Please help with keyswitches

[Maylissa]

Hello, I'm very new to mixing and have enjoyed using Mixcraft since Mixcraft 9 Pro (currently upgraded to Mixcraft 10 Pro). For the life of me, I am unable to figure out how to make keyswitches work. I've entered the appropriate notes in the piano roll for the midi track that I want to apply the keyswitches, but it has no effect, no matter which VST instruments I try. I'm sure I'm missing something really obvious ... can someone please help/advise?

[BrianL]

Couple of suggestions- Do you have a MIDI keyboard and can verify that the keyswitches are functioning when playing "live"? Also not all VST's note numbering C0, C1, etc... necessarily match up with other VST's and DAWS. You might try shifting them up/down one or two octaves on the piano roll to see if that is the case.

[Maylissa]

Thank you for the suggestions. I do have a midi keyboard and will try to verify that the keyswitches work when playing "live". I'll try shifting the octaves as well ... very frustrating when you think you've done exactly as documented in the instructions and things still don't work Why can't things be straightforward and simple? Fingers crossed ...

[Maylissa]

So I finally managed to get some time to try out the suggestions provided:

1. BrianL was correct, the VST keyswitches did NOT match the the expected corresponding keys/numbering in Mixcraft ... I had no idea that was even possible
2. Once identified the correct Mixcraft equivalents of the VST keyswitches though, they worked as expected when playing live and when recording
3. HOWEVER, the keyswitches did not work when I manually entered them (the correctly mapped ones) using the piano roll, AND
4. even if the keyswitches behaved correctly when it was recorded, when I play back the recorded track, the keyswitches became very erratic and only worked about 50% of the time

HELP: How can I address/fix #3 and #4 above??? I'm this close to finishing mixing a custom piece and I just can't get the keyswitches to work as intended so that the piece sounds the way it's composed!

[cactus-head]

Hi,

With keyswitches in the piano roll - depending on the VST - often the playback point is critical. For example, say you used a guitar VST that activated palm mute on measure 4 and then back to regular picking with a keyswitch on measure 12. If you played through measure 4 and then stopped playback on measure 10 then picked up playback on measure 14, the plam mute would still be active as it never hit the switch on measure 12.

Also, depending on the keyswitch, it may have to come slightly before the actual note to be played and may have to be long enough to overlap the note. Often, slides or legato playing work like this.

[Maylissa]

Thank you so much for the additional information cactus-head! It is very helpful. I will do some more playing around with the different VSTs.

Question: if the playback results of keyswitches is affected by the playback point, is it safe to assume that if the keyswitches are used correctly in their tracks, when the piece is mixed down and mastered, all the keyswitch expressions should behave as expected??

[BrianL]

Thanks Cactus-Head. I forgot to mention the key-switch offset "gotcha". Yes, once your MIDI VI tracks sound right, Freeze or Bounce them, which renders them to audio tracks.

[Maylissa]

Thank you again BrianL! So there's hope ... I'll try with a short piece first ... fingers crossed!