Long time audio pro here. My work requires me to use Pro Tools as the backbone for my production work but as we all know it’s not a very good creative environment. So I have for about the past 20 years used some kind of external creative tools either hardware or software and routed those into / through Pro Tools and recorded them into audio tracks.
Finally I have some time free to upgrade my setup and re-visit this old ‘external’ workflow now that I have upgraded to a current Mac m4 and a current PC desktop as both are required for my work. I’m looking for suggestions from the community about how I can use GP5 as my creative workspace.
Send & Return audio from Pro Tools tracks to be processed in GP.
Send Midi from Pro Tools to GP that in turns play VI in GP , returning the audio back to Pro Tools for recording.
Send Program Change from Pro Tools to GP so the entire routing , plugin and VI setup changed based on when PC are inserted in the pro tools timeline.
The style for my Pro Tools sessions is “super session”. The timeline usually has over 100 different sound cues at different positions across several hours. Sort of like having 100 different ‘songs’ in the same timeline.
By using GP and PC I hope I can automate the process of enabling the correct Rackspace in GP for each ‘sound cue’ in my Pro Tools timeline.
Whoops figured I would add a few more details that are helpful in the design ..
Using NI Komplete and S49 MKII keyboard . Ideally I would be able to use the S49 hardware to operate Kontrol instances in GP5.
All my mixing and editing will happen in Pro Tools with Eucon Dock and S1
Video playback is also handled by Pro Tools for editing to picture
For any GP5 Rackspace I expect to use the widgets but the control source for widgets isn’t super clear I guess I cannot reach GP5 widgets from Po Tools automation because it’s not actually running as a plugin. Or id this where the DDMF Metasynth comes in ? Is automation passed through from Metasynth instance in Pro Tools to GP5 ?
On a Mac, if you want to send MIDI automation messages to GP, then the easiest way is to use an IAC port — just make sure that you do not use any MIDI In OMNI blocks in your gig file to avoid MIDI feedback issues.
For DAWs that support VST3 or AU, you can use GP Relayer to transfer audio between your DAW and GP. Unfortunately, due to unacceptable terms in AVID’s NDA, we are not able to create an AAX version of GP Relayer and the workaround is to use a tool like MetaPlugin which is a plugin that can be loaded into Pro Tools and then that plugin can load the VST3 version of GP Relayer.
it looks to me like MetaPlugin allows parameter mapping through the plugin interface but it’s not clear how that data is able to pass through a GP Relayer Plugin / Block. When I look at GP Relayer interface I see midi and audio but not a way to connect parameter data. Any tips here would be great.
As I said, if you’re on Mac, the easiest way is to just pass your parameter data into an IAC port and then widgets can learn incoming MIDI messages from your DAW.
Another way to do it (but more useful on Windows since virtual ports are not available by default) is to put a GPRelayer (receive mode) in the global rackspace and connect its MIDI output to a GP4 Local Port (Output block). Then widgets will be able to learn incoming messages via the GP4 port