Load new song via MIDI?

[dirk611]

Greetings!
I'm a kinetic artist using Mixcraft 9 Studio as the provider of my music on a PC embedded in a larger art project. I need more control than just playing back a WAV or MP3 file; Mixcraft gives great MIDI control over individual tracks (although I would like to be able to modify more than 8 tracks (o:) and gives me real-time system response.

I've been using a MIDI controller to effectively send commands to Mixcraft work the tracks, but as yet haven't found this feature:

Ideally, I would like to send Mixcraft a MIDI CC "change song", and Mixcraft would load the song (Project) and start playing it. I have other things going on, and can't manually stop to mouse around and load a new song during live performance (o: But the push of a MIDI controller button would be awesome!

I searched the Forum and Manual but didn't find an answer.....

Does this capability (or something like it... perhaps OSC) exist? Or in the Pro version maybe?

Thank you!

[Northfield.Lenox]

Would the performance panel be an improvement?

https://youtu.be/_g-EEd6eqas

[cactus-head]

It sounds like you just need a song player in the background during an art show?

There's no auto loading of a project in Mixcraft. My suggestion would be to mix down each song before hand and then either use a player to play them or load each mixed down song on the same track back to back in Mixcraft, place a marker at the start of each, use MIDI learn to map a controller to a specfic marker. You could then press the controller to jump to a specific song or just let them play in tandum from start to finish.

If you map a controller to the transport, then you can stop a particular song until you are ready to play the next one.

[Mark Bliss]

I would think the project load time for any DAW would make the OP's proposition a non-starter.

@Cactus head has the right idea, IMO. (But I admit to limited knowledge/experience on the hybrid/multimedia presentation stuff.
I have seen it done when it was done well however. And when the integration is seamless and minimally detectable, it can be a brilliant "how did they do that" kind of moment.

[dirk611]

Thank you all for your helpful responses!
Yes, Mark Bliss, the DAW time will likely kill me with "dead air" between songs (o: I'm the technician for an electronic band that use home-made electronic instruments--laser harp, drums, marimba, keyboards-- Soul In The Machine, building and programming their custom lighting controls and their brute force method is simultaneously running three instances of Ableton Live! on one PC. Performance runs on one instance while another instance is loading the next song (30 second collage of the band here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-ou15v2sX8). But it takes a full-time person to run the PC behind the stage. (Ouch!)

Northfield.Lennox, I didn't even know the Performance Panel was even there! Thanks for that pointer!

And yes, Cactus Head, running a player in the background would work, except that it doesn't permit live interaction.

To elaborate, I'm using Magic Music (https://magicmusicvisuals.com/), a music visualization software package, to run multiple projectors for a participant's immersion experience inside a dome. I think a combination of your suggestions are going to make that happen.

I'll build a custom MIDI controller (a skill set I have). I will load the whole song set into Mixcraft, (my machine has 64 gig of RAM), use markers as Cactus Head suggests, and load the performance panel with loops and trigger them with the MIDI controller (also sending MIDI to Magic Music to switch out and animate the video wall clips and objects real-time).

The vision is that participants can enter the dome, select a "theme" from a control panel (jumping to that marker in Mixcraft and pulling up associated theme in Magic Music), and use hand gestures breaking light beams to interactively play (and mute) performance loops, with LIDAR (laser rangefinders) for Theremin-like response (which triggers the Performance Loops and Magic Music via MIDI control) and a wrecked el-cheapo MIDI drum kit to bang on as well, haha! Best laid plans of mice and men, haha. My next challenge is emulating one of the control surfaces in Mixcraft's list.....

Thank you all again! Off to the workshop! (o: