@Vaultnaemsae Update… A single instance in the Global rackspace didn’t work. It did initially, but in the end it wouldn’t stick when changing rackspaces. It would again switch patch out of the blue. That said…
I could program MINI in standalone with my setup—2 pedals, for volume and sustain—then routed it to GP5. And it works. I opened and closed MG3 in standalone a bunch of times and MINI keeps loading just fine. I programmed each rackspace—a dozen or so—in GP5, moved between them a bunch of times and it all works fine.
Hurray, as it goes. Or phew.
PS: Now to the next task. I use Helix Native for my guitar normal sounds and I’d like to MIDI program a Boss FS-6 to switch presets. I’ve looked into it, tried a few things—there’s some info on that in the Line 6 Helix Native manual, on page 58, though not much—but couldn’t get it to work. If ever you happen to know something about that…
In any case, thanks for suggesting the MG3 standalone option. Looks like I’ll be able to use my new laptop-based setup, after all, for the concert a friend (a kora player) and I will give on Sunday as part of the release and launch of our first album (where I used MG3 for a number of instruments).
Maybe open a different thread on it? There are definitely some Helix Native users, myself included. Everything you need to know (including the limitations and compatible plugin formats) is documented in the “Pilot’s Guide” from Line 6 with regard to using MIDI to change presets or snapshots.
@Vaultnaemsae I looked into the Pilot’s Guide. It didn’t help. That said, I posted about that in the GP forum and someone who had shared an interesting GP gig file about it—how to program GP with 8 widgets to access 8 snapshots—responded and gave me more details about how that works. So I’ll be experimenting with that today.
PS: The album’s launch went well, and my new setup with MG3 worked almost with no glitches—actually, the glitches that happened were due to my forgetting some steps I needed to take when switching sounds. As I think of it, I’ll post a link to the album, which is now online on Bandcamp, in the “Demo category” of the forum.
@LoFiLeiF Absolutely loving the beta so far! Incredible work!
I’m using a Line 6 fbv express mkii usb foot controller to switch patches/control parameters via midi.
I’m using the “piano-like” sustain mode with one of the switches on the foot controller configured as a momentary toggle (so it mimics a piano’s sustain pedal). It’s worked fine so far, but I’m finding that the finite release time (which maxes out at ~10 seconds) feels like a bit of a limitation.
Ideally, I’d be able to use a soft synth with this configuration and sustain a note infinitely while layering on new notes that are also sustained until I release the switch on the foot controller.
My understanding is that the modes currently available in the beta cannot accommodate this. Would this be a simple tweak/update on your end?
Hey @ArtSze
Glad you are enjoying the beta, but you should really let @JamO know. That is the the genious developer behind this software. I have just made the occasional video to showcase a feature or let you know a new version is out.
When it comes to your sustain question, I am not sure that the absense of that function is related to the software being in beta. I don’t know if there has been a request for a longer release time, even less an infinite, but that is a developer question most certainly.
Do you have an example of this functionality in any other software I would know of? It might be I just misunderstand what you are looking for.
Hi Lofi, I’m trying to achieve an infinite sustain, but while being able to change its velocity and pitch bend it, to basically achieve the same thing a saxophonist can do with circular breathing. Like playing long notes while being able to go from pianissimo to forte gradually in real time, just like horn players, with individual notes, I don’t care that much about chords, because I play them with my right hand, while I play a virtual sax with my left hand tapping my guitar. I’ve been thinking about how to achieve this for the longest time, and I thought that installing a modified sustainaic gradually activated with a breath controller was the way, but after seeing how MG 3 behaves with an ebow I don’t know how to achieve it, maybe buying your breath controller and controlling the guitar pitch with it? I’m confused and I wonder how would you achieve this given your experience with all these devices and workflows.
a sustain pedal mapped directly to your vst synth(s) will give you infinite sustain, assuming the vsts support it.
or if using a breath controller you could set bite to sustain. volume could be controlled with tilt, pressure with nod.
pitchbend, if that’s what you meant, could be controlled by breath, but it would need a cc conversion and it would only be able to go up or down from zero.
It is way too much in here for me to be able to break it down, without you clarifying a little.
Are you using a software synth in MG3? What synth, and what sound. If it is a sound that keeps playing for as long as you keep a key pressed, you should be able to use the SUSTAINER/Freeze Chord function. But you need something for the dynamic control, like an expression pedal or breathcontroller connected to Pressure (directly, if it a monophonic instrument (like a virtual sax):
So are you tapping chords on the guitar with your right hand, or are you using another controller (keyboard) and just use your left to trigger the guitar notes for your virtual sax?
A sustainiac works to sustain notes somewhat but it isn’t a great solution. Its oscillating character tend to retigger notes a lot, and you need to be in complete control of the strings to stop unwanted action on open strings.
I have no clue what this would be. Is thiere any voltage controlled Sustainiac out there that I haven’t heard of?
It feels way easier to handle all the control from inside MG3 itself. Buy a breathcontroller and you can assign control to whatever you like. Pitch is somewhat special, though. You have the GLIDE button, but that works a Global control if you connect a controller to it. You will affect all pitches at ones, rather than the pitch-per-note quality we normally aim to target. But it is totally up to what you want to do.
If you give me a clearer picture of what you are trying to achieve, I 'll do my best to help you get there!
Sorry for the late reply and I truly thank you for the thoughtful response you gave. Well I use tenor sax 3 from SWAM that is hosted inside MG3 (MG3 is running standalone) to play monophonic lines with the guitar (by doing tapping on it), and separately I use a casio keyboard to play chords with my right hand (this is why I don’t care about playing chords) , my problem is that I can’t sustain long notes beyond the guitar natural sustain (I can’t mimic a saxophone circular breathing for as long as desired, or just regular long sustained notes), it also means I lose control over its velocity and pitch (to make the sustained note go louder or quieter while pitch bending it up or down).
If you check out this video, i have tried my hardest to give you guys as much insight as I possibly can, into stuff like the dynamic control aspects of the MPE dimensions. What you are asking for is probably covered in the DYNAMICS module HOLD Pressure segment, but there is a lot you can do with the MODULATORS envelopes as well.
@LoFiLeiF Coming back to the Sustainer… I have a bunch of software instruments available at will in GigPerformer, while I’m running MG3 in standalone in separate instance of GigPerformer. As I mentioned previously, I have 2 expression pedals mapped to CC011 to expression, and CC001 to the Sustainer.
They both work, but I’d like them to work separately. That is, I’d like to be able to play a chord with one software instrument, hold it with the Sustainer, and be able to solo over it with another instrument. At this point, if I sustain a chord with one instrument, I can’t solo over it with another one.
Is there a way to have those two work independently? I include a screenshot of MG3, and one of GigPerformer (which in this case shows Arkhis, which I can use to hold a chord with the Sustainer, while I want to be able to solo over it with the SWAM Alto Trombone).
Of course, the way suggest above bould on two chains being in use. When you freeze whatever is on one chain you can still play a synth over it on another chain. You use only one chain here with your MIDI OUT.
There are several ways to solve this. One is to use two different MIDI OUTPUT on two different chains in your standalone MG3. Like this:
Here I use the Mac’s own internal IAC driver to create a separate MIDI channel, to be able to send the other chain output on.
But I don’t know why you choose to do it this way, rather than just opening everything in GP to begin with? Is there a latency issue with the plugin version of MG3?
And why stacking everything in the global rackspace like this? You could probably put an instance of MG3 in the global rackspace and keep all instruments/synth in the standard backspace.
Why going through the cumbersome setup with the expression pedal (CC11) through MG3? Doesn’t GP see the Morningstar ports in its MIDI INPUTS options?
I can understand the Hold/freeze function, because I feel it is easier to set up in MG3. But if I am setting up in GP I much rather open the additional MIDI controllers I use in the rackspace itself for greater flexibility.
I’ve set things up in different ways since I started this journey of integrating MG3 with GP and the MC6 Pro—including having everything in a single instance of GP, with MG3 in the Global rackspace—and I saved those setups so that I can come back to any of them if I want to. For now, I chose having MG3 in its own instance not because of latency, but because the CPU hit is significantly lesser that way. People say that using more GP instances spreads the load across more than 1 Mac core, and it looks like it’s true.
I’ll look into mapping the CC11 expression pedal in GP rather than in MG3. It makes sense and actually crossed my mind, I just need to figure out how to do it.
I’m learning all this as I go along—the MIDI language to begin with, and then MG3, GP and the MC6. Given those 3 respective and remarkable flexibility, I find that the same things can be achieved in various ways. So I’m still experimenting, looking for the most efficient and glitch-less way,
I know @LofiLeif has basically said it all here, but I would just reiterate that it is highly recommended to use a dedicated virtual MIDI port for each chain when using multiple MIDI Output devices in MG3.
FWIW, it may also be possible to simultaneously use the MG3 plugin’s direct MIDI out in addition to MG3’s virtual MIDI output (creates a visible virtual port) but you will likely have a more uniform experience in an environment like GP5 if you use IAC driver generated MIDI ports (macOS) or a similar virtual MIDI port-creating application in Windows.
And of course you could always just load your VST’s directly into MG3 chains, depending on how much flexibility you require.
Maybe you could also run multiple MG3 plugin instances with one MIDI output module each in direct mode also.
@LoFiLeiF@Vaultnaemsae Update… After getting some help from a couple people in the Morningstar forum, I finally managed to program my MC6 Pro to get it to do what I wanted it to do, with all the visual feedback I wanted it to provide, which is telling me which preset(s) is active or engaged and which is not.
I can now freely switch between my Helix Native guitar presets, bypass Native altogether while still seeing which preset is active (I may want to bring it back or choose another one), and freely switch between software instruments, either using a single one or any combination of them, with the visuals telling exactly where I’m at.
It was a long adventure, yet it got me where I wanted to be with that setup. That said, I’m not done yet. One of the things I still have to solve is the sustain (or freeze) issue, to be able to have a software instrument hold a chord while soloing with another one. Though I followed as best as I could the indications in the earlier comments in this thread, and after trying a bunch of different things, I still can’t get it to work.
I attach a screenshot of where I’m at with it. It seems that things are fine on the side of the MC6 as its display shows that my second expression pedal assigned to CC#001 is functioning (as I move it, the MC6 display shows that it goes from 0% to 100%), while MIDI Guitar 3 with the Sustainer linked in its own MIDI Device responds accordingly (the “doughnut” also goes from 0 to 100%). As for the MIDI Device assigned to CC#11 and my first expression pedal, that’s working fine.
@kimyo@Vaultnaemsae I changed the connection to CC64, but that doesn’t work, which may have to do with the fact, brought up, that the same MIDI port can’t be used to do that. So, how to do that then? How do we get 2 separate MIDI Output?
