corvax wrote:
Now as this topic seems to be landed in my head will start with the next one - how to combine FA and VST in one project?
Easy as pie!
But, there's one little distinction:
1. MIDI is not Audio, VST Plug Ins do produce Audio.
What this means is, anything you record on a MIDI track must first be "converted" to audio to be mixed down.
So:
1. If you record a MIDI track that's being sent to a VST, that VST will produce audio that will get mixed down with any other Audio tracks in a project (such as something recorded from a microphone for example, or imported .wav files or drum loops, etc.)
2. If you play the Fantom "live" as an audio instrument into your DAW - at line level just like a Guitar, Bass, or Microphone signal, etc., you'd record it as audio on an audio track.
3. However, most people would prefer to record as MIDI so they can still edit the track later, change sounds, etc. So you can absolutely record the FA's MIDI output onto any MIDI tracks in Cubase.
The difference is, these MIDI tracks will either be sent to a VST as in #1 above, OR, you'll send them BACK out to the FA which will cause it to play.
But it is still not producing any Audio on the track itself (unlike a VST).
To do that:
4. You have to feed the audio from the FA back into the DAW as an AUDIO track to be recorded (just like in #2 above). Then you have audio recorded on a track you can manipulate as such (add effects to it, balance volume, etc.)
Then when you mix down, it's the Audio versions of the FA tracks you've recorded that get mixed down, not the MIDI tracks (because they make no sound on their own).
If you also have VST MIDI tracks, the audio triggered from the VSTs also gets mixed down becuase their sound is "in the box" already - but they don't have to be "converted" from a MIDI track to an audio track like traditional MIDI does (because the instrument is "out of the box").
My working method is generally this:
1. Create a MIDI Track, set the input and output to the FA. Select a patch (via patch script) and record.
Once I'm happy with the performance and the sound:
2. Create an audio track and set the input for it to the FA (which receives the audio from the FA's audio jacks in my case, though the USB port could be used).
3. I arm the Audio track to record (so it records any audio coming in, which will come from the FA) and still have the original MIDI track playing back. When I press record, the MIDI track plays, triggers the FA to make sound, and that sound gets recorded on to the Audio track.
It seems kind of over-kill, but that's the way you have to do it (and had to do it back in the old days when we'd mix from a sequencer down to a separate tape machine).
You could send MULTIPLE MIDI tracks to your FA (like all 16 parts) and then mix down that audio (the sound output from the FA) to a SINGLE Stereo Audio Track.
However, you could also send each single MIDI track to a single Audio track. Doing it this way keeps each individual audio track generated from each individual MIDI track separate so you could still do things like apply an effect to just ONE of the sounds, not all of them. Do be aware though that this method means you have to do each individual track individually, in real time!
Based on your other thread about the MFX and TFX, etc, what most people usually do is record their Audio DRY (no effects) and add effects in the DAW instead.
Something like Wah, you might want to record "live", but a delay - usually the ones in the DAW give you so much more control so unless an effect is "an integral part" of the sound itself on the FA, I'd use the DAW version instead, applying it to the audio track.
BTW, you could, if you wanted, also convert a VST track to real audio as well.
So here's where this becomes apparent:
Let's say you want to do some old-school backwards tape effect.
If you record MIDI, and reverse it, it simply changes the order of the events, it doesn't make it sound "backwards".
If you send that MIDI to a VST, while the VST itself produces audio, still reversing the MIDI track you recorded in will only reverse the order of the events, not the audio itself.
So in order to reverse the audio part of a VST track, you'd have to first convert it to audio (mix down just that track and import it back into the project as an audio clip).
With external instruments like the FA, again you'd have to either record the audio in live, or use a MIDI track to trigger the FA and then record audio from it's outputs - but either way, it's got to be an audio track first before you can reverse it and get that reversed tape sound.
So while it may seem like an "extra step" to "convert" MIDI to audio with an outboard synthesizer, for some types of effects, the same thing may in fact be necessary on an in the box VST.
But on the whole, VSTs just allow you to record MIDI in, and have it spit Audio out, which can mixed down with no further ado if you so desire. And that's why people like them (well, one major reason, there are many).