Topic by jazzgeir

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  • jazzgeir
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  • Registered: 09-06-2019
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Topic: Selecting Pianoteq presets with a simple midi pad controller

Hi, guys.

I have a Kawai VPC-1, and have Pianoteq 7 on a Mac Airbook, and would like to be able to choose presets with a midi controller. I'm using MIDI over USB between the keyboard controller and Mac...

I have *no* experience in MIDI whatsoever, except hooking up stuff and getting it to work, so I'd like an advice on what is a sensible solution.

Is it possible to set this up using for instance the cheap Akai LPD8?

Any advice on how to set it up easily?

Reply by marcos daniel

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  • marcos daniel
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Re: Selecting Pianoteq presets with a simple midi pad controller

Hello
It would be possible, having 8 pads you would be able to set up 8 instruments very straightforward. I think that pads sholud be capable of sending more messages, I suggest you to watch the videos on akai website.
The knobs can be assigned to but I would use them to change volume, dynamics, etc
In Pianoteq it is really easy to assign a MIDI event to a preset, just go to preset manager, click on the little triangle at the right of the preset, and select assign midi event, then send the midi message and you are done.
Any midi event can be assigned, for instance you could assign a knob to a instrument, the knobs send values from 0 to 127, but Pianoteq only recognizes which controller are you touching, it does not care of values, so only an instrument per knob can be used.

Reply by jazzgeir

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Re: Selecting Pianoteq presets with a simple midi pad controller

Hey, marcos.

The ability to change between 8 (16 with knobs) instruments is more than enough for me, and being able to adjust dynamics with the knobs is also something that I'll use.

I have looked into the MIDI setup of Pianoteq and it seems quite straightforward to set up, and even easier than that if you can program the action with the input of a MIDI event.

So far I have only used one setup during gigs, the Blüthner piano, which has a sound and timbre well suited for jazz, but I could have used el.pianos for funk material etc. I hope to get things set up to be able to switch between instruments/setups.

And a couple of times I have needed to tweak some dynamics when connecting to a PA etc, and those parameters should possibly be assigned knobs.

Thanks for replying, this was exactly what I needed. :-)