Using VST Instruments

[jeffkorg]

Hi I would like to replace the backing instruments with vsts running in Cubase I know I can swap out the base the drums and percussion but what about the other instruments like strings guitars horns Etc. I'm still trying to learn arranger keyboards. When I look at the midi presets I see players and other settings like I said I can replace bass drums percussion but I can't figure out how to replace the other backing instruments like guitars strings horns and so on if you could help I would really appreciate it thank you.

[Aripearlmusic]

There is no way to map the guitars to work with a guitar plugin without completely replacing the note and control data. Strings and brass can be done though but the process will depend on the plugin you want to use and the layering of the sounds contained. The libraries with simpler plug and play style layering without key switches may just need an octave adjustment. I hope that this is for a studio setup and not for live unless you have an external DSP Accelerator and are working with sounds that dont need a lot of work on the mix. If you are looking to use it for gigging i highly recommend sampling the main sounds. The 4x has more than enough room to fit over 750 sounds if you sample smart

[Biggles]

You can simply replace any instrument you want with anything that you have inbuilt or any that you load into the user banks.

If you are not learning how to customise the Styles which you have saved as Songs then you are not learning how to play an Arranger.

Songs, Setlists and custom Keyboardsets are the heart of any PA, learn them and you are well on the way to learning about the PA arranger.

You do not have a Style to suite what you want then you can create your own.

You do nit have an instrument sound that you want then you can load a Sample and create your own.

You can load the whole of the instrument packs that there are in the bonusware website including all those that are within the classic Triton.

[jeffkorg]

Yes, this is for studio work inside Cubase and Studio One thank you guys for your responses very informative thank you very much.

[Aripearlmusic]

The hardest thing to "convert" are the "sysex" sounds like guitars after guitar mode or RX noises so i recommend skipping the RX and fx noises and programming those manually in the DAW or duplicating the midi channels that have them and then filtering them out on one of them so you can match them with the VST version. Most plugins tend to have their own way of doing those types of articulations so the most natural way would be to reprogram those parts using the VSTs. I use my 4x76 all the time with ProTools and have only praises with regard to compatibility and quality of sound and DAW integration.

[Sam CA]

Hi I would like to replace the backing instruments with vsts running in Cubase I know I can swap out the base the drums and percussion but what about the other instruments like strings guitars horns Etc. I'm still trying to learn arranger keyboards. When I look at the midi presets I see players and other settings like I said I can replace bass drums percussion but I can't figure out how to replace the other backing instruments like guitars strings horns and so on if you could help I would really appreciate it thank you.

What exactly you're trying to do here? Do you want to record in real time with these libraries mapped to Style tracks, or you want to record/save a midi file first and then make those adjustments afterwards?

[jeffkorg]

Yes I want to save a midi file first and then make those adjustments afterwards you're right I want to record all of the backing instruments so I can later edit using VST Instruments in place of the pa4x sounds.

[jeffkorg]

I know how to record and replace the drums and percussion and bass but all the other instruments that's where I get stuck I don't know how to record the horns or guitar or pads sounds that's where I get stuck those are the sounds that I would like to replace with vsts. So basically I want to record a whole song using the pa4x into my DAW and then take that song and edit that song using vsts. I know the guitar parts will be hard to replace but the other sounds like pads and strings and horns I think I may be able to replace those with vst instruments.

[Aripearlmusic]

Start with VSTs with simpler sound layering for the strings and horns. Pads may be a challenge depending on what type of pad you want. The simpler sounds are very interchangeable.

[jeffkorg]

Thanks for the advice.

[Korghelper]

One way is to take the MIDI information that the Korg has sent and strip away just about everything except the notes. Maybe leave in CC11 if the track does any swells or fades, but even these you are likely to need to edit if the VST's controller curve is different to the Korg's.

Next you are likely to need to edit the velocity curve and range of the Part to better match how the VST responds. There is no real standard to this, so your ears will be you main guide. Listen to the Korg's sound, then listen to the VST's, and see if any notes or ranges are jumping out or getting hidden.

For better horn realism, you might want to split a horn section sound into ranges, and split those off to good solo horn sounds. You'll need to do some careful editing here to get a good flow from one part to the next. Same with strings (maybe section sounds rather than solo). Take the lowest notes and send to the cellos (with the basses an octave below if the part isn't too busy), and the highest off to just the violins. This can definitely improve realism if the VST doesn't already do the splitting for you (some do, some don't!).

Pads, the world is your oyster! Your VST's will have a radically larger choice of sounds, so familiarity with its presets (or familiarity with creating your own pads) will speed up your decision making.

TBH, most good VST virtual guitars are well ahead of Korg's Guitar Mode, you might be better off scratching the Korg's parts and creating your own within the VST. It should take care of correct voicing and articulation for you, and you may find strumming or picking patterns that are better than the Korg's. Once again, familiarity with what it can do will speed up your decision making and production times. TBH, with no VST (AFAIK) able to follow the sysex codes that Korg's guitar mode does, I think it's probably quicker and more realistic to start from scratch with a good virtual guitar (Some of Amplesound's are quite good) than spend hours trying to edit the articulation back into the Korg's bare notes.

They can be as easy as an arranger to operate... record a chord track, select some of the myriad picking and strumming patterns that fit the style, and play any single line stuff (or use the Korg's track if it is single line stuff). You'll be amazed at the improvement.

Part of using VST's is to get a noticeable improvement over the arranger output, leveraging the features in VST's that go beyond what the arranger can do is some of that. Then going in and editing out some of the repetition in the track is the next. A real drummer, bassist, basically any real players don't play the exact same thing twice! Drum parts that use the same fill more than a couple of times (separated from others) benefit from going in and changing each one ever so slightly. Basslines can be more realistic changing a few notes here and there. A different walk, a different pop note, etc..

There's not much point going to the realism of better VST's, and then leaving in the unrealism of repetitive elements from the arranger's output!

[Bill1983]

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There is no way to map the guitars to work with a guitar plugin without completely replacing the note and control data. Strings and brass can be done though but the process will depend on the plugin you want to use and the layering of the sounds contained. The libraries with simpler plug and play style layering without key switches may just need an octave adjustment. I hope that this is for a studio setup and not for live unless you have an external DSP Accelerator and are working with sounds that dont need a lot of work on the mix. If you are looking to use it for gigging i highly recommend sampling the main sounds. The 4x has more than enough room to fit over 750 sounds if you sample smart

My Response to another member yesterday. I would strongly disagree with your position:

I've been using Kontakt (NI Komplete Ultimate) with Sonar X2, X3 and now Platinum on my PA4x (and previously wiith my PA500/PA800) dating back a decade. The one thing you really need is a fast CPU, plenty of RAM (16 gigabyte minimum, 32 recommended) and Fast SSD Storage (I use PCIe SSD). The key is loading all the instruments you will need into one project and mute/unmute the desired instruments as needed for a given style. Otherwise you'll spend all your time just opening projects instead of playing/performing. I've got both a laptop & desktop that are identically configured but in hindsight I'd recommend a rack mount desktop.

I'm currently considering moving to Ableton Live 10 as a DAW because it is the only DAW I've found that will sync to an external midi clock. Sonar I have to manually set BPM to match. Kontakt, in standalone mode will sync to the PA MIDI Clock flawlessly but you're stuck with just Kontakt. This is not to be confused with MTC (MIDI Time Code) as the PAx only sends MIDI Clock and not MIDI Time Code. For live performance I wouldn't want MTC anyway because all I'd be is another DJ playing WAVs and MP3s. Not my idea of being a musician but opinions vary.

Let me know if you need any real details as it took me years to get this dialed in. If you do not currently have a DAW I'd recommend starting with just the purchase of Kontakt, it's included library and Native Instruments Session Guitarist Strummed Acoustics and map it to your PA's MIDI channel 4 output as the input channel for Kontakt. You'll immediately see that not even a dreamed of PA5x or GENOS II can ever even come close to the realism you'll experience. The Chord Decoder in Strummed Acoustics is every bit as intelligent as the PA4x. There are many other Chord Smart VSTs available. Some are Kontakt instruments while others are not but the realm of possibilities are endless.

[Aripearlmusic]

If you are doing a few songs and have the time in between to mute or unmute channels in your DAW or use the same beat for many songs in row then yeah it could work live but its not recommended because you can sample what you need and play without latency and never have to worry about rebooting or reloading the sound driver....

[Bill1983]

I'm in no way familiar with your setup, just as you are not familiar with mine. As stated, I have a vast array of VSTs loaded into memory and one of the primary reasons for using Sonar is it's "Immediate" Mix Recall which mutes/un-mutes every track/instrument required for a given song. Now I guess some view three full sets as not a lot of of songs however it's quite enough for my purposes. Then I'd have to pause for 90 seconds and load another project. That or move to 64 Gigabytes of RAM.

As far as latency, five (5) milliseconds round trip is only noticeable to a good sound engineer and rarely are the seats filled with those individuals. Since the advent of PCIe (Express) things have changed considerably when using DAWs and Audio Interfaces live. Fifteen to twenty years ago such was not possible for the average musician. I've witnessed many things that seemed impossible from a hardware, then software standpoint dating back to the introduction of the CMI Fairlight I watched debut at NAMM in the early 1980's. Eight Voice, 16 Bit Sampling was cutting edge.

I think we can agree we're beyond the early 1980's and I'd invite you to look at what's available today vs 10 or 20 years ago. I love my PA4x but it's CPU and DSP architecture are only two or three generations beyond that of the CMI Fairlight. Korg has done a phenomenal job with a very antiquated platform. I cannot even find out what language was used for the OS development but I'm suspicious that, since no material has been released on how to code another instrument such as the "Drawbar Interface", it was either done in Assembly or C. Not C++ or any other object oriented development language because Korg would be marketing the heck out of an Arranger Keyboard that allowed you to write your own VST Like Smart Instruments.

If you know otherwise and have some insight into Korg's Highly Proprietary Development Kit, PLEASE let us know as I'd start writing/developing my own instruments on the PA4x tomorrow.

[Aripearlmusic]

True but the guys i know are playing an average of 300 songs a night with 3 pauses in the first 50 songs and and 1 break in middle of the next 250. 5 or 6 styles for the first 50 songs and over 30 styles for the other 250. Most of them are also engineering at their own gigs with a digital board like the X32. Pretty much everyone ive spoken to regarding keyboard programming wants the most plug and play type options and are not tech savvy and rely heavily on presets because they can't make their own.