I have tried everything to get my midi pedal morningstar MC8 to work with both VST 2 and 3 plugins, but its not working. Both CC and PC messages do not work even though I can see midi coming in on the midi track light. Everything works fine with the standalone and I saved the standalone setup to default settings so the settings are the same on the VSTs. What am I doing wrong?
I’m not familiar with Ableton, but perhaps it is similar to Logic Pro.
Logic Pro has audio tracks that record audio signals and software instrument tracks that record MIDI messages. You can’t mix the two, an audio track can’t receive or record MIDI, and a software instrument track can’t record audio. But if you’re using an MC8 to control a NDSP or other plugin, you need to somehow record the audio from your guitar, and the foot switch presses you did to control the plugin. And these both have to be played back to reproduce the original sound. In Logic Pro, there are two basic was to do this: using a single audio track and track automation to capture the plugin changes, or use a audio and software instrument track to record the audio and MIDI.
Audio track and automation: Create an audio track and put the NDSP plugin as an effect on that track. Then create controller assignments to map the MC8 MIDI messages to NDSP plugin parameters. Then when you record the audio, you also use automation write mode to capture the MIDI induced parameter changes as automation parameters on the track.
Using two tracks: this is a bit more complicated, but more flexible. Use an audio track to record the dry guitar input. Set the output of that track to a free bus, don’t have the output go to the stereo out. Create a software instrument track for recording the MC8 MIDI messages. Add the NDSP plugin as a “MIDI Controlled Software Instrument” to the software instrument track. Set the NDSP plugin’s side-chain input to the bus you used for the dry guitar output. Now your dry guitar will be recorded on the audio track, and that track’s output goes to the side-chain input of the NDSP plugin so you can hear the processed output. Because the NDSP plugin is on a software instrument track, it can receive MIDI an that MIDI will be recorded in the track.
Reaper can be used in a similar way, but is even simpler because you can use a folder track that contains the audio and MIDI children tracks. The output of both of these tracks is sent to the parent folder where you can place the NDSP plug and it gets both audio and MIDI, but doesn’t record anything. The audio and MIDI content is in the children tracks.
Hopefully Ableton has something similar.
Thanks for taking the time to post but as you can see from my photo I believe I have set it up correctly and it still does not work. I am going to switch to my quad cortex to bypass all my midi problems. Thanks anyway.