I hope that somebody, @davide and/or others, can also set a guide about the orchestral plugins that can take the best advantage from this great feature, with relevant Pros & Cons, and possibly a guide on their settings (routings)
I googled and read a lot but I’m still unsure about the matter
For example, I have got that:
BBCSO Discovery is impractical because you must use multiple instances, and just the big version can assign a different channel to each instrument
Opus Brass Pop is not suitable for the same reason
Garritan World Instrument is suitable, but there are problem with the noteranges needed that are many and different
The romplers like my Xpand!2 work great
Multitimbral synths are fine also, but they must be multitimbral-multivoices IMHO, otherwise you must use multiple instances
etc.
There is a subtle aspect in that BBC SO Discover responds to the MIDI channel viz if ‘MIDI CH’ is not set to ‘ANY’ it will only play those notes on the channel specified. This, as far as I can see, requires quite a different approach if the inbound MIDI has been sourced using Scaler’s MVO option switched on or not, if you are using Ableton Live with its channel restrictions.
It seems to me that MVO has a sight drawback in that if Scaler sets the channels, and if these are sent to individual instances of SO each with the relevant channel specified, those notes can only play one instrument. So if (say) C4 is put on channel 3 by Scaler, if you want to play more than one than one instrument at C4, then you need another instance of SO on the same receiving channel (requiring a ‘one to many’ routing).
My approach in my experiments thus far has been to think in terms of one instrument per MIDI port, and then set the SO instances to accept any channel. The upstream external processing (which with Ableton there has to be anyway) can then route notes to the relevant ports based on key range, which will then pick up all the overlapping instruments in that range… So the C4 can be played simply by multiple SO instruments.
I think most multi-timbral synths would be multi-voiced, or there would not be a lot of point in them being multi-timbral. I use Omnisphere (multi-timbral, which works well) , but apart form string ensembles there is nothing really orchestral in there, so BBC SO it is.
yes, but my Discovery version doesn’t accept multiple inputs, as per their published papers
In practice, you can send multiple channels to it, but it will sound just ONE of them
end of the story, because the big brother costs 1K
yes, but it needs tons of tracks and they are then hard to see and manage
I found a better and easier way to orchestrate with BBCSO Discover anyway
I’ll let you know
But I think at some point it’s fair to say that if you really want to get into multi part orchestral writing, I’m afraid you’ll probably just have to invest both money and time into making it happen. I’m sure there are work arounds and tricks. But at the end of the day they will be slow and cumbersome. There is a reason most media composers are using DAWs like Cubase or Logic or Reaper. There are quite a few Liver users out there as well but my gut says they use the Pro or whatever Ableton calls the full version of LIve. Or you can always use the freebie Cakewalk as well.
There are what I would consider affordable tools to do most things but eventually if want to do more than tinker around the edges you’ll probably find you have to spend some money on the software. (Other than Scaler)
Hi @ClaudioPorcellana, the best I can suggest is the Scaler Multi-Voice Output Host Reference Document posted in the tutorials section, which has been updated a few times recently:
In the document we look at multi-timbral plug-ins and mono-timbral plug-ins and discuss how various DAWs handle either type with regards to Scaler’s Multi-Voice Out. I think you’ll find most of the differences in configuration are to do with the host more so than the plug-in.
The process should be pretty similar with any multi-timbral plugin, assuming each timbre is separately addressable via MIDI channels which I guess is what you’re calling ‘multitimbral-multivoices’.
And most mono-timbral plug-ins should work in a similar manner. The main difference being that some mono-timbral plugins (such as BBC SO Core/Pro) do allow for MIDI channel input filtering, which can help with Scaler’s Multi-Voice Out mode given various DAW limitations.
FL Studio for example requires a fairly elaborate Patcher configuration in order to send specific MIDI channels to different plug-ins. With BBC SO Core/Pro you could simply send each instrument track all 16 MIDI channels from Scaler and set each BBCO SO plug-in to listen to only a specific channel.
Again, this is more to do with the host rather than the plug-in. Hope this helps!
Now I can say that Scaler MMO works with Opus Pop Brass
setting the various instruments to play well together is not easy, but doable with some study
And also the Garritan works better; the only problem is that note-ranges are very little with certain instruments, so it’s not easy sending them data properly
Nevertheless I noticed some strange behaviour, for example mute channels after # 5-6 but unsure if it’s a bug or some wrong setting I am using
Multi-Voice Output Mode which splits chords across multiple MIDI channels.
MIDI channel 1 is polyphonic and includes all notes
channels 2-15 are monophonic each containing a single note from lowest (channel 2) to highest (channel 15).
It seems to me that, using patterns, all channels included 2-15 actually produce (sometimes) multiple notes at the same time, similarly to chords, a behaviour that is unsuitable for soloist orchestral plugins
Do you think it’s a flaw, or just some wrong setting on my side?
I think this is just an oddity because the whole MVO is all brand new for Scaler. When I asked about it @davide said it had quirks. It will get better down the road. For me I’ve learned to adapt and mostly use Divisimate for splits as it’s more flexible. But it was designed from the ground up to do just that. To be honest I think the Devs did a great job of bringing version 1 of MVO to Scaler. It’s a great step forward.
Experiment with it. Have fun. Bitwig give you lots more options with it.
