Shout out to all dev about midi program change!

Philippe

Hi everyone,

with Drambo as the center piece of all my electronic music creations since it came out, I discovered how powerful it is at handling midi program change and it opened a world of possibilties.

So many ways to play and modulate Auv3s and hardware synth presets in Drambo. Among them:

1- Clip-lock PC generator (program change) module state to a preset(midi program) of your choosing. Divide song into parts made easy.

2- Play a different patch per note or set of notes, by modulating a morph module with note, with that morph module morphing PC generator. A delay module must be used to delay the note timing of a few milliseconds to let PC reach plugin first. Barely noticeable. Processors are fast today!

3- My new favorite: scrolling through a set of selected patch with a midi button. Just midi map a trigger button that clock a cv sequencer that modulate the morph module, that morph PC generator. Set cv sequencer number of steps to the number of preset you want to scroll throught and set steps values to the presets you like.

4- Step-lock PC generator state to sequencers, but add a little offset to that step note to give the time to the plugin to load preset.

5- Midi map midi controllers button to specific presets.

These are the obvious one but possibilities are endless in Drambo.

Unfortunately, too few AUv3 developers mind to implement midi program change into their synths and FXs.

I know some developpers make their synth handle midi PC, among them Beepstreet dev @giku_beepstreet, Drambo creator. Sunrizer, Zeeon and soon Dagger (sound huge!). A lot of fun juggling with and automating their presets.

For some others devs, I found a thread on this forum, I’ll add a link.

My main point tho:

Too many amazing plugins available (with presets) unfortunately don’t respond to midi program change.

I would like to convince more devs to jump in.
By exposing their Auv3 parameters, they allow Drambo to do magic with their plugins but by implementing midi PC, they allow Drambo and users to make their own amazing set of presets shine. 🙏🤩

A special invitation to @brambos with all it’s magnificent apps.

Everyone, what devs would you like to send that message to?

drewinnit

i use program change a lot, have several live sets with lots of patches that need to change for every track.

previously, i had it all set up in Drambo but i wanted desperately to use Hilda which sadly doesn't respond to PC

but AUM has a feature where you can create a group of patches and assign them each a PC number. it essentially makes every AUv3 that lets you save patches to the host, respond to PC - amazing!

so i have a huge and complicated Drambo midi instance in AUM which drives all my synths/drums/etc, also sending PC messages to ensure each patch is the one i want

in this post, @espiegel123 helped me to figure out one aspect - namely that each synth patch must be saved not within the AUv3 natively, but rather as a patch shared between hosts: https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/1232576/#Comment_1232576

i can understand if this workflow might not be for you, changing everything to be hosted in AUM might not be worth the complication (but remember, with Drambo driving it all you still get all the unique Drambo features, you just can’t host your AUv3s in Drambo but rather as AUM channels, which actually has some advantages as busses are easier to set up in AUM)

in terms of native PC recognition, all the Sugar Bytes stuff responds to PC, as does Woodsynth and Copperhead. all top notch tools

McD

Program Change is a start… it’s good for 128 Presets. That’s typically not enough so there are Banks.
The next feature rarely implemented is the Bank Select command but it’s implemented in 2 commands
With a MSB (most significant byte) and LSB (least significant byte) portions that are sent (I believe) as CC 0 and CC32 instructions. So, MIDI tools like Mozaic offer a Bank Select that accepts the MSB, LSB pair.

Developers that do accept Bank Selects vary is their implementation of the MSB or LSB but it’s helpful when they do.
There’s a thread where apps are listed that have this feature:

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/3894/bank-select-via-midi-ios-synths/p1

And AUM has created a 3rd alternative where it allows Presets to be listed and selected in the AUM scheme for
Preset recalls. This seems to work for any app that presents a list of presets to AUM.

Philippe

Thanks @drewinnit , I am aware of AUM host presets mechanics. I find it a bit cumbersome and way too much work to map each presets in AUM. Drambo approach with PC is quite straight fwd as you don’t have to individually assign a mapping to presets; the whole preset bank is “pre mapped” and at hand.

Also, as I mentionned, Drambo programming environment and sequencing make switching or should I say juggling with presets a part of music itself.

I mostly only use AUM as a host when I miss my Inter App Audio apps, otherwise as a fan of automation/modulation of plugins, I stick to Drambo programming playground.

drewinnit

@Philippe you can still do all the above-mentioned tricks that you described in AUM, as Drambo is the tool responsible for sending those PC messages (create a drambo midi instance in AUM that houses all your juggling etc). so morph, p-locking etc, all done in Drambo and then directed to the target AUv3 in AUM. but yes, it is another step to ensure you set up the patches in AUM preset browser rather than having it natively integrated in each synth....that extra step does have the advantage of making (almost) every synth able to react to PC though

but i understand you have your workflow and may not want to change. hopefully more devs implement PC in their synths!

Philippe

🙏 @drewinnit, thanks for pointing out that workflow, it surely open options.
🤞 for PC implementation!

drewinnit

@Philippe you’re welcome, feel free to ask questions if you encounter hurdles when setting it all up. i am deep in this and various other midi/pc workflows to enable my live sets, it’s good to discuss it with you and see your approaches. now i have optimised my setup and have a reliable and dynamic way to remotely change patches via PC, i can focus on the important and fun bit - writing and developing the music

Philippe

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/31172/any-ios-synth-app-which-is-accepting-midi-bank-change-and-program-change

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/38438/auv3-supporting-program-changes