VI and Pro Tools M-Powered 7.3.1

[apascoe]

Hi, I just got the VI SE package, and after installing last night, and then today scouring these forums, I can't for the life of me figure out how to get VI to work with Pro Tools M-Powered. The plug-in is in the correct directory, and the Pro Tools splash screen claims that it loads it, but I can't find it referenced on any menus anywhere within Pro Tools. Could anyone shed some light on this please? Thanks, Andrew

[nick.halliwell]

Hi Andrew,

I'm on Pro Tools|HD myself and it comes up under RTAS plug-ins/Instruments. Basically you create a new stereo (must be stereo, this might be the problem?) Instrument track, then click on one of the inserts and add a multi RTAS plug-in (presumably in PT|MP you have only RTAS plug-ins), you get a list of categories and the one you want is "Instruments", and then near the bottom of that you should see "Vienna Instrument (stereo)". Choose it and you'll get the VSL server screen with a button in the middle which you hit to display the actual plug-in interface. 

Thought it best to check the most obvious things first. If this isn't it maybe you could tell us exactly what steps you're going through and we'll see if we can find the problem?

Nick 

[apascoe]

Ah, thank you so much! The issue was that I wasn't creating new instrument tracks in stereo. I usually work solely in mono tracks and then adjust the panning later. I never would have thought switching to stereo was the problem. Thanks again! --Andrew

[nick.halliwell]

Glad to be of service. I remembered being similarly puzzled the first time I ran PT after installing the VI which is why I thought that was the first thing to try. There's no mono version of the plug-in at all although obviously you can pan each instance however you like. The same is also true for Vienna Ensemble (you'll need to download that, if you've registered your Special Edition it should appear in your User Area on the website. It's also worth making sure you've got the latest version of the VI for your platform. 

Feel free to ask if there's anything else I can help with.

Regards

Nick 

[Simsy]

Hey Nick,

I am currently running Vienna inside of either Logic or DP. But the last couple of jobs I have got people have wanted the music delivered as Pro Tools. So I was thinking of moving over to Pro Tools, I was just wondering what the midi is like? I know it has gotten a lot better lately, but how does it compare to logic or DP? I know I could create in logic and then bounce out stems and then import into Pro Tools, but it would be better if I could do it all inside of PT. I can't seem to find anywhere on the PT site were is demonstrates the midi side of PT.

What's your opinion?

[nick.halliwell]

Hi Simsy,

it really depends on how deep into the MIDI side of things you go. MIDI in PT certainly has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years. Personally I find there are very few MIDI operations I can't do in PT that'd I'd like to - there are some, but nothing really, really major. I've never used DP so I can't compare to that. I did try Logic for a while but found I spent too much time on the minutiae: there was so much it was possible to do, especially with MIDI, that sometimes I'd lose sight of what I actually ought to be doing. But it's also a matter of your background. Because I first learned about recording in mainly tape-based studios and Portastudios. Pro Tools feels most comfortable to me as the emphasis is on the audio side of things - but this is a very personal thing and I'd never claim that it's objectively "better", it's a matter of the way you like to work. I do also love the simplicity of it: the fact that you can do absolutely everything in just 2 windows, Edit and Mix and it does have a fantastic audio mixer. I know that Apple have just gone for a similar one-window approach with the new version of Logic and I expect that's a big improvement (at least for those of us who like the simple approach!)

Basically it's a matter of history: Logic, Cubase and most of the other major sequencers started life as MIDI-only programs (mostly on the Atari) and then audio functions were bolted onto them only once personal computers became powerful enough to handle that. Pro Tools (and a few others) started out as audio-only programs running on DSP cards, and MIDI was bolted onto them only once all other sequencers had both so they needed it to compete. But even now these programs still show traces of this history: personally I don't think you can beat PT for audio work and personally that's my main focus. I work mainly with audio plus Vienna Instruments (and just a small number of other virtual instruments). But I wouldn't try and claim that PT had as much in the MIDI department as Logic, because it doesn't. I do find that I get a lot more done in PT (speaking purely personally, again, I know people who can only work fast in other programs systems) than I ever did with Logic, but as I say, this is because it suits the way I work. I don't do a lot of really complicated MIDI stuff. Mainly I record real instruments as audio and then I add string, brass, etc. arrangements using the Vienna Instruments and I find PT's MIDI more than adequate for this. 

If you can, I'd really suggest you try it out before making the switch. If you're the kind of person who's got really into editing all the smallest parameters of every MIDI performance, and loves the sheer flexibility of what you can do in Logic (again, I can't really talk about DP as I've never used it, but I know a lot of people love it) then PT may not be for you. PT's beauty is its simplicity and I suspect a large part of its success in becoming such a standard is down to the fact that it does get closest of any of the major DAWs to the paradigm used in recording in the pre-digital era, except with the advantages of digital, being able to chop things up, move them around, and do it all quickly.

So there you go. Feel free to e-mail me if you like if there are any specific questions. To summarise PT certainly doesn't offer anywhere near the sheer depth of MIDI features you get in Logic, but it does now offer all or most of the really important ones. I expect that people coming from Logic will find there are things they miss, but for someone like me there are only a few things which I think "ooh, I wish I could do that with the MIDI in PT..." On the other hand PT is rock solid, on my system, anyway. I can share plug-ins out between TDM and RTAS and, as you say, it's pretty much a standard format so I can take my work pretty much anywhere.  But it really is a very personal decision and depends on the way you work and how much use you make of the really deep MIDI features in Logic and/or DP.

Hope that helps and feel free to contact me if there's anything else I can help with.

Nick 

[Simsy]

Thanks very much Nick, I guess I will need to try it out first. Thanks for your comments, they are very helpful.