Getting Started with energyXT

Now you may want to control the VSTs from your MIDI keyboard or control surface. That too, is easy.

Some preliminaries

Create a 2-bar MIDI part and set the Sequencer loop to 2 bars too

double-click at the start of the MIDI track to create a 1 bar part,
when you hover over the right-hand edge of the part you will see the Resize pointer (a double-handed arrow),
drag the end of the MIDI part to the end of bar 2,
right-click in the upper lane of the scale to set the loop end position.

Now just open the part in the MIDI part editor (double-click it) and draw in a couple of notes.

While we are here, let's look at some more MIDI Editing features:

select Options, and select the two remember options,

now hold Alt down and drag the mouse to draw a 4 step (1 beat note) but drag upwards a little too (by, say 4 semitones) , you will see that the note has a velocity of 93 or so.
now use Alt+click again, no dragging - the new note is also 4 steps long and has the same velocity as the previous one (remember, we have selected to remember length and velocity),
now hold Alt down and drag the mouse to draw a 8 step (2 beat note) but drag downwards a little too (by, say 8 semitones) , you will see that the note has a velocity of 27 or so.
another Alt+click inserts another 8-step note with a velocity of 27.

And it gets better. You see the dashed line to the left of the piano roll keyboard, drag it to the right, and resize your window so you can still see all the MIDI notes. This new pane is the MIDI Event List- showing all the notes, their position (in beats and ticks), MIDI channel, type, pitch, velocity and length. If you have inserted any MIDI CC events you will see them in the Event list too.

Lasso a couple of the notes, and you will see them highlighted in the Event List.

You can:

move the notes, by dragging them,
resize the notes, by dragging the right-hand edge of the notes (when you see a double-headed arrow),
change their velocities (by the same amount) by holding down Alt and dragging vertically,
change their lengths (by the same amount) by holding down Alt and dragging horizontally.

Here I have selected the middle two notes and made them louder and longer (by Alt+dragging towards the top-right corner of the window).

Anyway, back to what we were meant to be doing - Controlling an instrument - select all 4 notes and delete them, hide the Event List (F9 is a shortcut) then draw in two 4-beat notes at A1 and C1.

If your window does not look like the one here, then you can resize it - drag the scroll bars, zoom in or out and increase the height of the Velocity view (this by dragging the dashed bar between the note grid and the view, as shown below).

Now, in the Arrange view, you can route the MIDI Part to the CM101 that is already loaded in the Sequencer, by right-clicking on the MIDI track header and selecting CM101 for the list of available outputs.

Open the CM101 Editor window (this time, press Ctrl+Spacebar, which opens the VSTi on the current track) and select the Classic Analogue Bass preset. Go back to the Sequencer Arrange window and press Play to hear what you have created. Then press Stop.

Displaying VST Parameters

Let's say we want to control 2 parameters of the CM101 synth - the Transpose setting for its first Oscillator and the Filter Cutoff frequency. I am not saying that this is necessarily musical but you will be able to see how it is done.

We will display 2 parameters in the Mixer first. Right-click the CM101 name in the Mixer, select Show Param and select VCO1 Trn from the list. Repeat for the VCF Cut parameter.

As you select the VST parameters, they appear in the VSTi's Mixer section. You can see the parameter name, a value slider, the current value of the parameter and the VST parameter menu button [...]. If you click on the menu button, you can see that you can hide the parameter a (that is remove it from the Mixer) or map it to a MIDI CC Controller.

Now press Play and adjust the two parameter sliders to hear the effect. If you still have the CM101 window open you will also see the knobs move there (note that, at the moment, it does not work the other way, adjusting the knobs in the CM101 window does not move the parameter sliders in the Sequencer Mixer).

Controlling VST Parameters

Let's see how we can control a VST, using its VST parameters. First of all we will control the VST from a MIDI keyboard and then control it from an Automation track (that is, an Envelope track) in the Sequencer.

From a MIDI keyboard

Now let's say that we want to connect these two parameters to the controllers on our MIDI keyboard or control surface. This way we can use the MIDI hardware to control the VSTi.

Here's how. Go back to the CM101 window. Click File, CC Map.

A blank CC map window will appear.

Click Add twice to create two map entries. You will see that the default is for CC 0 to be connected to the first parameter ("VCO1 Lev", in this case) with a control range of 0 to 127.

Change the 2 parameter names to the two we want to control (VCO1 Trn and VCF Cut), selecting them from the drop-down lists. Then Ctrl+click the MIDI CC number next to the first Parameter - a "Waiting for MIDI input" window will pop up.

Twist the controller on your keyboard or control surface that you want to use to control this parameter and its CC number will be shown in the CC map (this is the MIDI Learn facility).

Repeat these steps for the second parameter, twisting another controller. You will see both parameters and the assigned CC numbers in the CC Map.

Now press Play in the Sequencer and just twiddle the controllers on your MIDI keyboard or control surface. As you do the sounds will change and, the parameter sliders in the Mixer will move, as will the knobs in the CM101 window.

At the moment, changing the controller for the VCF Transpose parameter will change its value from -12 to +12 semitones. You can set the range in the CC Map so that the transpose range is smaller.

For example, drag the Min value to 52 and the Max to 76. Now when your controller is at its minimum, the transpose value will be -2 semitones and when the controller is at its maximum the transpose value will be +2 semitones.

You may need to do some experimenting to get the right CC Map Min and Max values. I select likely CC map values then adjust the controller across its full range and see the values on the parameter slider in the Mixer, then adjust the CC Map values and try again.

From an Envelope Track

So you can easily control your VSTis from the eXT Mixer or from your own MIDI hardware. But let's try one more method. We will use an Envelope track in the Sequencer to open up the VCF Cutoff parameter.

First off, close the CC map window and return to the Arrange view. Minimise the audio track (click it, then press "h"). Select the MIDI track, then right-click, Add, Envelope. You will see an Envelope (Automation) track appear underneath the MIDI track.

Insert a 1 bar Envelope part at the start of the Envelope track by double-clicking at the start of the track. to, then double-click the Envelope track header to open the part for editing. This editing mode is known as "in-track" editing, and is also available for MIDI and Audio tracks. Resize the Arrange view, zoom in a few times to give yourself a bit more room and set the Snap value to 16 so that more automation points can be entered.

You should now see something like this:

The Envelope track has Mute (= disable) and Solo controls, the CC number, a resolution level (MIDI level is 0 to 127, and high-resolution is 0 to 65536 and is only used for VST parameters and Sequencer tempo), a box showing the value of the currently-selected automation point , a line type and a level indicator.

We will use the same CC number as is currently assigned to the VCF Cutoff parameter, to save remapping it. You can find out which CC number is assigned by clicking the parameter menu [...] button and selecting Map to CC, in this case it is CC# 75. And, yes, this is another way of mapping the parameter to a CC number, just click the number you want to use. Or you can remove the mapping by selecting "Off" from this window.

Back in the Arrange view, drag the CC number to the assigned number (75) and set the resolution to High. Enter three automation points, by Alt+clicking at the positions shown in the screenshot, then drag the diamonds (the handles between the points) to add curves to the automation. You will see that the envelope values (in the range 0.00 to 1.00) are shown next to the points. If you route the envelope to control the Sequencer tempo, then the values shown will be the tempo values.

This curve will open up the filter then drop it back to a lower level during the first note.

One more thing - we need to route the automation to the CM101 - right-click in the track header, select Output and CM101 from the list of available outputs.

Now open and position your windows so you can see the Arrange view, the Mixer and the VSTi. In the Arrange view, click on the Audio track header (just to move the focus, then click Play. You will be able to see the automation level indicator rise and fall, the parameter slider in the Mixer move and VCF Cutoff knob on the CM101 VSTi change too. And, more importantly, hear the effect of the automation.

Once you have set up the envelope that you want, you can return the Envelope track to its standard height (by double clicking the track header again) or you can change the height of the track in the "in-track" view, by dragging the lower edge of the track header upwards, like this:

The advantage is that you can still see the CC number. You can have several envelopes on each Envelope track and can route several Envelope tracks (each for a different CC number) to a single VSTi. As the envelopes are parts, you can move, duplicate, copy and paste them too.

A Gate Envelope

While we are here, let's have a look at one other thing in the Envelope parts.

First of all, drag the lower edge of the track header downwards to expand the track so you can see what you're doing. Add 2 more automation points by Alt-clicking as shown.

Now drag some of the points to get the first envelope below. Click inside the envelope part and press Ctrl+a to select all the points in the part (or you could lasso them). Finally click on the sloping line in the track header to change it to a horizontal line. You will see that the envelope changes to a gate shape as seen in the second envelope.