounds with each sound placed on a separate key (i.e.
Drum map settings A drum map consists of settings for 128 drum sounds (one for each MIDI note number). To get an overview of these settings, open the Drum Editor and use the Map pop-up menu below the drum sound list to select the “GM Map” drum map. This drum map is set up according to the General MIDI standard. For information on how to load, create and select other drum maps, see page 128.
• Column Description Quantize This value is used when entering and editing notes as described on page 120 and page 122. Mute Allows you to mute a drum sound, excluding it from playback. See page 122. I-note This is the “input note” for the drum sound. When this MIDI note is sent into Nuendo, (i.e. played by you), the note will be mapped to the corresponding drum sound (and automatically transposed according to the Pitch setting for the sound). See below. O-note This is the “output note”, i.e.
In the following example, we have modified the drum map, so that the Bass Drum sound has different Pitch, I-note and O-note values. I-notes Let’s look at what happens on input: When you play a note on your MIDI instrument, the program will look for this note number among the I-notes in the drum map. In our case, if you play the note A1, the program will find that this is the I-note of the Bass Drum sound.
Usage So, what’s the point of all this? Again, the purposes are different for Inotes and O-notes: • Changing the I-note settings allows you to choose which keys will play which drum sounds, when playing or recording from a MIDI instrument.
• To select the same MIDI channel for all sounds in a drum map, click the Channel column, press [Ctrl]/[Command] and select the desired channel. All drum sounds will be set to this MIDI channel. The same procedure can be used for selecting the same MIDI output for all sounds as well. It can also be useful to select different channels and/or outputs for different sounds. This allows you to construct drum kits with sounds from several different MIDI devices, etc.
The Drum Map Setup dialog To set up and manage your drum maps, select Drum Map Setup from the Map pop-up menus or the MIDI menu. This opens the following dialog: This is where you load, create, modify and save drum maps. The list to the left shows the currently loaded drum maps; selecting a drum map in the list displays its sounds and settings to the right. • The settings for the drum sounds are exactly the same as in the Drum Editor (see page 124).
• Button Description New Copy Adds a copy of the currently selected drum map. This is probably the quickest way to create a new drum map: select the map that is similar to what you want, create a copy, change the desired drum sound settings and rename the map in the list. Remove Removes the selected drum map from the project. Load Opens a file dialog, allowing you to load drum maps from disk.
Using drum name lists Even if no drum map is selected for the edited MIDI track, you can still use the Drum Editor if needed. As previously mentioned, the drum sound list will then only have four columns: Audition, Pitch, Instrument (drum sound names) and Quantize. There will be no I-note and O-note functionality. In this mode, the names shown in the Instrument column depend on the selection on the Names pop-up menu, just below the Map pop-up in the Drum Editor.
The List Editor – Overview The toolbar The toolbar contains several items that are the same as in the Key Editor (edit solo, snap, quantize settings, etc.). These are described earlier in this chapter. The following toolbar items are unique to the List Editor: • The Insert pop-up menu is used when creating new events. This is where you determine what type of event to add (see page 134).
The event display This shows the events graphically. The vertical position of an event in the display corresponds to its entry in the list (i.e. to the playback order), while the horizontal position corresponds to its actual position in the project. This is where you add new parts or events, drag to move them, etc. The value display This display shows the “value” of each event, allowing for easy viewing and graphical editing.
Adding events To add a new event to the edited part, proceed as follows: 1. Use the Insert pop-up menu on the toolbar to select the event type. 2. Select the Pencil tool and click in the event display, at the desired position (relative to the ruler). If you are creating note events, you can click and drag to set the length of the note. The new event appears in the list and in the display. Its properties will be set to default values, but can easily be adjusted in the list.
• Column Description Length This is only used for note events. It shows the length of the note – changing this resizes the note and automatically changes the End value as well. Data 1 This is the “data 1” or “value 1” property of the event. The content of this depends on the event type – for notes, this is the pitch, for example. Where applicable, the values are shown in the most relevant form.
Editing in the event display The event display allows you to edit the events graphically using the tools on the toolbar. You can edit single events as well as several selected events simultaneously. • To move an event, click and drag it to a new position. Note that moving the event past any other event in the display will re-sort the list (the list always shows the events in the order they are played back). As a result, the vertical position of the event in the display will change as well.
Filtering Clicking the “Show Filter View” button on the toolbar opens an additional filter bar that allows you to hide specific event types from view. For example, it may be hard to find note events if the part contains a lot of controllers. By hiding these the list becomes more manageable. To hide an event type, tick its checkbox on the filter view. To see one event type only (hide all other event types), press [Ctrl]/[Command] and click its checkbox.
1. Select an event (or several events) of the type you want to view. 2. Pull down the Mask pop-up menu on the toolbar and select one of the options. The results are as follows: Option Description Event Types Only events with the type of the selected event will be shown. This does the same as the filter view but is quicker if you only want to view a single event type. Event Types and Data 1 Only events of the same type and with the same “Data 1” value will be shown.
Editing in the value display The value display to the right of the event display is a tool for quick viewing and editing of multiple values, e.g. velocities or controller amounts. The values are shown as horizontal bars, with the bar length corresponding to the value. A velocity ramp in the value display. You edit the values by clicking and dragging.
• The value display can be hidden from view by clicking the “Show List Value View” button on the toolbar, so that it is not lit. Common MIDI editor options and settings Snap Snap activated on the toolbar. The Snap function helps you find exact positions when editing in a MIDI editor. It does this by restricting horizontal movement and positioning to certain positions. Operations affected by snap include moving, duplicating, drawing, sizing, etc.
Coloring notes and events By using the Colors pop-up menu on the toolbar, you can select a color scheme for the events in the editor. The following options are available: Option Description Velocity The notes get different colors depending on their velocity values. Pitch The notes get different colors depending on their pitch. Channel The notes get different colors depending on their individual MIDI channel values. Part The notes get the same color as their respective part in the Project window.
NUENDO 3 – 142 The MIDI editors
4 MIDI devices
Background The MIDI Device Manager allows you to specify and set up your MIDI devices, making global control and patch selection easy. But the MIDI Device Manager also features powerful editing functions that can be used to create MIDI device panels. MIDI device panels are internal representations of external MIDI hardware, complete with graphics.
MIDI devices – general settings and patch handling On the following pages, we will describe how to install and set up preset MIDI devices, and how to select patches by name from within Nuendo. This section also describes how to create a MIDI device from scratch. About program change and bank select To instruct a MIDI instrument to select a certain patch (sound), you send a MIDI Program Change message to the instrument.
To help with this, you can use the MIDI Device Manager to specify which MIDI instruments you have connected, by selecting from a vast list of existing devices or by specifying the details yourself. Once you have specified which MIDI devices you’re using, you can select to which particular device each MIDI track should be routed. It is then possible to select patches by name in the track list or Inspector.
Installing a MIDI device There is an important difference between installing a preset MIDI device and importing a MIDI device setup: • The presets available in the Install Device dialog do not include any device mapping of parameters and controls and no graphic panels. They are simply patchname scripts. When you install a preset MIDI device it is added to the Installed Devices list. • A device setup can include device mapping, panels and/or patch information.
The Patch Banks list in the left half of the window shows the patch structure of the device. This could simply be a list of patches, but it’s usually one or several layers of banks or groups containing the patches (much like a folder structure on a hard disk for example). • You can rename a device in the Installed Devices list by double clicking and typing – this is useful if you have several devices of the same model, and want to separate them by name instead of by number.
About Patch Banks Depending on the selected device, you may find that the Patch Banks list is divided in two or more main banks. Typically, these are called Patches, Performances, Drums etc. The reason for having several patch banks is that different “types” of patches are handled differently in the instruments. For example, while “patches” typically are “regular” programs that you play one at the time, “performances” may be combinations of patches, which could e.g.
Selecting a patch for an installed device If you return to the Project window at this point, you will find that the installed device has been added to the MIDI Output menus (in the track list and the Inspector). Now you can select patches by name, in the following way: 1. Pull down the Output menu (in the track list or Inspector) for a track that you want to play the installed device, and select the device. This directs the track to the MIDI output specified for the device in the MIDI Device Manager.
Renaming patches in a device The pre-configured devices list is based on the factory-preset patches, i.e. the patches included in the device when you first bought it. If you have replaced some of the factory presets with your own patches, you need to modify the device so that the patch name list matches the actual device: 1. In the MIDI Device Manager, select the device in the Installed Devices list. 2. Click Open Device. Make sure that Patch Banks is selected on the pop-up at the top of the window. 3.
Defining a new MIDI device This section describes how to define a new MIDI device. If your MIDI device is not included in the list of pre-configured devices (and is not a “plain” GM or XG device), you need to define it manually to make it possible to select patches by name. 1. In the MIDI Device Manager, click the Install Device button. The Add MIDI Device dialog appears. 2. Select “Define New...” and click OK. The “Create New MIDI Device” dialog appears.
The Commands pop-up menu contains the following items: Create Bank Creates a new bank at the highest hierarchical level of the Patch Banks list. You can rename this by clicking on it and typing a new name. New Folder Creates a new subfolder in the selected bank or folder. This could correspond to a group of patches in the MIDI device, or just be a way for you to categorize sounds, etc. When you select this item, a name dialog will appear, allowing you to name the folder.
• To add another MIDI event (e.g. Bank Select) click directly below the last event in the list and select a new event from the pop-up menu that appears. After adding a new event, you need to set its value in the Value column, as with Program Change. • To replace an event, click on it and select another event from the popup menu.
2. Use the Range column to set up either a fixed value or a range of values for each event type in the list. This requires some explanation: If you specify a single value in the Range column (e.g. 3, 15 or 127), all added presets will have an event of this type set to the same value. If you instead specify a value range (a start value and an end value, separated by a dash, e.g.
The Create New MIDI Device dialog When you select “Define New” in the Add MIDI Device window, the Create New MIDI Device dialog opens. • The dialog contains the following settings: Item Description Identical/Individual Channels Here you can specify which MIDI channels you wish the device to use. Identical channels share channel settings and parameters, whereas Individual channels are “exclusive”.
About Device panels On the following pages we will describe how to use MIDI Device panels and the powerful MIDI device panel editing features of the MIDI Device Manager.
Basic concept The panel editing features in the MIDI Device Manager can be seen as a separate application or entity within Nuendo. It allows you build device maps complete with control panels, with all parameters controllable from within Nuendo. Building more complex device maps requires that you are familiar with SysEx programming (see page 193). But you can also create simpler panels by assigning MIDI Control Change messages to control objects, which does not require any programming skills.
Overview Device panels in the program In this section we shall take a look at a pre-configured MIDI device panel to illustrate how it can be used in Nuendo. Several device setups complete with panels are included with the program. • On the PC, these are located in the “Device Maps” folder inside the application folder. • On the Mac they can be found in the following location: (Startup Volume)/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Nuendo 3/Device Maps.
4. When you select a device and click OK, the device is added to the list of installed devices in the MIDI Device Manager. Select the correct MIDI output from the Output pop-up menu, select the device in the list and click “Open Device”. The device control panel opens in a separate window. The Edit (“e”) button at the top opens the Edit Panel window, the main edit window, see page 170. A device control panel representing an Access Virus synth. 5. Close the Device panel and return to the Project window.
6. Select the device from the “Out” pop-up menu for a MIDI track. Note that for some devices, you may have to set the MIDI channel to “ANY”. Now the Device panel can be opened by clicking the Open Device button in the Inspector or in the channel strip for the corresponding track in the Mixer. • Note that [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking the Open Device button allows you to open a subpanel via the panel browser pop-up menu. Showing panels in the Inspector 1.
• Select a panel by double-clicking it in the list. The panel opens in the Inspector.
Showing panels in the Mixer 1. Open the Mixer, and make sure the extended channel view is shown. 2. Open the View options pop-up for the MIDI channel connected to the device and select “User Panel”. 3. Click the icon shown in the extended section of the channel strip. The Panels folder is displayed like in the Inspector, but with different available panels. Just like in the Inspector, the panel has to “fit” into the available space to be selectable.
4. Double-click to select a panel. The panel is now shown in the extended section of the channel strip.
Automating device parameters Automation works just like for normal audio and MIDI tracks: 1. Open the device control panel by clicking the “Open Device” button in the Inspector. 2. Activate Write automation on the device panel.
3. If you now go back to the Project window, there will be a MIDI Device Automation track in the Track list. If you click in the name field, all parameters in the device are shown and can be selected for automation. You can automate the device by either moving knobs and sliders on the control panel itself or by drawing curves on the automation track for a selected parameter.
The main edit windows To edit device panels you use two main windows; the Device window and the Edit Panel window. In this section we will describe the main working areas of these edit windows, and what they are used for. The Device window 1. Select a device in the Installed Devices list in the MIDI Device Manager dialog and click Open Device. The Device window opens with a node structure in the left half of the window.
Device structure On the left is a hierarchical view of the device’s structure, which can consist of nodes, subnodes and parameters. By default, the structure of a newly created device (or a device with no panels added yet) will either be based on the MIDI channels that have been activated in the Create New Device dialog (see page 156), or as in this case, one of the preset devices, which all have the same structure (all 16 MIDI channels activated). Device node This shows the name of the selected node.
• The “Add Parameters” button opens the “Add Parameter” dialog where you define the parameters that will be used in the Panel. A parameter defines how the setting of the connected device can be modified, what the valid range is and what the current state of the parameter is. Parameters are assigned to objects (see page 171), i.e. knobs, faders, switches or data entry fields on a panel. • The “Add Subnodes” button lets you create subsidiary nodes.
The Edit Panel window After selecting a name and a panel size in the Add Panel dialog, click OK to open the Edit Panel dialog. When a panel has been added you can switch between all edit windows (Device/Edit Panel/Patch Banks) by using the pop-up menu at the top of the window for an open device. The Edit Panel window contains the following sections: Device structure (top left) This is the device “tree” where you can navigate the device structure and its nodes, subnodes and parameters.
Objects area (right) This area contains the predefined objects which can be dragged and dropped into the edit area. At the top of this area there is a pop-up menu where you can select Object categories; backgrounds, faders, knobs, data entry, switches and labels, see page 172. Device item properties (bottom left) This contains all data and options pertaining to the currently selected node, subnode or parameter.
The available objects On the Objects pop-up in the top right corner you can select between object categories. Faders, knobs, data entry and switches are control objects, i.e. you have to define a parameter assignment to them when inserted into the edit area, whereas labels and backgrounds are only graphic elements. The object categories are as follows: Object category Description Backgrounds Here you can select various background colors and borders.
Operations in the Edit Panel window On the following pages, we will describe the basic operations in the Edit Panel window. For a more “hands on” description of how to create panels, see page 178. Creating a panel 1. Either create a new MIDI Device (see page 152), or select a preset device from the Add MIDI Device dialog, see page 168. 2. In the MIDI Device Manager dialog, select the device in the Installed Devices list and click the “Open Device” button.
When you add graphic objects (backgrounds and labels) these are simply added to the edit area, but when you add control objects (switches, faders etc.), the Control Parameter Assignment dialog appears: In this dialog you can create and define a name for the parameter and set the parameter value range and a transmission message (see below). When you have set up the parameters as desired, click OK to close the dialog.
Object handling Selecting objects You select an individual object by clicking on it. • • Select multiple objects by pressing [Shift] and clicking on each object in turn. You can also click in an empty area and drag a selection rectangle around one or more objects, to select them. Moving objects Simply click-drag an object to a new location and drop it. • • You can also use the arrow keys to move a selected object one pixel horizontally or vertically.
Editing text Double-click on any text (text object or text label on a control object) and enter the text. Aligning objects horizontally/vertically Select multiple objects, then right-click/[Ctrl]-click to open the context menu. • • For horizontal alignment, your options are Left, Centre and Right. For vertical alignment, you can choose Top, Middle and Bottom. Spacing objects evenly Select multiple Objects and open the context menu.
Panel Edit Settings Test Template Puts the currently edited panel into live test mode. All controls will be fully functional, transmitting MIDI data to the device. Activate this mode when you want to try out the panel to make sure that all parameters are set up correctly. You cannot edit objects while in test mode, so make sure to deactivate Test Template when you’re done testing. Depth Focus This is useful when editing very complex panels, or panels featuring nested views (subpanels).
Building a control panel – a tutorial In this tutorial we will create a simple control panel for a device: 1. Open the MIDI Device Manager window, and click the Install Device button. Here you can choose from a list of pre-defined devices, or define a custom device. In this example we will use a Korg Triton preset. 2. Once you have installed the Triton device, select it by clicking on its name in the Installed Devices list and click the “Open Device” button.
4. For this tutorial, select “Inspector size” and click OK. The main Panel Edit window will now open. The blue rectangle is the panel edit area. Now you can begin adding objects to the Panel. Let’s start with a suitable background. Backgrounds are selected from the area to the right of the edit area. 5. Drag a background object into the blue rectangle (in the edit area) and release the mouse button.
Once an object is selected you can adjust its size to your liking using the resize handles. 6. Stretch this background so that it covers the entire Panel area. All objects, both backgrounds and other, can overlap. By right-clicking/ [Ctrl]-clicking the object you can bring up a context menu with the items “To Front” and “To Background”. If you select an object and then select “To Front”, it will become the foremost object (while “To Background” results in the opposite).
Once you have dropped a control into the edit area, the Control Parameter Assignment dialog will open. In this window you can define the parameters and other data pertaining to the control. 9. Click the Create button in the bottom left corner. 10.Enter a name. Note that this is not the name of the control object itself, but the name of the actual parameter, an item which exists independently from objects.
Now the Knob is finished, and we can use it as a starting point for additional Knobs. 14.Select the knob and select Copy from the Edit menu. 15.Select Paste from the Edit menu to paste in another instance of the knob. A pasted object will be placed at the same coordinates as the original object. Use the arrow keys or the mouse to move the new knob to an empty space. Since the new knob needs a different name and a different parameter assigned to it, we need to do some editing: 16.
23.Right-click/[Ctrl]-click to open the context menu, and you will see a range of alignment and spacing commands. In this case we’re interested in vertical alignment, so we’ll choose Align Bottoms. Now the bottom edges of the two Objects are aligned vertically. We’re going to create two more control knobs, but this time we’ll define the parameters first.
25.When you’re done, duplicate the two existing knobs and place the copies in an empty space. You can select multiple knobs and use the alignment and spacing commands to get all the controls in neat and tidy rows and columns. These four Knobs are known as “Realtime Controls A” on the Korg Triton. It might be a good idea to add a Title Object to this group, for easy identification. 26.Switch to Labels on the Objects menu, pick a title object and drag it to the edit area. 27.
It’s starting to look good, but perhaps we should add some kind of frame around this group of controls to distinguish them from others. 28.Go back to Backgrounds on the Objects menu and drag one of the backgrounds to the edit area. Since the most recently added object automatically ends up on top of all others, we must rearrange the order here. 29.Select the object you just added, then right-click/[Ctrl]-click to open the context menu. 30.Choose “To Background” – this will send the object to the back.
32.Drag another Background like the one we just added and drop it in the empty space below the existing group. 33.To make the new background the same size as the first one, press [Shift], select both objects and then use the resize handles of the original object. The second object will assume the same height and width as the first.
The obvious thing to do now is to make the second group “Realtime Controls B”, but since we’ve gone over rotary knobs already let’s try a few other Korg Triton controls. The Triton has a slider called “Value” (commonly known as a data entry slider), whose function is doubled by two buttons, increase and decrease. To mimic these controls we need a Fader and a Data Entry object. 34.Switch to Faders on the Objects menu, then drag and drop a vertical fader into the edit area. The Parameter window appears. 35.
37.Pick one of the objects featuring up/down arrows and drag it to your Panel. In the Parameter window that pops up, don’t create a new parameter. 38.Instead, click on the previously defined Parameter “Value” in the list and then click OK.
When the same Parameter is assigned to two or more controls, the Controls become linked so that when you move one of them, they all follow. We’re almost done. Let’s add a couple of switches as well. 39.Select Switches from the Objects Menu and drag a switch from the On/Off subcategory to the edit area. Unlike faders, knobs and data entry objects, the switches can only send two values. Normally, hardware controls that function like Switches only respond to 0 and 127, or 0 and 64.
41.Activate the test mode by checking the “Test Template” option at the top of the edit area. This will make the Panel “go live” and transmit MIDI data over the output port when you move the controls. If everything appears to be functioning OK, we can consider the Panel completed, and it’s time to start using it! 42.Click the Exit button on the Panel Edit window, and click Save in the dialog that appears.
43.Now click the User Panel tab at the bottom of the Inspector. Click the arrow to open the Device structure and choose the appropriate panel.
Done! Now the device panel is displayed in the Inspector and ready for automation recording.
Exporting and importing device setups Clicking the Export Setup button allows you to export your complete MIDI device setup as a separate XML file. The file can then be imported using the Import Setup button. This is useful if you move to another studio, install the program on a new computer, etc. • When you import a stored setup with the Import Setup function, a dialog will appear, listing all devices included in the stored setup. Select the device(s) you wish to import and click OK.
3. The Create New MIDI Device dialog appears. Set it up as shown in the following picture: 4. Click OK. Now, the device editor will open with an empty Roland JV-1080 device displayed to the left. This is the “root” of the device, which stands for the device as a whole.
5. Now, you need to create subsections (Device Nodes) for the device. Click the “Add Subnodes” button and in the dialog that appears, type in “System” in the Name field. • “System” can be found as a separate table in the MIDI definition part of the JV-1080 manual. It’s almost always a good idea to create a separate device node for each table in the MIDI definition of a device. 6. When you click OK, the new subnode is added in the device editor. 7.
The “System” table contains 17 references to another table called “Scale Tune”. So we need to add 17 more subnodes, but this time, we will proceed differently: we’ll create 17 similar subnodes at once. 8. Click the “Add Subnodes” button again. In the dialog that appears, enter Scale Tune as name, check the Create Multiple checkbox, enter “Part” as Variable name and set the Variable range to 1-17.
11.According to the MIDI definition, the “Scale Tune” table contains 12 parameters. All of them are named “Scale Tune for XX”, where XX stands for the different notes in an octave. The parameter range of these parameters is from 0 to 127 and all are set to the default value 64. Fill in the Name, Min, Max and Default fields accordingly. Next, activate the “Create Multiple” checkbox and set the Variable Range to “0-11”, which is the address range of the 12 parameters.
12.Click the Create Sysex button… …and be prepared for a dive into the deep waters of ancient MIDI mythology. You’d better take a deep breath before… …the “Create Sysex” dialog appears. • In the MIDI definition part of the MIDI device’s manual, you should be able to find sysex message definitions. Look out for messages that allow you to set individual parameters according to the tables mentioned earlier. In case of the JV-1080, you’ll find this definition 1 or 2 pages before the tables.
14.Enter “12” in the Length value box. • It is important to set “Length” and “Checksum” at the beginning, otherwise you may need to do the additional steps again. If you look at the sysex definition table, you’ll notice upper and lower case letters in the “Status” column. Upper case letters stand for static hexadecimal numbers (indicated by the “H” suffix). Lower case letters stand for variable numbers that depend on the context. In the “Create Sysex” dialog, “Values” are used for these variable numbers.
17.Next is the “device ID” which is a dynamic value (depending on what is set as the “device ID” in the receiving JV-1080). Double-click on “Value 2” in the Values list and rename it to “DevID”. 18.Reduce the number of bits to “4” and enter “10” in the Hex row at position 2, because the device ID ranges from 10H to 1FH. 19.Next, remove Value 3 and Value 4 and enter the right Values (6A and 12) in the Hex row. 20.Finally, rename Values 5 to 9 according to the Sysex definition table.
21.Now, click OK, to return to the world of the living… • All the values that have been defined now appear in the Add Parameters dialog and can be assigned to a so called “Formula”. 22.Click in the Formula column for the DevID and enter “DevID”, to set this value to a variable called “DevID”. As there is no “DevID” variable defined yet, you get “error” as a result. For now, this can be ignored. We will define the “DevID” variable later. 23.Now you need to set the right address.
The dialog should now be set up as follows: As you may have noticed, the variable “x” is automatically assigned to the “Data” value. “x” stands for the value that is represented by this parameter and is always defined individually by each parameter. If you later assign a control like a fader to this parameter, this fader will control and modify “x”. “x” is automatically assigned to the last value of the message, but can be freely assigned to any other value. 25.Click OK to close the dialog.
27.Now, let’s look into the Scale Tune 1 node by clicking its plus symbol. Click here… …to display the parameters for the node. You can now browse the parameters, to verify that the correct MIDI messages are transmitted. You can of course also do this for any of the other nodes. 28.The next step is to rename the parameters according to the “Scale Tune” table of the device’s manual by selecting each of the 12 parameters and entering their correct name in the “Name” field.
• If you open any of the other Scale Tune nodes now, you’ll see that the names of the parameters have also changed. This is what was meant by “alias copies” in the beginning. Furthermore, you will notice that if you add a panel to one of the Scale Tune nodes (see page 157), it will be added to all of them, which makes it much easier to create panels with repeating sections. 29.Now, you need to add parameters to another node, “System Common”. In the list to the left, select “System Common”. 30.
32.Activate the Create Multiple checkbox and enter a range of 0-81, because the System Common table in the manual of the JV-1080 contains 82 parameters, starting with an index of “0”. Address1MSB, Address2 and Address 3 are all 0 for all System Common parameters, so leave them as they are. Enter “index” in the Formula column for Address4LSB to address each of the 82 parameters separately.
When you click OK, you will notice that 82 new parameters have been added to the System Common node. You can now set the Names, Min, Max and Default values for each of the parameters according to the specifications in the System Common table, as described earlier. You should now be familiar enough with the basic procedures to continue with other parameter settings and adjustments and to finally create your own specific devices.
About Studio Connections Studio Connections is the name of an initiative led by Steinberg and Yamaha. The initiative intends to create industry standards for totally integrated system environments using software and hardware products. First implementation stage of the Studio Connections open standard is the integration and support of Yamaha’s Studio Manager 2 and Total Recall for compatible hardware devices.
If you have a SM2 component installed, there is an additional menu item in the Devices menu for the Yamaha Studio Manager window.
Total Recall Total Recall means that you can save and recall all settings of your hardware and software products by opening one integrated file in a DAW such as Nuendo or Cubase. Also you will have instant and organized access to hardware editors. When you load a project or switch to another active project that contains SM2 data, the Total Recall Synchronization dialog appears: This dialog can also be opened any time from the Studio Manager’s Synchronize menu. Click OK for the Dump to start.
Virtual MIDI Devices If you have a new OPT component (e.g. the DM2000) which uses a new special interface, you can access these components as virtual MIDI Devices in the MIDI track’s out port selection. When a MIDI Track is routed to such a device, the “Panel” Button becomes available. Click the Panel button… …to open the editor window for the device. • Please also refer to the separate Yamaha documentation.
5 The Logical Editor, Transformer and Input Transformer
Introduction Most of the time you will probably perform your MIDI editing graphically, from one of the main graphic editors. But there are times when you want more of a “search and replace” function on MIDI data, and that’s where the Logical Editor comes in. The principle for the Logical Editor is this: • You set up filter conditions to find certain events. This could be events of a certain type, with certain attributes or values or on certain positions, in any combination.
About the Transformer MIDI effect The Transformer effect is a real-time version of the Logical Editor, allowing you to apply editing to the events played back from a track “on the fly”. The Transformer contains virtually the same settings and functions as the Logical Editor – where there are differences between the two, this is clearly stated on the following pages. About the Input Transformer Again, this is very similar to the Logical Editor.
Opening the Logical Editor 1. Select the desired parts or events. What will be affected by the operation depends on the current selection: • • In the Project window, edits using the Logical Editor are applied to all selected parts, affecting all events (of the relevant types) in them. In the MIDI editors, edits using the Logical Editor are applied to all selected events. If no events are selected, all events in the edited part(s) will be affected.
Selecting a preset To understand the Logical Editor, it might be a good idea to start with exploring the included presets. These are found on the Presets popup menu at the bottom of the window, to the right. • To load a preset, select it from the Presets pop-up menu. The window will show the settings stored in the preset. As the preset is not applied to the MIDI events yet, you can load different presets just to study them without affecting any events. You can also edit the preset before applying it.
Setting up filter conditions General procedure The upper list is where you set up the filter conditions, determining which events to find. The list contains one or several conditions, each on a separate line. • • If you want to start from scratch (as opposed to basing your settings on an existing preset) you may want to initialize the settings by selecting the Init option from the Presets pop-up menu. To add a new line (condition) click the Add Line button to the right.
You set up a filter condition line by clicking in the columns and selecting options from the pop-up menus that appear. Here is a brief description of the columns: Column Description Left bracket This is used for “bracketing” several lines together when creating conditions with multiple lines and the boolean operators And/Or. See page 225. Filter Target Here you select which property to look for when finding events.
Conditions The options in the Condition column have the following meaning (note that the available Condition options depend on the Filter Target setting): Condition Events will be found if their Filter Target property… Equal …has the exact same value as set up in the Parameter 1 column. Unequal …has any value other than the one set up in the Parameter 1 column. Bigger …has a value higher than the one set up in the Parameter 1 column.
Searching for events at certain positions Selecting Position in the Filter Target column lets you find events starting at certain positions, either relative to the start of the song or within each bar. • If you select any condition other than the Range or Bar Range options, you set up a specific position (in bars, beats, sixteenth notes and ticks) in the Parameter 1 column. Here, the Logical Editor will find all events at 5.1.1. in the project.
Searching for notes of certain lengths Only note events have lengths (actually, a note is made up of separate note-on and note-off events but in Nuendo it’s considered as a single event with a length). Therefore, the “Length” Filter Target is only valid if you’re specifically searching for notes – there has to be another condition line with the Filter Target “Type”, Condition “Equal” and Parameter 1 set to “Note”. See page 225 for more about using multiple filter conditions.
The general procedures when searching for value 1 or 2 are: • If you select any Condition other than the Range options, you set up a specific value in the Parameter 1 column. Here, the Logical Editor will find all events with a value 2 less than 80. • If you select the Inside or Outside Range option in the Condition column, the range consists of the values between Parameter 1 and Parameter 2. Note that Parameter 1 should have the lower value.
Searching for controllers There is similar extended functionality when searching for controllers: If you’ve added an additional “Type = Controller” condition line, the Logical Editor will “know” you are searching for controllers. The Parameter 1 column will then show the names of the MIDI controllers (Modulation, Volume, etc.) when Value 1 is selected as Filter Target. Searching for MIDI channels Each MIDI event contains a MIDI channel setting (1-16).
Searching for properties On the Filter Target pop-up menu you will find an option called Property. This allows you to search for properties that are not part of the MIDI standard but rather event-specific Nuendo settings. When the Property option is selected, the Condition column has two options: “Property is set” and “Property is not set”. Which property to look for is selected in the Parameter 1 column. The options are “muted” and “selected”.
Searching for event contexts On the Filter Target pop-up menu you will find an option called “Last Event”. This can be used to perform context dependant searches (especially useful in the Input Transformer). "Last Event" indicates the state of an event which has already passed the Input Transformer/Logical Editor. The condition has to be combined with Parameter 1 and Parameter 2.
Combining multiple condition lines As described above, you can add condition lines by clicking the Add Line button to the right of the list. The result of combining condition lines depends on the boolean And/Or operators and the brackets. The bool column By clicking in the “bool” column to the right in the list, you can select a boolean operator: “And” or “Or”.
Using brackets The bracket (parenthesis) columns let you enclose two or more condition lines, dividing the conditional expression into smaller units. This is only relevant when you have three or more condition lines and want to use the boolean Or operator. This is how it works: • Without brackets, the conditional expressions are evaluated according to their order in the list. In this case we have the expression Type = Note AND Pitch = C3 OR Channel = 1, without brackets.
Editing filter conditions as text The area directly below the filter condition list shows you the current filter conditions as text. It also allows you to enter and edit the filter conditions in textual form. For tips on the syntax, please study the included presets. • There is no additional functionality involved when editing filter conditions as text; it is simply another way to make settings.
Delete Deletes all events found by the Logical Editor. In the case of the Transformer, this function will remove (or “mute”) all found events from the “output stream” – the actual events on the track are not affected. Transform Changes one or several aspects of the found events. You set up exactly what should be changed in the action list, as described on page 229. Insert This will create new events and insert these into the part(s) (Logical Editor) or the output stream (Transformer).
Specifying actions The lower list in the Logical Editor window is the action list. This is where you specify any changes that should be made to the found events (relevant for all function types except Delete and Select). The handling of the action list is similar to the filter condition list, but without the brackets and booleans. You simply add lines by clicking the Add Line button to the right, and fill out the columns as required.
Operation This setting determines what to do with the Action Target. The options on this pop-up menu are different depending on the selected Action Target. Below, all available operations are listed: Add Adds the value specified in the Parameter 1 column to the Action Target. Subtract Subtracts the value specified in the Parameter 1 column from the Action Target. Multiply by Multiplies the Action Target value with the value specified in the Parameter 1 column.
Set Random Values between This will set the Action Target value to a random value within the range specified with Parameter 1 and 2. Set Relative Random Values between This will add a random value to the current Action Target value. The added random value will be within the range specified with Parameter 1 and 2. Note that these can be set to negative values.
Use Value 2 This is only available when Action Target is set to Value 1. If this option is selected, the Value 2 setting in each event will be copied to the Value 1 setting. For example, this would be useful if you are transforming all Modulation controllers to Aftertouch events (since controllers use Value 2 for their amount, while Aftertouch uses Value 1 – see the table on page 220). Use Value 1 This is only available when Action Target is set to Value 2.
Relative Change in Loop Range As with the previous option, this will create a ramp of values, affecting events in the cycle loop range only. However, here the changes are “relative”, meaning that values will be added to the existing values. In other words, you set up a value ramp starting at Parameter 1 and ending at Parameter 2 (note that the Parameter values can be negative). The resulting value ramp is then added to the existing values for the events within the cycle loop range.
Working with presets The Presets section in the bottom right section of the window allows you to load, store and manage Logical Editor presets. A preset contains all settings in the window, which means you can simply load a preset and click Do It. • To load a preset, select it from the Presets menu. Storing your own settings as a preset If you have made Logical Editor settings that you want to use again, you can store them as a preset: 1. You can enter some explanatory text in the Comment field.
The Input Transformer This function allows you to selectively filter out and change MIDI data coming to a MIDI track before it is recorded. The Input Transformer is very similar to the Transformer MIDI effect, but contains four independent “modules”, for which you can set up different filtering and actions if you like. You can activate any or all of these four modules.
In both cases, the button lights up and the Input Transformer opens. Handling the four modules The Input Transformer is really four separate transformers, or modules. • You select which module to view and make settings for by clicking its button in the Selected Module section. Module 2 selected for viewing and editing. • The checkboxes in the Active Module section determine which module(s) are active. Here, modules 1, 2 and 4 are active.
The two modes The Mode pop-up menu contains two options: Filter and Transform. • In Filter mode, only the filter conditions (the upper list) are taken into account. All events matching the conditions set up will be filtered out (excluded from the recording). • In Transform mode, events matching the filter conditions will be transformed according to the settings in the action list (the lower list). Setting up filtering and actions This is done just like in the Logical Editor.
• Closing the Input Transformer window does not turn it off – you need to deactivate all Active Module checkboxes for this! A lit Input Transformer button in the Inspector indicates that one or more modules are active.
6 Working with System Exclusive messages
Introduction System Exclusive (SysEx) is a special type of MIDI message used to send things that only make sense to a unit of a certain make and type. Every major MIDI manufacturer has its own SysEx identity code. System Exclusive messages are typically used for transmitting patch data, i.e. the numbers that make up the settings of one or more sounds in a MIDI instrument. Nuendo allows you to record and manipulate System Exclusive data in various ways.
1. Open the Preferences dialog from the File menu (on the Mac, this is located on the Nuendo menu) and select the MIDI–MIDI Filter page. This allows you to govern which MIDI event types should be recorded and/or thru-put. 2. Deactivate the Sysex checkbox in the Record section, but make sure the Sysex checkbox in the Thru section is activated. With this setting (shown in the figure above) SysEx messages will be recorded but not echoed back out to the instrument (which could lead to strange results). 3.
Transmitting a bulk dump back to a device 1. Make sure the MIDI track with the System Exclusive data is routed to the device. You may want to check your device’s documentation to find details about which MIDI channel should be used, etc. 2. Solo the track. This might not be necessary, but it is a good safety measure. 3. Make sure the device is set up to receive System Exclusive data (often, the reception of SysEx is turned off by default). 4.
Recording System Exclusive parameter changes Often you can use System Exclusive to remotely change individual settings in a device, open up a filter, select a waveform, change the decay of the reverb etc. Many devices are also capable of transmitting changes made on the front panel as System Exclusive messages. These can be recorded in Nuendo, and thus incorporated into a regular MIDI recording. Here's how it works: let's say you open up a filter while playing some notes.
Editing System Exclusive messages While System Exclusive events are shown in the List Editor/Project Browser, their entire content is not (only the beginning of the message is displayed in the Comment column for the event). Furthermore, you cannot edit the event (other than moving it) as you can with other event types in the List Editor. Instead, you use the MIDI SysEx Editor for this.
Selecting and viewing values To select a value, either click on it or use the cursor keys. The selected byte is indicated in various formats: • • • In the main display, values are shown in hexadecimal format. To the right of this, values are shown in ASCII format. At the bottom of the dialog, the selected value is shown in binary and decimal formats. Editing a value The selected value can be edited directly in the main display or in the decimal and binary displays.
NUENDO 6 – 246 Working with System Exclusive messages
7 VST Instruments
Introduction VST Instruments are software synthesizers (or other sound sources) that are contained within Nuendo. They are played internally via MIDI, and their audio outputs appear on separate channels in the mixer, allowing you to add effects or EQ, just as with audio tracks. Some VST Instruments are included with Nuendo, others can be purchased separately from Steinberg and other manufacturers.
Activating and using VST Instruments 1. Pull down the Devices menu and select VST Instruments. The VST Instruments panel appears with 64 slots. 2. Pull down the pop-up menu for an empty slot in the panel and select the desired instrument. The instrument is loaded and activated, and its control panel is automatically opened.
5. Pull down the output pop-up menu for the MIDI track in the Track list or in the Inspector. The pop-up menu will now contain an additional item, with the name of the activated VST Instrument. 6. Select the VST Instrument on the MIDI output pop-up menu. The MIDI output from the track is now routed to the selected instrument. 7. Depending on the selected instrument, you may also need to select a MIDI channel for the track.
You can have up to 64 VST Instruments activated at the same time, different models or several instances of the same instrument. However, software synthesizers can consume quite a lot of CPU power – keep an eye on the VST Performance window to avoid running out of processor power. See also page 254.
Constrain Delay Compensation Nuendo features full delay compensation throughout the entire audio path. This means that any delay inherent in the VST plug-ins you use will automatically be compensated for during playback, so that all channels are kept in perfect sync (see the chapter “Audio effects” in the Operation Manual). However, when you play a VST Instrument in real time or record live audio (with monitoring through Nuendo activated), this delay compensation may sometimes result in added latency.
Selecting patches and making settings • To select a patch for a VST Instrument, use its patch pop-up menu in the VST Instruments window. The available patches depends on the VST Instrument. Not all VST Instruments come with pre-made patches. • To access the parameters for the VST Instrument, click the Edit button in the VST Instruments window or in its channel strip (at the bottom of the fader strip) in the mixer. This opens a “control panel” for the VST Instrument.
• If the VST Instrument supports the original VST 2.0 standard only, only limited support of patch selection is offered. In this case, selecting a patch will actually ask the VST Instrument to change “Plug-in Program”, which is not the same as selecting a “Patch” by sending MIDI Program Change and Bank Select messages. Automating a VST Instrument • Automation of the VST Instrument channel settings is done in the same way as automating regular channels.
• If you need to edit the MIDI parts routed to the VST Instrument or adjust the settings on the instrument itself, you need to unfreeze the instrument first. This removes the rendered file and restores the MIDI tracks and VST Instrument. Once you have made the necessary adjustments you can freeze the instrument again. Performing the Freeze 1. Set up the Project so that the VST Instrument plays back the way you want it.
• Activate the “Unload Instrument when Frozen” option if desired. This unloads the frozen VSTInstrument from the computer’s memory. This is useful if you are freezing an instrument that uses a lot of RAM, e.g. a sampler plug-in. By unloading the instrument, the RAM becomes available for other plug-ins, etc. 4. Click OK. A progress dialog is shown while the program renders the VST Instrument audio to a file on your hard disk.
Index
A Activate Next/Previous Part 83 Active Part 82 Aftertouch Deleting 113 Editing 109 Arpache 5 27 Arpache SX 29 Arpeggiator 27, 29 Auditioning MIDI editors 92 Auto Select Events under Cursor MIDI editors 96 Autopan (MIDI effect) 32 Autoscroll 90 B Bank Select 145 Bars+Beats Linear MIDI editors 86 C Chord Recognition 87 Chorder (MIDI effect) 34 Color pop-up menu MIDI editors 141 Compress (MIDI effect) 37 Constrain Delay Compensation 252 Controller display About 88 Adding and removing lanes 104 Controller la
Drum maps About 123 Making settings 124 MIDI channel and output 127 O-Note Conversion 130 Selecting 128 Setup dialog 129 Drum name lists 131 Drum Sound Solo 122 Drumstick tool 120 Duplicate MIDI notes 97 E Edit Active Part Only 82 Edit as Drums when Drum Map is assigned 81 Edit button MIDI track Inspector 11 Edit In-Place 115 Editing via MIDI 101 Equal Pitch (Selection) 95 F Filter bar 137 Fixed Lengths 71 Fixed Velocity 75 Freeze Quantize 68 Freeze VST Instruments 254 G Global (Input Transformer) 235 Gl
M Mask function 137 Merge MIDI in Loop 25 Micro Tuner (MIDI Effect) 40 MIDI channel In drum maps 127 Send effects 21 MIDI connector button 101 MIDI Context Gate (MIDI effect) 38 MIDI Device Manager 146 Device window 167 MIDI devices Defining new for patch selection 152 Editing patches for 151 Installing 147 Selecting patches for 150 MIDI Echo (MIDI effect) 42 MIDI effects About 19 Deactivating 24 Inserts 20 Presets 22 Sends 21 MIDI input (Editing via) 101 MIDI Input Transformer 235 MIDI notes Deleting 100 D
Pitch Bend Deleting 113 Editing 109 Plug-in Information window MIDI plug-ins 24 Poly Pressure events 113 Polyphony (Restricting) 73 Prg field 150 Program Change 145 Q Quantize About 59 Applying 65 Creating grooves from MIDI 65 Ends 68 Freezing 68 Lengths 67 Setting on toolbar 60 Setup dialog 61 Undoing 68 Quantizer (MIDI effect) 46 R Random (Track parameter) 17 Random Quantize setting 64 Range (Track parameter) 18 Repeat MIDI notes 97 Restrict Polyphony 73 Reverse (MIDI function) 75 Roland GS Control Pane
Tracks Routing MIDI to VST Instruments 250 Transformer (MIDI effect) 213 Transpose MIDI function 69 Track parameter 15 Triangle mode MIDI editing 111 U Undo Quantize 68 V Variables 168 Velocity Editing 106 Editing via MIDI 101 MIDI function 74 Velocity Compression 16 Velocity Shift Track parameter 15 VST Instruments Activating 249 Automating 254 Channels 250 Freezing 254 Routing tracks to 250 Selecting patches 253 X XG Control Panel 51 Y Yamaha Studio Manager 207 Yamaha XG Control Panel 51 NUENDO 262
