so I have a generic piano/organ rack that I can use with my dual manual organ controller. My Organ VST of choice is VB3 II. I’d like to save some variations with different drawbar settings (that are automatically mapped to my controller via the VST). However, the only thing that seems to be saved in the variations is the leslie slow/fast, which I had mapped to a button on the rack front thing (so I could have a visual indicator). Would I need to create controller mappings for all of the organ controls in order to be able to save variations? I have to be missing something here.
If it matters, this is on Win10 w/ the latest version
You should use the drawbar widgets and assign them to the drawbars in vb3 II.
Then in each variation the value of the widgets is saved, please do not check the option „ignore variations“
The state of the vb3 II plugin is stored in the rackspace, different variations do not store different plugin states, therefore you have to use widgets so you can change the plugin parameters and save this in the variations.
This explains why the leslie speed is saved in the variation
gah - so you mean that I have to map all the drawbars, percussion settings, and other things (a total of 21 things - 30 if I do lower drawbars too) to widgets in order to be able to save them in each rack?
There seems to be a misunderstanding:
When you create for example 3 rackspaces each state of the plugin is stored in the rackspace, no need for widgets.
Each rackspace has its own sound.
When you want to use 1 rackspace but different variations then you can adjust different parameters with the usage of widgets,
For example in the 1st variation there is a clean sound and in the 2nd variation the drive is full, that drive parameter you can control with a widget.
So in the 1st variation the widget to control the drive paraneter would be fully down and in the 2nd variation it would be up,
Please take care that the widget is bot set to “ignore variations”.
I’ve gone back and forth on how to set this stuff up myself.
With Blue 3 I’ve built out the panels so every parameter is represented. I can get away with only one rackspace for all my B3 variations.
I tried to do something similar with Pianoteq, but ultimately gave up on that. There are way too many parameters, and the widgets you assign to the reverb effect in one patch might be controlling an EQ effect in another. The geek in me really likes looking at those cool rack panels full of knobs and sliders, but the practical side wins out and I settled on different racks for each Pianoteq patch.
Omnisphere/Keyscape is sort of in between. I started out with the 3 or 4 the LA Rhodes patches I use, and I discovered they all seem to use the same sample set so I could get all the different patches by using variations (after putting all 20 or so parameter on a rack panel). It’s a memory hog and slow to load, so using variations was perfect.
Then I tried to replicate that with Yamaha C7 and discovered it didn’t work. Just changing the adjustable parameters can’t get you from one patch to another. Seems like there are many different sample sets, so what you have embedded in some patch you made depends on which of the stock C7 patches you started with.
[For now I’ve actually stopped using Omni/Keyscape and get all my Piano & Rhodes through Pianoteq + effects.]
Moving over to drums, I can’t see any value in setting up different variations in something like Superior Drummer 3. Just need a new rack for patch. I run SD3 in a second instance so I don’t have to put it in every keyboard rackspace.
Anyway, I think the short answer to variation vs. racks is “it depends.” But no matter how you slice it, I was doing all this through a DAW before, so GP is a much better tool for performing. [I’m not doing gigs. This is sitting around with the boys kind of stuff.]
The organ plugin is Acoustic Samples B5v2. You can adapt it to your plugin. The smaller drawbars in the lower right corner are for lower manual. Organ.gig (4.4 MB)
