Reaper 5: no midi improvements?

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Matt Riley

When people make these kinds of workaround suggestions and think that it's doable for 100+ tracks, I wonder if they just like tinkering with software. My full time gig is mostly creating music, often involving massive track counts using virtual orchestra libs. When you do this stuff all day long, workflow is everything.

Hi Matt, I'm not sure what you consider as work-a-rounds but based on many of the posts in this thread, there are many that agree with you?

I think that what many of you are calling work-a-rounds I'm calling advantages, or better yet, some good tools. I love the way Reaper can be customized, I very seldom come up with a need that I can't find a way to make it work. Now that could be called work-a-rounds, but it's not, it's simply the way Reaper works.

And before I go any further, I want to give all those guys in the scripting department a huge pat on the back, I think every request I've ever made has been fulfilled. And then there's the SWS team. Between all these great folks, there's not another DAW in the world that has a team like this.

Concerning the envelopes vrs midi events, I think it's all a matter of what you're used to. I've never used anything but CC events in midi editors in all the years I've been using midi, which is about 30 years now. So I'm totally satisfied and accustomed to it.

But I can certainly understand, if a person is more familiar with envelopes, then that's what they would also like to have for midi too. With all the folks that want envelopes, I think it's only a matter of time it will happen. However, I hope the CC events will not be abandoned, I like how they work and especially the intimacy I can get with them.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Tod

I very seldom come up with a need that I can't find a way to make it work.

Which is why these discussions so often go in circles. There are people who want to do things for which no script exists, so customization has no impact on that. Or if a script does exist it's often enough an inferior workflow to a native solution they left behind in another product.

Reaper's biggest practical issue - and I say this as someone who actually likes the product - is that there is a certain segment of the user base who seems to imply that if you can get something done, that's all that matters. I personally disagree with that notion in some cases. I appreciate being able to ger x and y done but I also recognize that it's often enough inferior to the thing it's trying to copy.

"How" something gets done is almost as important as that it can be done and the importance of "how" scales up as the project size scales up. On a more basic level, the more you hafe to think about conditions or similar for 15 different scripts, the less time you're thinking about the music.

That is only to say, it's great that everything you want to do midi wise is easy enough for you but that doesn't by itself translate to anyone or everyone else. I've been waiting since 2010 or so to be able to edit in arrange like I've done for 20 years, split clips on the fly without splitting notes. Can't customize that afaik. It's great that you guys who do all of the other complex stuff with OSC and all the other stuff are happy, I just want some better basic editing.

[ivansc]

Me too. A building block arranger would be bliss. Had it in BPP2 back in the 1990s.

[Lawrence]

Yeah. Reaper's midi doesn't suck. I think Mr. SockPuppet (if he is the main midi dev guy, no idea) has done a good job moving Reaper's midi forward over the last few years and things do take time. Anyone who says that it sucks is (imo) just more being a bit of a drama queen.

Having said that, the relative balance is maybe a little off. You can do all of these really complex and maybe somewhat obscure things like what Tod often talks about, but there are some other subjectively basic things that aren't all that workable.

They're obviously still developing the product so, no pantie twisting necessary. More stuff will show up as time passes.

[dream_of_the_night]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Me too. A building block arranger would be bliss. Had it in BPP2 back in the 1990s.

+1
-----------------------------

Another feature that misses that could be improved for CC curves is to have a shortcut for midi CC used: for example if you have an envelope written for CC1, and another written for CC11, a button with "cc1" and another with "cc11" should be shown under all the midi control list. This could very useful to switch fast between CC1 and CC11 without having to scroll the list every time.

[Azzar]

Originally Posted by Tod

But I can certainly understand, if a person is more familiar with envelopes, then that's what they would also like to have for midi too. With all the folks that want envelopes, I think it's only a matter of time it will happen. However, I hope the CC events will not be abandoned, I like how they work and especially the intimacy I can get with them.

I, for one, don't see how envelopes would make my midi editing life easier. As an option it would be cool though.

What I really miss is the easy and smooth way of drawing and massaging CC-curves that Cubase has.

Like this:


I think Reapers piano roll is really competent, and with a couple more niceties like this, it could blow everything else out of the water.

(I know theres a plugin that somewhat does this, but doing it natively right on top of the curve is so much smoother)

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by Tod

But I can certainly understand, if a person is more familiar with envelopes, then that's what they would also like to have for midi too.

It'e easy to convert an envelop to Midi. ReacontrolMidi can do this and it'e easy to do a JSFX if you need special features. We recently did a that converts an envelop to MIDI Sysex messages in a dedicated format.

-Michael

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by Azzar

I, for one, don't see how envelopes would make my midi editing life easier. As an option it would be cool though.

So maybe converting a live-recoreded controller curve to an envelop wopld be an option. Maybe this is possible, but I don't know if it is provided somehow out of the box.

-Michael

[planetnine]

Originally Posted by Azzar

I, for one, don't see how envelopes would make my midi editing life easier. As an option it would be cool though.

What I really miss is the easy and smooth way of drawing and massaging CC-curves that Cubase has.

Like this:


I think Reapers piano roll is really competent, and with a couple more niceties like this, it could blow everything else out of the water.

(I know theres a plugin that somewhat does this, but doing it natively right on top of the curve is so much smoother)

Well technically, cubase is applying an envelope to the CC lane there, it's just not displaying the envelope curve, just the resultant. Nice implementation though, that looks powerful.

Originally Posted by planetnine

...

Kind of related and might be useful to you -did you see the scripts spk77 wrote for CC manipulations? Link to thread...

>

Maybe approach spk and ask him for help in expanding this? If nothing else, it could be a great mockup for a feature request.



>

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by Azzar

I think Reapers piano roll is really competent, and with a couple more niceties like this, it could blow everything else out of the water

In fact the envelop curve can do some of your suggestions (e.g. Bezir and other curves, selecting points and moving the set up/down and left/right), but seemingly no "tilting".

IMHO it would be even more desirable to have a unified editor for piano-roll-curves and envelops. In fact having the piano-roll use envelopes for CC, velocity etc (similar as ReaControlMidi) and doing the display appropriately (showing the envelope in sync below the note events).

-Michael

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by planetnine

Well technically, cubase is applying an envelope to the CC lane there, it's just not displaying the envelope curve, just the resultant. Nice implementation though, that looks powerful.

Yeah, they ripped that from S1's Automation Transformer. They call theirs "Automation Scaler". Cubase one upped the rip because theirs also applies to velocity and S1's doesn't.

Ripping is good... Reaper should rip more good ideas imo.

[MikComposer]

Envelopes for cc message would be great, with easily editable curves. What cubase has is nice, and definitely would be useful, but curves like in adobe flash and after effects would be best.

[mccrabney]

can we get a holler for being able to set parameter min/maxes for learns?? to me, this is one of the most glaring midi feature limitations in REAPER, and it kind of preempts a lot of REAPER's envelope/cc editing.

look at resolume's learn options, it's simple and just about perfect. it even has an "invert" function. without miditoreacontrolpath, this is practically impossible for REAPER to do. the "RANGE" param lets you set an upper and lower threshold, and it's unbelievably useful.



you want to take this a step further?? let us automate the upper/lower threshold limits, so that during different moments of the song, the same motion on your controller can create dramatically different fx changes.

for now, i'm doing all this in bidule, but it is much slower than a solution that is closer to home

[Tod]

One thing about envelopes, you don't know what's behind the scene.

I've shown this before, it shows how the CC densities are related to your buffer settings. As long as your buffer settings are 256 or less, then it's not too bad, but as you approach 512 and beyond, it gets pretty bad.

[mschnell]

Interesting !

How did you to this graphs ?

What "Buffers" do you mean ? Why are they relevant with Midi ?

Thanks,
-Michael

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Tod

One thing about envelopes, you don't know what's behind the scene.

I think because it all involves the audio arts your ears should always tell you what you need to know. If you can't hear it, it doesn't matter. People were making records with hardware sequencers long before you could even visualize any of it.

Not you Tod , but far too many people using daws get caught up on what they see, not what they hear, and call things they see that look bad "bad" even though they'd not actually heard anything wrong. Then some of them obsess over it, the thing they never actually even heard.

"Critical Listening" has become "Critical Observing".

[Tod]

Originally Posted by mschnell

Interesting !

How did you to this graphs ?

What "Buffers" do you mean ? Why are they relevant with Midi ?

Thanks,
-Michael

Hi Michael, I rendered the ReaControlMidi track to the other tracks by routing through sends to the other tracks. Then I simply rendered the midi in each track using Record: output>Record: midi.

Each track was rendered with a different buffer setting which are adjusted in "Preferences>Audio>Devices".

Originally Posted by Lawrence

I think because it all involves the audio arts your ears should always tell you what you need to know. If you can't hear it, it doesn't matter. People were making records with hardware sequencers long before you could even visualize any of it.

Not you Tod , but far too many people using daws get caught up on what they see, not what they hear, and call things they see that look bad "bad" even though they'd not actually heard anything wrong. Then some of them obsess over it, the thing they never actually even heard.

"Critical Listening" has become "Critical Observing".

Sorta true my friend, but not quite. It's true that many folks don't notice this because they don't know what to listen for.

It's also true that many good VSTis have a lag or smoothing with their CC7 volume control, so that you would not notice it, it totally smoothes it out. It does this over time so there is a slight latency involved, which you probably won't detect, I know I don't.

However, with other controllers like CC1 or CC11, they probably don't have any smoothing going on and in these cases you might be able to hear the classic zipper sound. Also in many of these cases with CC1 and/or CC11, it will be a linear envelope within the instrument itself.

Of course with good samplers like Kontakt, you have complete control over all those aspects.

But still, I have to admit, when I see outcomes like I show in the pictures above, it really raises flags for me. I do not want the density of my CC events to depend on the buffer settings.

One other thing, when I was putting this little test together today, I didn't find using the ReaControlMidi envelopes any faster or easier at all. In fact it was rather cumbersome because the time it took to put in points and then select the right shapes, it took much more than just drawing in the CCs in the Midi Editor. Not only that, but the shapes I draw in the ME are my own, and there's no way predetermined shapes are going to be better than that, or even do what I want to do.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Tod

true my friend, but not quite. It's true that many folks don't notice this because they don't know what to listen for.

There's certainly some truth to that. With that said, if you're producing music in any serious way and you don't know what tio listen for or don't know when something sounds wrong or bad, you have much bigger issues than cc resolution.

Not "you" my friend, a person in general.

But still, I have to admit, when I see outcomes like I show in the pictures above, it really raises flags for me. I do not want the density of my CC events to depend on the buffer settings.

I personally let go of most of that years ago. Mmv as usual, but in the bigger picture of the music it's not going to make or break the result. I went through a phase some time ago (back when I was writing more) where I focused so much on minutia it really just became a distraction. But technology affects a lot of people that way so it's not abnormal. On the contrary, it's probably more the norm.

We (as a general group, consumers, generally ) worry much more about technical minutia than mic placement or arrangement or similar. It all kinda turns into a big science lab.

[mschnell]

Thanks, Tod, for the explanation.

Originally Posted by Tod

Hi Michael, I rendered the ReaControlMidi track to the other tracks by routing through sends to the other tracks. Then I simply rendered the midi in each track using Record: output>Record: midi.

I see. So the "what's behind the scene" in fact is "what exactly does ReaControlMidi do". As said in another mail, it's easy (we already did this) to create a JSFX that converts an Envelop (for one of it's silders) to Midi (we did Sysex, but of course you can do CC or Pitch or whatever).

Originally Posted by Tod

Each track was rendered with a different buffer setting which are adjusted in "Preferences>Audio>Devices". ... I do not want the density of my CC events to depend on the buffer settings

So the question is why the MIDI-output of ReaControlMidi depends on the Audio-buffer setting, I am rather sure, that this can be avoided when doing you own JSFX for "MIDI-rendering". Here you would be able to implement an algorithm that provides the density of your CC exactly as desired.

-Michael

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

your ears should always tell you what you need to know.

Sorry but that is rather short-sighted. Your ears can tell you whether the result is OK. But you need to understand the ways of the technology you use to be able to make it do what you want to hear.

If Beethoven would not have know how to sharpen his pencil, we would not be able to hear his music.

As sharpening a pencil is less complex with respect to mastering a DAW, Beethoven did not bother his fellow geniuses in the 18th century "musical pencil" forum.

-Michael

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

We (as a general group, consumers, generally ) worry much more about technical minutia than mic placement or arrangement or similar. It all kinda turns into a big science lab.

This is what this forum is all about. I am sure that there are lots of forums that discus the art of mic placement and multiple other things that are very important for doing good musical productions. There can't be "one forum fits all" issues.

-Michael

[mschnell]

Thinking about the buffer issue.

Maybe Reaper evaluates the envelope curve and sends a controller change event to a VST (or a "slider event" to a JSFX) with each audio buffer. With a buffer size of 1024 and a sample rate of 48 K this would be some 50 events per second. I suppose this should offer a decent density.

Seemingly ReaControlMidi only handles any n'th Controller change event.

The plugin should reduce the density by e.g. by only creating a CC message whenever the value changes. That is easy to do in a JSFX.

-Michael

[MikComposer]

Bezier curves working like those in after effects are necessary. For those who don't like it there should be a toggle button switching the views from curves to bars.

[Breeder]

Originally Posted by Tod

One thing about envelopes, you don't know what's behind the scene.

I've shown this before, it shows how the CC densities are related to your buffer settings. As long as your buffer settings are 256 or less, then it's not too bad, but as you approach 512 and beyond, it gets pretty bad.

I think that if ReaControlMIDI was VST3, this wouldn't happen anymore.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by mschnell

This is what this forum is all about. I am sure that there are lots of forums that discus the art of mic placement and multiple other things that are very important for doing good musical productions. There can't be "one forum fits all" issues.

-Michael

Sorry. I thought daw forums were about everything that applies to making music with daws, not just the tech minutia.

Again, I look at the midi CC density picture above and I wonder if anyone actually heard a difference before they saw it in a graphic, or are they more just concerned about what they see on the computer screen.

Not that it matters to me or affects me in any way, what others do, just curious because it all seems to be related to increasing the quality of the musical result and imo, that stuff is so far down the list it doesn't even rate on the importance scale for me personally.

But again, everyone is different. Not dismissing the concern, more just curious.

When I see a graphic like the one above the obvious question is... "Are the rendered results audibly different?" If not, what are we talking about exactly? If so, yeah, something to think about.

[MikComposer]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Sorry. I thought daw forums were about everything that applies to making music with daws, not just the tech minutia.

Again, I look at the midi CC density picture above and I wonder if anyone actually heard a difference before they saw it in a graphic, or are they more just concerned about what they see on the computer screen.

Not that it matters to me or affects me in any way, what others do, just curious because it all seems to be related to increasing the sonic quality of music and imo, that stuff is so far down the list it doesn't even rate on the importance scale for me personally. But again, everyone is different.

Yes, I can hear clear difference in how cc's are placed: if buffer is not smallest ( or in other words, magnet icon is toggled on) instruments start sounding harsh, and as Tod said, crate that nasty zipper effect. On the contrary, with smallest buffer, the sounds is much cleaner ( thought not yet perfectly ).

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by MikComposer

Yes, I can hear clear difference in how cc's are placed: if buffer is not smallest ( or in other words, magnet icon is toggled on) instruments start sounding harsh, and as Tod said, crate that nasty zipper effect. On the contrary, with smallest buffer, the sounds is much cleaner ( thought not yet perfectly ).

Ah ok. Is that a Reaper thing? Can't say I've heard a zipper effect with CC's. I though it was all interpolated.

In most daws like Cubase there are functions to reduce the density because (I thought) it was interpolated, that the "steps" you see on the screen actually result in clean transitions between the values, not audible steps.

But yeah, if CC density makes your VI's sound "harsh" that would be something to worry about. I don't produce midi in Reaper really so maybe it's just something I haven't encountered. Thanks.

I'd be interested to see the audio renders from those 4 buffer settings, to compare them.

[MikComposer]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Ah ok. Is that a Reaper thing? Can't say I've heard a zipper effect with CC's. I though it was all interpolated.

In most daws like Cubase there are functions to reduce the density because (I thought) it was interpolated, that the "steps" you see on the screen actually result in clean transitions between the values, not audible steps.

But yeah, if CC density makes your VI's sound "harsh" that would be something to worry about. I don't produce midi in Reaper really so maybe it's just something I haven't encountered. Thanks.

I'd be interested to see the audio renders from those 4 buffer settings, to compare them.

Exactly. You can clearly hear jumps in volume and velocity between CC's pressure, and that's why they need to be drawn dense, but drawing so densely is super frustrating to get precise, and doesn't remove the issue completely.

I can't make an example cause i'm away for a while. Thought I could use older library. But maybe someone else can do example with latest libraries. Strings are perfect for that example.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Ah ok. Is that a Reaper thing? Can't say I've heard a zipper effect with CC's. I though it was all interpolated.

In most daws like Cubase there are functions to reduce the density because (I thought) it was interpolated, that the "steps" you see on the screen actually result in clean transitions between the values, not audible steps.

But yeah, if CC density makes your VI's sound "harsh" that would be something to worry about. I don't produce midi in Reaper really so maybe it's just something I haven't encountered. Thanks.

I'd be interested to see the audio renders from those 4 buffer settings, to compare them.

To a large extent it's a general issue of MIDI vs plug-in parameter automation (using specific formats) which is also apparent in other hosts.

And indeed, typically, plug-ins use some kind of smoothing (interpolation) algorithms on their end to prevent such audible 'zipper' artefacts - unless they're programmed very, very poorly (looking at you again, IK Multimedia... ). But interpolation can only go so far - very sparse control data may still end up as 'ladder' effects.

However, apart from zipper/ladder effects, a major issue still remains, namely timing accuracy (which may of course be audible as well, though in a very different manner). MIDI events can be processed by plug-ins with sample-accuracy. For automation events, in contrast, this is only true for VST3 and JS (and AU3, AAX, not supported in REAPER). For plug-ins VST2.x and AU (v2) formats (i.e. probably the vast majority of what REAPER users are using nowadays), automation events are only processed once every buffer (which is variable, though, so hosts can adjust buffer sizes to make automation envelope points coincide with buffer borders).

The phenomenon Tod showed above refers *only* to the use of ReaControlMIDI to generate MIDI CC#s; and since ReaControlMIDI is a plug-in that probably uses VST2.x, I think Breeder is correct in suggesting that updating it to VST3 would fix this issue. To this specific extent, it is an issue specific to REAPER.

It's different for 'regular' MIDI sequencing, where timing accuracy is defined by the ticks per quarter note setting (note that it is possible to increase it from the default value of 960 to e.g. your sample rate of 96kHz to achieve a sample accurate resolution in your projects).

[schwa]

Originally Posted by Banned

MIDI events can be processed by plug-ins with sample-accuracy.

This is correct. If you have MIDI data of whatever resolution (entered via the MIDI editor, or recorded from hardware), then any plugin including VST2 can receive that data at sample-accurate resolution.

(Whether the plugin then processes it with that resolution, interpolates, etc, is up to the plugin.)

[MikComposer]

Originally Posted by schwa

This is correct. If you have MIDI data of whatever resolution (entered via the MIDI editor, or recorded from hardware), then any plugin including VST2 can receive that data at sample-accurate resolution.

(Whether the plugin then processes it with that resolution, interpolates, etc, is up to the plugin.)

Do you mean that if cc data would look like buffer 1024, but played at 128, the cc's are processed and smoothed out as it would be 128?

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by MikComposer

You can clearly hear jumps in volume and velocity between CC's pressure,

For better CC resolution we have "high resolution midi" with 14 Bit CC values instead of 7 bit CC values. here the density issue will hit even harder.

-Michael

[schwa]

REAPER never smooths MIDI data (and should not do so IMO).

There are various ways to generate MIDI data: importing files, using the MIDI editor, recording the output of a MIDI device or plugin. The recorded MIDI will have whatever resolution it has. If you import a file, it will have the file's original resolution. If you use the MIDI editor, it will have whatever your project MIDI tick resolution is. If you record the output of a MIDI device, it will have the device's output resolution modulo hardware jitter. If you record the output of a MIDI plugin, it will have whatever resolution the plugin is capable of generating (not limited by the plugin type). ReaControlMIDI happens to generate MIDI only once per audio buffer block, but this is not a structural limitation, it could be improved to be sample-accurate.

Once you have the MIDI data, you can send it to a plugin or a hardware synth (or a karaoke machine or a lighting setup or a robot or whatever). Any plugin will receive the MIDI at the recorded resolution; any hardware will receive it at the recorded resolution modulo hardware jitter. What the plugin or device does with that data is up to the plugin. It may preserve the original resolution, or it might only process once per audio buffer block, it might interpolate CC changes if appropriate or it might not, etc.

[jnif]

Originally Posted by schwa

If you record the output of a MIDI plugin, it will have whatever resolution the plugin is capable of generating (not limited by the plugin type).

The recording resolution cannot be higher than tick resolution of the MIDI item (not sample accurate by default). But is it possible to have sample accurate MIDI data within plugin chain between two plugins where the data is not yet written to any item?

Originally Posted by schwa

ReaControlMIDI happens to generate MIDI only once per audio buffer block, but this is not a structural limitation, it could be improved to be sample-accurate.

To be able to produce sample accurate CC data output from plugin parameter envelopes, the plugin must be able to read the envelope curves at sample resolution. Is ReaControlMIDI, or any VST2 plugin, able to do that?

jnif

[schwa]

Originally Posted by jnif

The recording resolution cannot be higher than tick resolution of the MIDI item (not sample accurate by default).

The MIDI tick resolution is whatever it is, and a MIDI tick may be defined by the user to be shorter or longer than one audio sample. By default, using the MIDI editor in REAPER creates MIDI items with 960 ppq resolution. At 120 bpm and 48 kHz, one MIDI tick would be 25 samples long.

Originally Posted by jnif

But is it possible to have sample accurate MIDI data within plugin chain between two plugins where the data is not yet written to any item?

Internally within REAPER, plugins send and receive MIDI timestamped to the sample. So yes, you can have a sample-accurate MIDI signal between two plugins. The per-sample offset is standard in VST2, AU, and JS. But any particular plugin may ignore the sample-accurate offsets and just process MIDI once per audio buffer block.

Originally Posted by jnif

To be able to produce sample accurate CC data output from plugin parameter envelopes, the plugin must be able to read the envelope curves at sample resolution. Is ReaControlMIDI, or any VST2 plugin, able to do that?

If you are generating MIDI by automating a plugin that outputs MIDI, then the output resolution will depend on how the plugin is implemented. A VST2 plugin can only receive automation messages once per audio buffer block. This is what ReaControlMIDI does, although we could make it more accurate, since it can speak directly to REAPER and work around the built-in VST2 automation limitation.

Also, any VST2 could be designed to output smoothed automated CC values with higher resolution. VST2s have the same issue with zipper noise from automated audio controls; some plugins will interpolate internally to avoid zipper noise and others won't. It's similar to the implementation difference between JS/volume and JS/volume_pan.

[Tod]

Okay, I decided to do a little testing to see if the zipper sound could be heard. In the picture below I rendered ReaControlMidi (RCM) with a buffer setting of 1024, to two separate midi tracks. The project tempo was 120BPM.

The top midi track was 2 beats long and the bottom is 1 beat long.

The bottom two pictures are the wave forms created when I play a 1KHrz sample in Kontakt. I used CC11 as the controller with no Lag setup in it.



Below is an mp3 with both the 2-beat and 1-beat audio files. There are 4 separate sounds, the first two are the 2-beat and the 2nd two are the 1-beat.

I recorded this at a -6db but you might want to turn you monitor down and slowly bring it up to where it's comfortable.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8s...ew?usp=sharing

The zipper affect can be heard in both the 2-beat and the 1-beat, however you have to listen very closely with the 2-beat to hear it. I think the zipper sound is a little more audible with the 24bit wav file but Google My Drive will only play mp3s.

I doubt very much that if I had used a violin sample with a little reverb on it, that the zipper sound could be heard. Actually I think any complex wave samples, especially with a little verb would be smeared enough that it couldn't be heard.

[schwa]

Thanks, that's interesting. I would think if any plugin would implement interpolating CC changes, it would be Kontakt, so if they don't probably very few plugins do.

I suppose we should go ahead and update ReaControlMIDI automation to be sample-accurate...

[Tod]

Originally Posted by schwa

Thanks, that's interesting. I would think if any plugin would implement interpolating CC changes, it would be Kontakt, so if they don't probably very few plugins do.

Hi schwa, actually Kontakt does, but only CC7 volume is set up with it by default. All the rest of the controllers have a "Lag" adjustment, 0 to 5000 I think. All it takes is a setting of 200, to smooth controllers out, like CC11, so that they react just like CC7 volume.

I suppose we should go ahead and update ReaControlMIDI automation to be sample-accurate...

That might not be a bad idea for those that use ReaControlMIDI, especially for those that might be unaware.

Where this problem could really show up rather badly is with steep adjustments over short periods of time.

[Mink99]

Please be careful on this area. While it makes fairly sense to have this high frequency midi cc in internal processing, if you send this to external devices, you will take a high risk of flooding external equipment, so that realtime messages will not have enough space on the wires to arrive in time, or even provoke crashes on some devices (older Roland polysynths are a top candidate)

Please, at this time think first, and implement later....
Then test .... And deliver ...

Of course not every parameter has to be automated through cc. Vst automation is running on a different control path which is far more effective.

[Tomm]

Yea, my old Roland MC box already has problems playing back 32 notes at the same time resulting in a harp-like glissando, with too many CC changes it'd probably spawn the voice of the devil. It'd be cool to have an option in the "Control Change" area for the granularity of output.