Feelin’ dumb…can’t get things to work
I’m not really good with the whole MIDI thing…
I’m using n-Track v3.3, a Tascam US-224 interface and an Edirol PCR-30 MIDI controller.
I’m wanting to try out some freeware VI’s.
I’ve got two USB ports to work with on the old laptop I’m using, and no power supply for the Edirol so I’m using the USB port on the Edirol for MIDI I/O and buss powering.
The drivers all loaded fine and n-Track sees the MIDI port on the Tascam as well as the ports on the Edirol.
When I create a new MIDI track in n-Track and go to the track properties and click “Instruments” there is nothing there but the default stuff.
So issue 1 is where do I put the VI .dll files? I assumed they’d go in the C:\Program Files
_Track Studio\Vstplugins directory, but n-Track doesn’t seem to “see” them.
Then issue 2 is that even when I select the source for the new MIDI track as “All channels, all devices”, put the transport into record mode and tickle the ivories on the Edirol, no data is recorded.
So even if I get the VI selected, n-Track doesn’t seem to “see” the data coming off the Edirol, which is a known good unit on loan from my brother.
Help?
Thanks in advance.
For problem one, you might need to do the Re-Scan.
You need to do this when you add a new plugin.
Use the Effects setting popup to do this.
You can get to it by pull down Track, Effects, right click, Add Effect, customize.
You can also get to it by right click on tracks effects window.
Once there, use the Re-scan button.
You also need to be sure your path is specified in the VST Plug-ins folders.
You can also see the scan log to understand what is a known plugin and if it has a problem with ntrack.
Thanks, pingcat.
Sorry to be so daft…
Where do I right-click to access the rescan command from the track menu?
I have to LEFT-click on Track>Effect (i.e. right-click has no effect) and then in the effects window there is nowhere that a right-click responds.
Are your instructions pertinent to v3.3?
Sorry, I’m at ver 6.0.8, so maybe 3.3 is different.
But I can right click on the effects box for any track and get a popup with the option to “Add Effect”, and under that is the Customize option.
For example, I right click on the Master Effects box, where it says “No Efx” and get to the Re-scan option as I described.
Nope…no-go in v3.3. Anybody else?
It seems to be doing a scan when I first load the application and open the effects window for the master channel or any track, so I should think that if I’ve changed the contents of the n-Track\Vstplugins folder then restarting n-Track should capture the changes…it doesn’t…gonna dicker with it some more but is anybody running v3.3 that can comment?
Sorry…this is really basic but I’ve been away from n-Track for 3 years and have been running Cubase on an XP environment so I’m reacclimating…
Hang in there ‘sweet_beats’. I can sense the heavy-weights giving it a coat of thinking about.
You have to select your midi in/out Hit ctrl/p then select Midi Settings
then Midi Devices and select your ins and outs.
Now (I’m using a new song with no tracks)
Make sure your .dll file for the VSTi is in
program files
-track studio\vstplugins folder
Select (at the top) Track/Midi/New Vst Instrument channel (this can be
a little tricky - do it slowly) and select your vst from the list.
The gui for your vsti should come up. You can just close it.
Once you’ve done that, open a new midi track, and under properties, your vsti
will show up under Output port. Also you may want to select NONE under PROGRAM
and you can select RECORD FROM (your midi input device should show up there
if you enabled it under MIDI DEVICES - see above)
Whoa - I was using an older ver than 3.3 for that. It may be different
for 3.3
AH!
Thank you!
It is just as you said for v3.3.
This will get me going.
COOL!
I’ll dicker with the MIDI patching…I can stumble my way around that and I’m sure I’ll be able to get it to work since n-Track sees the ports on the Edirol PCR-30…its a matter of getting everybody to play together since I’m using the Tascam US-224 for a control surface as well.
Thanks again!
Now to see how well this old PIII-500 laptop can handle VI’s…heheh…
Hm…
Welll…that answers that…
I did get it to work…sort of.
I was able to get the Edirol to trigger a freeware VI, Sophia, but it quickly locked up my old laptop which eventually led to the BSOD.
Dunno if Sophia is a CPU intensive VI…maybe my laptop is just not up to detail but I thought for sure people were running VI’s on this vintage of hardware…
Again, its a Dell Inspiron 7500, presently 256Mb PC100 RAM, Pentium III-500 CPU, 5400rpm PATA HDD, and a stripped-down audio-tweaked fresh install of Win98se.
Thoughts? Comments?
I have an older ver of N on a Win98se machine.
My computer is a little more robust than you laptop.
It’s a AMD Sempron (they really suck) running at slightly more
than 1 gHz with 1 gig of mem.
It can get bogged down as far as latency is concerned, but I never
have had the BSOD. It’s hard to tell what exactly causes BSOD sometimes.
I guess you tried turning off any start-up programs
that you don’t need.
Also if you can turn off any video acceleration (I forget where to do it -
it’s a slider on a properties page) You don’t need it for DAW apps.
Whatever you can do to cut down resources used.
Hm…
Welll…that answers that…
I did get it to work…sort of.
I was able to get the Edirol to trigger a freeware VI, Sophia, but it quickly locked up my old laptop which eventually led to the BSOD.
Dunno if Sophia is a CPU intensive VI…maybe my laptop is just not up to detail but I thought for sure people were running VI’s on this vintage of hardware…
Again, its a Dell Inspiron 7500, presently 256Mb PC100 RAM, Pentium III-500 CPU, 5400rpm PATA HDD, and a stripped-down audio-tweaked fresh install of Win98se.
Thoughts? Comments?