CB
I sympathize with the problems you are having; you are entering into a complex area.
Be sure you understand the difference between TRACK automation (which you bring up in Logic with the default keyboard shortcut "A") and REGION BASED automation, which is CC# (CC7, CC11, etc.) based. You control TRACK based automation by pressing the keyboard shortcut "A", and then drawing in your automation, or by using a special Automation event window (see the Logic manual for the keyboard shortcut for this window). You can control Region Based automation by changes in the EVENT window to the right of the Arrange window, or by clicking on View-Hyperdraw in the local menu just above the Arrange window (not the menu options that are listed at the very top of your computer screen).
VE Pro 5 permits you to control some of the elements in the VE Pro MIXER view (such as volume or pan), NOT the individual instruments you add to the mixer, such as a VI Pro instance. To control VE Pro 5, you press "A" in Logic to bring up the automation controls in a track, then CLICK on "Volume" at the beginning of the track in question, and a pop-up menu will appear showing available parameters for VE Pro (assuming you have set up these parameters in VE Pro first -- click "View" in VE Pro itself to find the window that adds automation values -- the automation window in VE Pro is a bit hard to find, which it shouldn't be) and be sure you have elected to use the Events Input AU instrument for automation purposes by clicking the appropriate button when you INITIALLY set up a VE Pro instance in a Logic Track.
In VE Pro 5 you can use Automation paramenters (in the "A" track) or CC values to control faders and buttons of VE PRO, but NOT VI Pro.
To control VI Pro within VE Pro, you use REGION BASED automation, that is, CC numbers WITHIN a given Region on your Logic track.
To briefly describe the procedure: Open an instance of VE Pro as a multi-timbral software instrument with, say, 16 tracks. Then add a VI Pro instance WITHIN the VE Pro mixer window and assign MIDI Input 1, channel 2. Now go back to the Logic Arrange window. Click View-Hyperdraw in the local menu (just above the Arrange window). Now pick something you would like to control in VI Pro, say CC 11, Expression. You will notice that if you move the solid line that appears in the Region for this instrument up and down, the CC 11 value in the VI Pro instance within VE Pro will move up and down as well. Now create another VI Pro instance within VE Pro and assign MIDI In 1, MIDI channel 3 to it. Now go BACK to logic and manipulate channel 2 again. You will notice that the CC 11 value does NOT change (what you WANT to happen). Now add a region to the track below the track assigned to MIDI channel 2 (that is to the Channel 3 track) and add a Region to THAT track. Again, do View-Hyperdraw, and select 11, Expression. This time, the CC 11 values in the VI Pro instance assigned to channel 3 will change. HOWEVER, when you initially establish VE Pro as a "multi-timbral" software instrument (with 15 channels, MIDI channels 2 - 16) below it, when you try to manipulate CC7, ALL the VI Pro instances within VE Pro will be affected. From what I have read, this is a problem with Logic, not VE Pro. That is, when you set up a multi-timbral sofware instrument, you cannot UNIQUELY control CC7 for each of the VI Pro instances within VE Pro.
I think we will learn that if you want to add MORE than 16 channels, you add additional software instruments, but choose the Event Input AU, rather than another VE Pro instance, contrary to what you might expect. This will give you 16 more channels (actually only an additional 15 instruments), because the first channel is taken up by the Event Input AU. This Event Input AU is Assigned to the first VE Pro instance that you previously set up. So what you have is ONE VE Pro instance, and several Event Input instances, each of which gives you 16 channels.
You just keep adding Event Input software instruments as you need additional banks of 16 instruments. Note that you must assign a MIDI input to each of these Event Input instances ( 2, 3, 4, etc.), and also assign each VI Pro instance to the proper MIDI in and channel ( the first VI Pro instance would be MIDI in 1, and channel 2, the second 1, 3, etc. The second bank of 15 instruments would be assigned MIDI in 2, the second 2, 3, and so on. In this approach there is only ONE VE Pro mixer, but it handles all of you instruments through the differernet MIDI Ins, and the 16 channels within each.
I am not entirely sure that all this works, but SO FAR, I have been able to create additional banks of instruments, each of which I can uniquely control through Control Numbers, (CC#) on individual tracks, WITH THE EXCEPTION of CC7, using this method.
To avoid the CC7 problem, you adopt a DIFFERENT setup in which the first VE Pro instance is a NON-multi-timbral instance, and the subsequent tracks are treated as EXTERNAL Instruments. However, I have NOT been able to get this to work under VE Pro 5. So I need to do further research, of VSL (hopefully) will tell us how to work with this set up as well, so that we can individually control Volume levels for EACH VI Pro instance within EACH MIDI In that we set up using VE Pro and the Event Input AUs.
Klar?
Steve
