Automating the Solaris using cubase?

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minorguy
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by minorguy »

I think perhaps the Solaris should drop NRPN and use SysEx instead. That way the larger values can be represented. This is what the Korg Kronos does. When you change individual parameters on the Kronos it sends out a four-byte value (so the whole message is 14 bytes).
Then the Solaris could define a full preset SysEx message as well that conserved the size so that sending presets over traditional MIDI didn't take so long.
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synthwalker
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by synthwalker »

Combining 2 NRPN gives you 14 bits and easier editing. Please no Sysex for the most important parameters...
scope4live
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by scope4live »

That's great news JB.
I won't chance that for gigs but certainly would love to have fun trying it out at home.

And thanks again for such a roadworthy great live axe.

Solaris digital out to the XITE-1 Digital in, then XLR Out to FOH is so powerful.
Using dual 18"s and 2 x 3 way QSC KW153s in stereo is awesome.
Pannings on Solaris are as wise as an old Fender Rhodes Satellite.

Best synth I've ever used live.
Best synth I've ever owned.. :wink:
Magnus C350 on a TV Dinner Tray Stand with 2 x PigNose Amps for stereo


https://soundcloud.com/jimmyvee/wormhole
JoPo
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by JoPo »

Very interesting discussion about NRPN ! With NRPN, one may set a value with a very good resolution but when one wants to modulate continuously NRPN like a usual midi CC and even edit the modulation in a midi track, it becomes impossible ! That's a pity ! It would be awesome with that resolution !

In the Piz midi plugins, there is a "midiNRPNConverter" , I tried to use it but with the laconic manual, I don't achieve to nothing. Lot of Piz midi plugins work with cubase, even the version 10.

There is a good midi plugin idea : midi CC at its input, NRPN easy to set up in side, with a slop in all NRPN values which are contained between 2 midi CC values in order to avoid the "zip" sound...

I've found this (an NRPN to cc converter, it does automatically what inaheartbeat explained so clearly)
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=149544
Do exactly what he says with the .hta file, it works !
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John Bowen
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by John Bowen »

We are no longer using NRPN. Only SysEx commands now.
JoPo
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by JoPo »

Ah ! Ok ! Anyway, it's with sysex that I changed some parameters on my daw Solaris midi track. It's much more easy but better to add some notes about what that sysex does if I want to know it in 2 months.

In my access virus TI, all parameters are midi controlable : they assigned the most important parameters to the 127 midi cc's and all the rest and there is a lot, is assigned to poly pressure. With poly pressure, you have 127 X 127 parameters ! But on 8 bit = 127 resolution points. But with a smooth feature, or lag or slew limiter, whatever, the result is perfect and poly pressure is as easy to use as midi cc.
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minorguy
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by minorguy »

I was one who lobbied for SysEx as opposed to NRPN. Solaris has a lot of parameters and if you look at other keyboards that have a lot of parameters such as Kronos and Motif/Montage they also use SysEx and do not use NRPN. At least you have to use SysEx for transferring entire presets because it’s impractical to use individual NRPN messages for that. Then also keep in mind that some Solaris parameter values don’t even fit into 14 bits (like they do in most synths). But I realize people want to use CC/NRPN because it can be easier and because a DAW can edit those values whereas it cannot edit SysEx.

With Cubase, for example, you can record and playback Solaris’s SysEx messages for parameter changes. But you can’t edit them or draw them on an automation track. For this, Cubase has Device Panels. But the last time I tried to use Device Panels to control SysEx it was flakey and didn’t work consistently. Although Steinberg has kept Device Panels in Cubase, they no longer include the relevant SysEx information in their more recent documentation and they seem to have abandoned any further development of it.

Perhaps the most useful thing to do is have a way to map several CC or NRPN messages to parameters. There are multiple ways to do it, so that would be one thing that would have to be decided. What’s the most number you would need? Should it be a set of hard-coded parameters that people are likely to use, such as filter cutoff, or should you be able to assign any parameter to a CC? Should you be able to set up the mapping using the Solaris UI? If so, how would that be done? Should the mapping be per-preset or global? When you adjust an encoder such as filter cutoff, does the Solaris send out CC or SysEx over MIDI for that parameter change? (I assume there would need to be a switch to select one or the other.)
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minorguy
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by minorguy »

JoPo wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:02 amWith poly pressure, you have 127 X 127 parameters ! But on 8 bit = 127 resolution points. But with a smooth feature, or lag or slew limiter, whatever, the result is perfect and poly pressure is as easy to use as midi cc.
I was just glancing at the manual for Virus C in the appendix. That's the only place I saw info on this so I don't know if it's different for the Virus TI. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think poly pressure handles 127 x 127. I think it only handles the 128 parameters of page B. In the poly pressure message it uses one byte for the parameter number and one byte for the value. I wasn't sure the usefulness in using poly pressure for this since you could not edit this in a DAW track in any useful way. But I vaguely remember something about VSTs, that they might not be able to send SysEx (true?). But I'd have to look that up. That might be the reason for it.

While you could use a lag processor on the Solaris, I think I'd still want to be able to use higher resolution. For example, the range of filter cutoff is 0.0 to 126.0 in increments of 0.1, so it's 0 to 1260. If you just used 7 bits then (1) you could not set a precise value of, for example, 57.3 and (2) you'd have to waste a lag processor if you wanted to avoid stepping. So I'd prefer to make it 14 bits.
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JoPo
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Re: Automating the Solaris using cubase?

Post by JoPo »

minorguy wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 9:18 am I was just glancing at the manual for Virus C in the appendix. That's the only place I saw info on this so I don't know if it's different for the Virus TI. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think poly pressure handles 127 x 127. I think it only handles the 128 parameters of page B. In the poly pressure message it uses one byte for the parameter number and one byte for the value. I wasn't sure the usefulness in using poly pressure for this since you could not edit this in a DAW track in any useful way. But I vaguely remember something about VSTs, that they might not be able to send SysEx (true?). But I'd have to look that up. That might be the reason for it.
Oh yessS ! You're absolutely right ! It's not 127x127 at all ! But just 127 more midi cc's. One by midi note ! 127 x 1 ! Eh eh ! Yes, I use the lag processors.
But I'm definitively sure that it would be extremly convenient to be able to set main parameters (up to 127x2=254 with poly pressure) like EG ADSR, LFO frequencies, amount of modulation, mixer volumes, panable outputs.
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