master keybord, playing use (what's your setup?)

[marcopalla]

Hi everybody!
I'm a real keyboard n00b, I'm a bass player,
sometimes, rarely, I play KB, I know: it's definitely my fault
live I play a normal synth, but now I've bought a master KB to play at home on my pc (I use also to compose, but there I know what I do)

my question is: what's your pc setup to play a mute master KB? what's a good host for live playing use? (live home playing).
To compose or add something to recordings, I use Cubase and many VSTi, but to play I'm very confused using that setup.

don't shoot the Bass player please

thanx and best regards, my friends!
m.

 

[kanthos]

Why not play in the same way you record? Pick your VST inside your host, and just play? You can even make a Cubase project with a bunch of MIDI tracks and a bunch of pre-loaded VSTs and solo one track at a time so that you're only playing one VST at a time and not all of them. You've already got a perfectly good host; don't look for anything more!

Some suggestions though. One is live performance. If you ever intend to take a laptop to a gig, if you're using it for more than one VST and you'll need to switch sounds between songs or during a song, get a program like Native Instruments Kore. I used to play at church with a laptop and controller keyboards, and before getting Kore, it took *a lot* of work to get a decent Cubase setup, and it was fairly unflexible. Kore is a *much* better tool for that. The only downside is that Cubase is a better VST host (Steinberg did, after all, write the VST specification); I've had a few freeware plugins that Kore couldn't load.

The other suggestion, if you're only playing one virtual instrument and it has a standalone, is to bypass Cubase and play into the standalone directly. If all you want to do is practice some organ licks, fire up Native Instruments B4-II and don't bother waiting for Cubase to load.

 

[marcopalla]

^^^ thanx a lot, very usefull informations!
I'll investigate NI Kore! sometimes cubase is a real PITA

I abuse your kindness, and I go forward

in cubase is possible to assign an instrument to every slider on the kb, to split the keyboard, add an arpeggiator to one hand, and other effects? (I play some genesis songs that are really complex on tones side)
or definitly better Kore for that?

peace & respect,
m.

 

[kanthos]

Effects - Definitely. There's something like 8 insert effects per track in Cubase, and you're free to use the effects plugins of your choice if you don't like the ones Cubase is bundled with. The full version of Kore has a number of builtin effects, plus you should be able to use whatever effects plugins you like.

Arpeggiator - Cubase itself doesn't have one that I'm aware of, although I never play with arpeggiators so I didn't go looking for one. More than likely, you'd have to do this with another plugin, either a simple MIDI input/MIDI output plugin that gets routed to a virtual instrument, or just use a plugin that has a built-in arpeggiator.

Actually, I just googled and it seems Cubase does have an arpeggiator of some sort. Kore does as well; again, I haven't used it to compare the two.


Split the keyboard - Absolutely. Well, not so much split the keyboard as filter out MIDI in a certain range (i.e. PASS all notes from C4 and lower, REJECT all notes above C4). Kore makes MIDI filtering and transformation much easier than Cubase.

Reassign an instrument to every slider - I'm not quite sure what you mean, but I'm guessing you want master volume for an instrument mapped to each slider (either volume on the instrument itself or on the mixer). It's easy in Kore and should be possible in Cubase.

Where Kore really shines is its performance mode which makes it really easy to switch between parts. You can basically set it up like you would set up a workstation keyboard: put all your combis in order and move through them in order. Kore will mute and unmute parts for you. The only catch, of course, is that (like Cubase), you still need to have all the plugins loaded initially, although it should be fairly easy to switch presets in a plugin automatically, if your plugin supports using program changes to do so. In Cubase, you can decrease the volume on VSTs using sliders, but it might not be possible to fully mute them (i.e. turn them off so that they're not using CPU power). It really depends on the plugin itself and on what it does when there's no MIDI data being sent through it.

 

[marcopalla]

ok, basically I understood they do a similar work in playing live,

I've see some Kore video and it seems very, very, very, esier than cubase for that use, (mainly 'cose cubase do everything on this planet, but is difficult to do as everyone knows...)

brilliant, I'll keep a try on kore, for shure,
thanx a lot!

r'n'r

 

[marcopalla]

Thanx a lot to this forum!

during the WE I tried KORE 2

really astonished, such a great software!
incredible tones (grand pianos are beatufull), also tone tweeking is perfect for my use,
very easy to do everything I like,
I'm thinking to bring a pc+midi keys config, live in addition to my old korg synth

thanx a lot for the suggestions!
m.

 

[kanthos]

Let me also point out that there's a software-only version of Kore 2 that's considerably cheaper. The hardware control is best used for tweaking sounds, which you may not do live (if you do a lot of synth sounds, you might, but if you stick to organs, pianos, electric pianos and such, probably not as much). It *is* useful for switching from one sound to the next with a single button-press, so if you can't do program changes easily on your keyboard, getting it might be a good option. Then again, it's another piece of gear to haul around and set up, and you have to make sure you have enough USB slots on your laptop.

 

[marcopalla]

yha, I've tried the full software only version (not demo)
yes is very cheap to buy, and great quality.

I'm trying to program my master KB to move fast trought Kore performance presets, I'm still moving around...

I'd like to run only KORE, in the standalone mod, (more easy and less resources)
but probably I'll also try to run KORE inside Cubase, where knobs assignment would be quite standard.... Exist a patch of my keyborad specifically for cubase.

I've to experiment and learn a lot...

peace,
m.