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Old 12-13-2017, 10:10 AM   #1
Marcusmax
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Default New to Reaper: A question about midi routing

Can anyone explain to me what the option in "Input: Midi - Map input to channel" actually means? I have gone through the manual and watched many of the videos but I can't find a clear answer anywhere.

A bit of background: I am trying to set things up so that I can have multiple instances of a VI (East-West Play) on their own tracks, triggered by Logic over network midi. I need to be able to select different instrument articulations within each Play instance via midi channel. So each instance will use up to 16 channels. Therefore the only way I can see to ensure that each instance responds only to its corresponding track in Logic is to use multiple LAN ports which then show up in the "Input: Midi" menu as separate options, each containing 16 channels. However this would mean having 30-40 ports available to cover an entire orchestral template! Managing those connections every time I want to work on a project would be too cumbersome so I am wondering if there is an alternative way to set this up. Specifically would "Map input to channel" be of any use in this scenario?

I hope the question is clear and if anyone has any suggestions for how to set this up more efficiently, that would be most welcome!
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Old 12-13-2017, 10:42 AM   #2
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With one MIDI port, you've only got 16 channels. Like period. Unless you want to start trying to do keyboard splits and things, you're only ever going to have 16 channels.


PS - What you're trying to do is not exactly logical. Pun completely intended. If the MIDI was in Reaper to begin with, this would be a non-issue.
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Old 12-13-2017, 10:55 AM   #3
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let me take a shot at this even though I may be wrong

what I hear is that you will have several tracks that each have one instance of the VSTi on them... and each instance will have 16 instruments on it and each of those instruments will be triggered by a diff midi channel.. 1-16

OK let's consider just one instance of the VSTi first

so you have that track and then 16 midi tracks... each of those sends it's midi to the VSTi, so you set each of those sends to be the appropriate MIDI channel, 1-16... so on the send it is Midi All to 1 or 2 or 3, etc.

Now you can save that bunch of tracks as a track template


Then you can load that template again and again...

So in the repeated loads, you would have to open the VSTi and load the instruments into it you wanted to have... however,
You could also save each of those instances of the VSTi as an FX Chain [which can be really just a single FX]... so you would eventually have some FX Chains like this:

EW Play with all strings [or whatever]
EW Play with all brass [or whatever]
etc, etc.

Now if you wanted to... you could also, once the proper VSTi and instruments are set up with the 16 MIDI tracks sending to it, save that as a named track template.... such as EW all Strings 01, EW all Strings 02, etc.

So a bit of prep work at first but after that... very fast to load up what you want for a project...

One last thought about doing things this way...
Often in a situation like this you want to have audio track outs, for each of the instruments so that eventually you can keep the MIDI tracks for future changes and also record the audio to it's own wav file on it's own track...

You make all that part of a saved track template...
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Old 12-13-2017, 05:36 PM   #4
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Many thanks guys for your replies. Yes I know this might seem like an illogical way to do things but I am used to Logic and want to keep working with what I know whilst also hosting the libraries within Reaper on a 'slave PC'. That's my reasoning anyway, though I can see that Reaper is a hugely powerful DAW in its own right. There's a history to why I want to do this which I won't go into here.

I'm going to have to get my head around what you have suggested as a working method hopi. It is very late here so I'm going to reply more fully tomorrow, once I've understood the process to the best I can and attempted to apply it. Thank you for explaining the steps in such detail.
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Old 12-13-2017, 05:49 PM   #5
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hopi's thing doesn't help you get more than 16 channels through one port. Frankly, it seems more geared toward doing it all in Reaper. It's a good overall idea, really, just doesn't really address the OP.

Edit - I guess I didn't really answer the question either. "Map input to channel", well it maps the input (whatever port/channel the track is set to receive from) to a new channel before being recorded/sent through plugins/whatever.

So like if your source was sending on channel 2, you could change it some other channel on the way into Reaper. That doesn't accomplish what you're asking for in any way that I can see.

Last edited by ashcat_lt; 12-13-2017 at 05:58 PM.
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Old 12-14-2017, 09:40 AM   #6
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Ok. Seems like you might be right ashcat_lt. I've tried to implement what hopi is suggesting but I have to confess that I find it hard to understand, probably because I'm not familiar enough with Reaper's seemingly rather complex (to a beginner) routing options. Anyway, there is little point in trying too hard to work that out if it is indeed the case that it won't address my issue regarding multiple ports.

The thing is I already have it set up in Logic so that I can change articulations/channels on the fly within the same track and this works fine over LAN. So I have no need of separate tracks to represent each articulation within either Logic or Reaper. It all happens within the one track which keeps things very neat. The midi stays on the Logic track where I work with the CC's etc. but the actual sound source lives on the Reaper track, all this in order to make use of the slave's resources and free up the Mac for other processing tasks.

Apologies if this seems disrespectful to Reaper in any way. It would certainly make sense to try and do all of it within Reaper but that defeats the purpose of the master-slave setup. However as I said before, the more I dig into Reaper the more I can appreciate its potential. The idea of using the two DAW's in this configuration was suggested to me elsewhere while I was trying to sort out CPU spiking issues within Logic.

It may well be the case that multiple ports is the only way to go in which case I'll have to either get that to work efficiently or else use VEPro instead. Thanks again for your help and for clarifying what "Map input..." means.

Last edited by Marcusmax; 12-14-2017 at 09:54 AM.
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Old 12-14-2017, 10:00 AM   #7
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I guarantee we could make Reaper do what you're doing in Logic possibly easier and maybe even better, and almost definitely with less CPU overhead.

Anyway, I'm thinking this is only an issue when you're actively sending MIDI to Reaper from Logic, and that only really has to happen when you're changing things, and I can't imagine you're too often actively changing things on more than one instrument at a time. So record arm the track in Reaper that you want to mess with. Mess with it til you're happy. Then "freeze" it some way. Easiest is to just record the audio back to a track in Logic. You could also record the MIDI into the track in Reaper, but that involves sync the two sequencers via MTC which is not something I've tried to do in a long time.

But I suppose if you wanted to freeze tracks you'd just do that in Logic, no? Or is that machine having problems with just one instance of the VSTi?
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Old 12-14-2017, 10:20 AM   #8
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Yeah I'm sure I could do it that way, i.e. freezing tracks. Been doing that for years within Logic. Or simply record the audio back into Logic as you say. The thing is I also have limited RAM on my Mac, a Mini with 16 GB so the PC has twice that, a more powerful CPU and an SSD for sample streaming. Thus the reason for setting up a slave system.

I'm actually trying to simplify things(!) and have a setup where I can work with the midi throughout the project without having to freeze or bounce tracks at all by making use of the slave's greater memory and a less-burdened CPU. Then I could wait til the mixing stage to render the tracks to audio which I much prefer to work with at that point.

I've no doubt Reaper could accomplish all of this on its own very well however using the slave system allows me to make use of both machines' resources at the same time.
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Old 12-14-2017, 03:12 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
I guarantee we could make Reaper do what you're doing in Logic possibly easier and maybe even better, and almost definitely with less CPU overhead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcusmax View Post
I've no doubt Reaper could accomplish all of this on its own very well however using the slave system allows me to make use of both machines' resources at the same time.
I can truly understand where you're coming from, You're so used to Logic and there are definitely things that are different between Logic and Reaper. Actually I'm only surmising that because I've never used Logic.

The main thing about Reaper is the way you can customize it and set it up for your own workflow. Of course that's another learning curve(s), but once you get into it and see what you can do, there's no turning back.

If you can Marcus, list some of the things you can do with Logic that mean a lot for you.
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Old 12-14-2017, 05:13 PM   #10
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Oh I can feel a slippery slope coming on..! I am anticipating that you're going to tell me how much better Reaper can do whatever I list and then I'll start thinking about migrating and then, the dreaded Learning Curve will loom..

There aren't many things I particularly like within Logic tbh. It's more familiarity with it gathered over a lot of years, since the early 90's in fact! I don't think I'm really about to jump ship however but one thing that does come to mind is a utility called SkiSwitcher, exclusive to Logic, that allows the articulation-switching within a single track that I described above, along with the ability to apply any CC curves to all midi channels within a single VI instance. That is so useful for seamlessly managing a single 'performance' across multiple articulations.

I also like the way Logic's various editors and windows are organised, how screen sets work, actually the consistency of design that takes care of business without having to build it up from scratch. Customisability is all very well if you enjoy managing and tweaking the software but I prefer all that, or most of it anyway, to be a given and then I can get on with writing music. But then I am a 'preset' sort of guy - I've never particularly enjoyed fiddling with knobs and parameters.

I'm sure there are other things but maybe that gives you a flavour?
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Old 12-14-2017, 09:30 PM   #11
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Oh I can feel a slippery slope coming on..! I am anticipating that you're going to tell me how much better Reaper can do whatever I list and then I'll start thinking about migrating and then, the dreaded Learning Curve will loom..
Heh heh, no Marcus, that's not going to happen, not from me or ashcat, speaking for myself, and I think I can talk for ashcat too, we're not here to feed you line of BS.

For myself, I'm a very heavy midi user, and I've managed to get things set up that work for me. I started using midi back in the mid 80s with "Sequencer Gold" and have used midi ever since. In all honesty the only other midi sequencer I've used since Voyetra's "Sequencer Gold" has been Cakewalk which I started with in the early 90s.

I left Cakewalk back with Sonar 4, around 2009 (too many bugs), and came to Reaper. I still miss some of the midi things that Sonar had, but I've come a long ways since then.

Trust me Marcus, neither Ashcat nor I are here to persuade you of anything. What I'm sure Ashcat meant, was for you to explain things that you like and depend on with Logic. Then if one of us knows a way to do those things with Reaper, we can try explain that to you.

Quote:
There aren't many things I particularly like within Logic tbh. It's more familiarity with it gathered over a lot of years, since the early 90's in fact! I don't think I'm really about to jump ship however but one thing that does come to mind is a utility called SkiSwitcher, exclusive to Logic, that allows the articulation-switching within a single track that I described above, along with the ability to apply any CC curves to all midi channels within a single VI instance. That is so useful for seamlessly managing a single 'performance' across multiple articulations.

I also like the way Logic's various editors and windows are organised, how screen sets work, actually the consistency of design that takes care of business without having to build it up from scratch. Customisability is all very well if you enjoy managing and tweaking the software but I prefer all that, or most of it anyway, to be a given and then I can get on with writing music. But then I am a 'preset' sort of guy - I've never particularly enjoyed fiddling with knobs and parameters.

I'm sure there are other things but maybe that gives you a flavour?
Based on what you say here, I assume you are into orchestra writing and production. You mention SkiSwitcher, for selecting articulations, and that's something Reaper needs to address yet. I use a lot of keyswitches and it can be kind of a pain.
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Old 12-15-2017, 10:49 AM   #12
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Thanks Tod. No, I was being kind of tongue-in-cheek there! I'm not getting the feeling that anyone is trying to persuade me of anything. Reaper is clearly capable of doing things extremely well so of course there's going to be a bias in its favour, here of all places! Nor am I trying to defend Logic; I'm simply trying to get the two DAW's to talk to each other in this particular configuration. They mostly do very well together in fact but the issue of having to manually connect 30-40 ports every time I want to work on a project is looking like it could be the deal-breaker. Which is why I was enquiring if there might be an alternative way to set this up.

Yes, most of my material is orchestral with added guitars and synths etc. SkiSwitcher is an amazing piece of software that makes life considerably easier when working with multiple articulations, whether or not they use keyswitching.
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Old 12-16-2017, 04:07 PM   #13
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Now wait a minute, though...

Am I understanding correctly that SkiSwitcher is basically just switching the output channel when it receives certain notes? So, like, the keyboard or track or whatever is just sending one channel, and it's SkiSwitcher assigning things to different channels as appropriate?

Would you be cool with doing that part in Reaper? You're not counting on having different tracks for different articulations or anything? I'd be willing to bet we've already got a plugin that does this, and if not it would be easy enough to put together.

This way you just send each instrument from Logic to Reaper on one channel, which can go to one specific track and get split out anyway you want from there. In this way, the 40 ports you were talking about becomes just 3 ports.
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Old 12-17-2017, 08:08 AM   #14
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Yes that does sound very cool however I have since discovered an app called CopperLan that gives me up to 32 ports with minimal setup per boot. I'm not sure exactly how SkiSwitcher works but it does manage switching between channels within a multi-output instrument. It also has a script which allows for the application of CC data to be applied to all articulations/channels within the same VI instance which is an invaluable resource, so I'm keen to keep using it. With this system I can do all the work on the midi track within Logic.

Perhaps what you are describing would also allow for that but for the moment I think I will see how I get on with CopperLan. If I find that too cumbersome or unstable I may well ask for your help with that plugin. Many thanks for your suggestion and your input.
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Old 12-17-2017, 01:44 PM   #15
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Why not doing everything in Logic?
Or the opposite, why not doing everything in Reaper?
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Old 12-17-2017, 03:36 PM   #16
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A good question of course! My Mac is somewhat under-powered for what I am trying to do so I need to spread the load for heavy orchestral projects across two computers, a master and a slave. This is usually done using a DAW + Vienna Ensemble Pro but someone suggested to me the idea of using Reaper as a 'slave' (sorry!) to Logic instead so that's the path I've gone down. I basically need to host my main sample libraries on my PC running Reaper which has more RAM, an SSD etc. thus freeing up resources on the Mac/Logic for other tasks, including hosting other less RAM-intensive libraries. Lots of people do things this way, though as I say usually using VEPro.
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Old 12-17-2017, 04:54 PM   #17
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Thanks a lot.
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