Sending MIDI system realtime messages to vst~?
Is it possible to send a MIDI system realtime message to a vst~ object. It seems that the midievent message requires two arguments, while the realtime message is a single number. I'm trying to send 250 and 252 as start and stop/continue messages to a vst drum machine that plays back patterns. Using a transport syncs the clock, so I don't think I need to send 248. Thanks in advance, everybody.
I am not aware of any specific way to do this other than to send those numbers out directly via a midiout object. As it is just a single byte then it might work. It's certainly worth a try.
Have you tried sending these bytes directly to the vst~ object? Alternatively, can the VST be confirgured to respond to something else, like a note, control or sysex message?
anything starting with an integer will be treated as VST parameter number.
Thank you. This was an interesting path to check. Unfortunately, none of the drum machine vsts that I have assign a parameter to the start/stop function of the sequencer. I'm still at a loss for how to send a midi realtime message (250-252) to the vst~.
Andrew, Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, sending the realtime messages to a midiout object doesn't really help me. I need a way to send them into a vst~ object.
Also, sending them directly to the vst~ inlet has no effect, either sending just the number (250) or prepending a midievent mssage to the number. Both ways are ignored. Just sending the number behaves like Roman's advice suggests. It tells the vst that you will be addressing a parameter of that number. The drum machines I have do not have exposed parameters for starting and stopping the sequencer. They are expecting the midi realtime messages.
All daws support this functionality. Either Max does not, or I am missing something. The realtime (248) clock messages seem to be communicated "behind the scenes" through the Transport object. But I can't see where or if the start/stop messages are similarly communicated to the vst through the transport.
Yes, I can understand your problem then.
Have you tried submitting this to tech support? They might have an answer and if not, if you say pretty please, they might look at a way to add it in a future update.
i am just guessing here, but have you tried sending "midievent 250 0"?
some hardware devices would properly process the RTM byte and ignore the rest it does not understand.
Roman, good guess but no luck. As I said, the midi beat clock (248) seems to be sent by the transport object "behind the scenes". But the Start/Stop messages cannot be sent to the vst~ object.
I tried your suggestion, and I tried all sorts of combinations of starting and stopping the transport. But the vst~ always responds to the tempo changes of the transport, but not the stop/start. This seems like it shouldn't be this opaque.
which plug-in are we talking?