I have a MIDI instrument plugin, to which I’ve assigned a MIDI event based on the modulation wheel. However, when I record from my MIDI keyboard and use the modulation wheel, the events are not recorded along with the notes. Is there a setting I’m missing to get those events to record?
TIA
Ian.
Ian,
when you record using the mod wheel you should see something like the screenshot below.
In the pianoroll you can click the pencil+gear button in the lower left to select which event to show for the lower panel, select 1-Modulation to see the mod wheel.
Alternatively you can click on the gear icon in the piano roll’s upper right, then select all the available event types to be shown, which may lead to a confusing view on the piano roll main panel, but this way you’ll be able to see all of the events that were recorded. You can then zoom in on a controller event, right click on it and select ‘Properties’, and in the controller properties you’ll see the controller #.
By default the pianoroll doesn’t show controllers in the main panel, while the timeline does.
You can set which events are shown in the timeline opening the Settings → Preferences → MIDI box, click on “MIDI events shown in the timeline” and make sure that all events are selected in the events list.
Flavio.
Hi Flavio
Thanks for the reply - it appears I misunderstood what is happening, looking at the Piano Roll it is showing modulation activity, however although I pushed the wheel to maximum and left it there, it appears to return to zero almost immediately?
So I’m unclear as to why this is, certainly the plugin responds as expected when I shift the modulation wheel “live”. I’m also having inconsistent results when trying to assign MMC events to my Korg nanoKONTROL2, but I’ll investigate this further and create a separate topic for it.
Ian.
Ian,
MIDI controllers send events only when you move them, i.e. when the value changes. If you move it to the maximum, it will send the maximum value (e.g. 127) and then will not send further events, so although it’s hard to tell as the events are tightly packed in the screenshot you’ve sent, it might be correct. Zooming in closely should let you see wether the last event correspond to the last position of the mod wheel.
Flavio.
Hi Flavio
Apologies, the screen shot I sent earlier appears to have been edited - I have just done a completely clean recording and no modulation events have been recorded:
There should have been a modulation to maximum at about 6:1:000 and then back to minimum around 8:1:000, but as you can see there are no modulation events recorded at all.
Ian.
That’s strange. Are you sure that the keyboard is sending the modulation controller (i.e. controller 1) and not another controller? Perhaps the controller is mapped to some MIDI learn action? Check if there are any actions defined in the Settings → MIDI control box. Clicking on the “Learn” button in that box you can check which event the device is sending.
Flavio.
It is mapped to a MIDI learn action in the plugin, to control the rotary speaker effect. Does this stop it getting recorded? I have manually added Modulation events in the Piano Roll and they do control the effect as expected, in the same way as using the wheel “live”.
Yes currently if a MIDI event is mapped in the MIDI control box this blocks it from being recorded. I think there should be an option to set whether the entry in the MIDI controls list should block or not the event from being recorded. We’ll be adding this in the next update, possibly next week.
Flavio.
That explains what’s happening then, many thanks and I look forward to the update 
Hi Ian,
I’ve tested this scenario of recording using a MIDI learn controllers that control some synth parameters. I think perhaps you don’t need to use MIDI learn if you say that the controller events in the piano roll are changing the synth rotary speaker effect. Probably the synth natively interprets the modulation controller without needing MIDI learn. You can test this by removing the MIDI learn entry in the Settings → MIDI control box. In fact controllers or midi events in general that you see in the piano roll are not processed for the MIDI control actions, that only happens to MIDI events coming through physical MIDI inputs. That’s why I think recording events even though they are used for MIDI control (as I’ve suggested in my previous post) wouldn’t work. If the controller is interpreted natively by the synth then you can just record and edit the controller in the piano roll with no associated MIDI control/learn actions.
If instead you do need to use MIDI learn to control some synth parameter, I think the approach to use is not to record the controller but to record the synth parameter automations. Basically you need to enable the recording of effects parameters with the button in the top left
and then start recording the midi track. The envelopes will then be visible and editable below the track when you select the envelopes editing mode, clicking on the small envelopes button in the bottom left of the track, as in the screenshot below.
In testing this I’ve found a couple of bugs in recording effects parameters automations via MIDI learnt controllers, which we’ve fixed in the latest build (9142).
Let me know if one of the two methods I’ve described work for what you’re trying to do or if you’re still having problems.
Flavio.
Thanks Flavio, the plugin doesn’t natively support modulation, but apparently needs to learn it with a right-click on the control and “Learn MIDI CC”, which correctly assigns it to the modulation wheel, and n-Track now records the modulation correctly.
Many thanks
Ian.
