How to send midi messages to stand-alone AU instruments?

Bill 2's icon

Hi all,

Hopefully, this is a really easy question (even if it reveals my ignorance of basics).

I can easily send midi messages to any port on my 8-port midi interface, e.g. [noteout jv 1] for notes to channel 1 on the JV-1010, [ctlout xv 64 2] for sustain pedal messages to channel 2 on the XV-5080, and so on.

But how can I send midi messages to stand-alone AU instruments like Pianoteq or Arturia's Minimoog or even Apple's MainStage? Or is there a better way to do this?

Cheers, Bill

yaniki's icon

Bill

AU architecture is based on host-plugin mode. Stand-alone means, your virtual instrument is just an application receiving/sending MIDI messages.

If you are using MIDI AU instruments you can load them into Max via [vst~] object and send them MIDI messages (see documentation of the [vst~] object). If you are using stand-alone applications you can use virtual MIDI port for communication between Max and the instrument. Build-in into OSX virtual MIDI ports are good enough to do that.

Bill 2's icon

Hey, thanks Yaniki. :-)

Alrighty, I can see where I was a bit mixed up about stand-alone and AU. The built-in documentation for the [vst`] object looks pretty thorough, and I've found an article explaining how to make virtual MIDI ports in AudioMIDI Setup. That looks like all I'll need.

Thanks again!

Bill 2's icon

Well DUH!! It seems that Max already has 2 virtual MIDI ports. Sorry to've bothered you.

Although, I'll possibly have more questions one day re creating extra virtual ports and what not.

yaniki's icon

Haha! I forgot that max has MIDI ports build-in ;-)

Bill 2's icon

You were still w-a-y ahead of me! :-)

yaniki's icon

As it took off earlier than you...