Help finding velocity-aware MIDI Drum trigger or similar

[drohnee]

I would like to be able to take input from a polyphonic MIDI controller and split this into separate notes such that the MIDI note, gate, and velocity are grouped together for subsequent use in a patch. I only need to detect a restricted set of notes, so something that works with a small number of MIDI notes is fine. The Cherry Audio MIDI Drum Trigger would work if it output the velocity of each MIDI event along with the gate, but it currently sends out the gate only.

Can anyone share tips about how one can split polyphonic MIDI notes into monophonic events that retain the velocity information, and then take different actions based on the MIDI note (or CC) number?

[utdgrant]

It's not the prettiest solution, but you can cascade the Splitter Module to form a binary-tree of monophonic keyboard zones:

MultiSplitBinaryTree.jpg (306.15 KiB) Viewed 2646 times

The right-hand block of four Splitters will provide the eight discrete CV outs. The left-hand and middle two are only concerned with filtering the MIDI. You'll have to think carefully about the split point values. i.e. - the image shown above won't work as it stands.

[ColinP]

drumSplit.png (526.43 KiB) Viewed 2642 times

Set the left-hand Splitter to the note you want to detect and the right-hand one to a semitone higher.

You have to use the LEARN buttons to do this so to set up you initially need to patch both of the Splitter's MIDI inputs to the I/O panel MIDI from Host socket.

[drohnee]

Thank you for the suggestions and for pointing out the Splitter module. I had missed that earlier as it is not in the MIDI category and does not have "MIDI" in the title. Very helpful to see 2 different ways to use this module to solve the issue I raised.

It would be nice to have a module that tests whether MIDI input contains a particular MIDI note number and passes along the associated event data when a match is found. That would be a useful building block in situations like this. But it is nice to see that I can solve my current problem with existing modules, even if the solution is not exactly elegant.

[ColinP]

In an ideal world Splitter would to be called MIDI Splitter and be in the MIDI category.

Anyway, I've been knee-deep in very challenging design and programming work for such a long time that I decided to take a short break this afternoon to develop the Adroit "MIDI Trap"...

Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?

MIDITrap.png (336.83 KiB) Viewed 2598 times

[Steve W]

MIDI Trap looks good. Any chance you would be willing to tweak it so it has the option to learn, display, and trap the midi channel with a manual option and a CV option to change the channel of the output?

[ColinP]

Interesting suggestions, Steve.

But rather than squeeze such functionality into a simple module like this I think it would be best to develop a separate module that handled such things in general.

Isn't there a generic MIDI filter/channel translator/switcheroo thingy already available from some dev or other? If not then I'm surprised as I would guess it's a fairly straightforward thing to implement. You've talked about dabbling in coding yourself and I know you are a serious MIDI user so maybe this is something you could tackle? I'd be happy to post some basic MIDI handling code on the VMD pages if it's of any help.

CV control of MIDI channel is a bit left-field though. Not that that's any reason not to be able to do it but I'm wondering about the application?

If a module selects MIDI channel with a knob then one could gain remote CV control of that. But often such things are controlled by up and down buttons and that makes CV control very tricky (somethng I've pondering how to solve but to no avail so far).

[drohnee]

Colin, the MIDI Trap is pretty close to what I had in mind, and is definitely something I would use to translate events on various MIDI controllers into usable CV in VM. I own your LSSP XL bundle so if something like this gets added that would be great!

Similar to what Steve suggested, the one thing I would request if possible is to have a way to set the MIDI note number that is "trapped" with a knob or any type of control that can be modulated. Creative possibilities open up immensely when one can change which note one is targeted without having to use MIDI Learn. With MIDI notes being integers 0-127 I would think there is some reasonably simple way to make this editable by the user.

But even as it is now this looks like a simpler and cleaner way to solve my original problem. If all of this ends up being outside of what you want to work on, I may delve into VMD at some point as I find there are a few little MIDI utilities that I am surprised are not available, and I would use to make VM a better platform for general MIDI transformation and processing. If you could share some basic MIDI handling code that would be a huge help in getting me started. Thanks!

[ColinP]

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't really want to derail this general VM thread so I'll start a new thread on the Adroit subforum called "MIDI Trap and beyond".

viewtopic.php?t=2914

[utdgrant]

If you could share some basic MIDI handling code that would be a huge help in getting me started. Thanks!

The source code for Baba O'Lowrey is free for anyone to use. It could be a useful stepping-off point for developing another MIDI processor.

You can find all the Dome Music Technologies source code in the zip archive at the bottom of this page. There's absolutely no limitation on its use.