I guess you could connect the keyboard via USB to the computer directly, which would give you a bidirectional connection. Then connect the Integra’s 5 pin midi IN with the midi OUT of the Focusrite. Then the routing and combination of the two hardware based sounds and the internal VSTs would completely be done within Gig Performer. If the audio of both hardware devices is fed into the Focusrite, you will also be able to control the particular volumes with internal mixer plugins of Gig Performer.
Thank you, schamass, I’ll give that a try. The ES920 does have a USB out on the backside (front USB is for recording on a thumbdrive). I wasn’t sure I could do midi out on that USB on the back.
So let me see if I’ve got this straight. GP will send a Midi Out which goes to Focusrite Midi IN? Then Focusrite Midi Out to Integra’s Midi In?
Under the line you will make use of two separate MIDI “interfaces”: one which is integrated in the Kawai keyboard and the other which is the Focusrite (to which you connect the Integra).
The Integra only needs to receive MIDI commands, but the Kawai must receive AND send MIDI commands. The internal “MIDI local” connection in the Kawai has to be turned “OFF” for this, so that the keyboard and the sound generating unit will be separated from each other!
In Gig Performer you should have a MIDI-IN and OUT block for each of those devices available.
Let’s just go for some example scenarios…
Just a pure piano sound where only the Kawai is needed:
Make a rackspace where you just draw a connection from The MIDI in block of the Kawai to the MIDI out block of the Kawai, so that every played note on the keybed will be fed back into the keyboard’s sound engine, which then will result in an audible piano sound.
Only Integra:
Make a rackspace where you draw a connection from the MIDI IN of the Kawai to the MIDI-OUT of the Integra. This will cause every played note on the keybed to be sent to the Integra.
BTW, you can make a Gig Performer’s rackspace send out a program change message to a midi device, so that by activating that rackspace, the regarding device in your case the integra) will automatically switch to the desired sound patch.
Piano from the Kawai with Strings from the Integra and a synth-pad from a VST:
Make a rackspace where you draw MIDI-connections from the Kawai’s IN block to the Kawai’s OUT block, the Integra’s OUT block and the VST-plugin block… given that you have connected the audio outs of the Kawai to the audio inputs 1&2 and the Integra to the audio inputs 3&4 of your Focusrite interface, you then draw audio-connections from channel 1&2 and 3&4 of the audio IN block to the corresponding channels of a (say, 8 channel) mixer block, and the VST’s output is then connected to ch 5&6 of the mixer. That way you can adjust the volume of each sound source.
The mixer’s output has of course to be connected to the main audio out block.
On your rackspace panel you could place some widgets (knobs, faders…) to easily control the mixer volumes (or other plugin parameters) from your main screen - these widgets can also be used via MIDI, so you can map any MIDI controller to them…
Thank you SteveC-Bome, I was thinking something similar, but I didn’t know what capabilities Sipario had. I even emailed Lab4Music in Italy last night, and already this morning they replied.
I asked specifically if the Midi In of the first pair of Midi In/Out could be routed to the Midi out of the second, acting like a Thru. Here was the reply: “yes you can do it, just activate the second map of the performance and route MIDI IN1 to MIDI OUT2.”
Wow, thank you very much schamass for the detailed response. I truly appreciate your input. This is a great community forum for this product, and my noobie fears are subsiding.
I’m working today, but I will try these connections tomorrow and report back so that others who may stumble upon these threads can be helped.
Again, thanks to you and other members of this forum, I feel confident GP will be a great addition to my music gear, expanding the possibilities, as you say, which are endless!
Hi @DennisT2022 and welcome to the GP community. The connection scheme from @schamass is not only sufficient but it will also probably cover all your needs. Using GP, it would be counter-productive to use an additional piece of hardware for the MIDI routing. @schamass is definitely a good Sir
And then, can you use the internal sound engine via MIDI in ? (Such that you can use GP to decide wether the XK keyboard, or a split of it, plays the internal sound engine or plugins)
You can turn off the local keyboard from playing the internal sound engine but still transmit or receive midi on dedicated assignable channels for the upper, lower and pedal sound engines.
So you could disable local, send upper on 1 and receive upper on 1 and in gig performer patch the keyboard to itself and once again the keyboard would play as if local were enabled… but it’s not.
It also has three ‘remote zones’ for the upper manual, three for the lower manual (or the split) and one for the pedal and each of these can be assigned to any midi channel and have different keyboard velocity curves applied so you can build up splits this way as well.
Because the XK-5 has multi-key contact simulation (three levels of key contact per note, using 3 midi channels per note) if you enable multikey contact via midi it auto assigns upper manual to ch 1-3, lower to 4-6 and pedal to 7 (both Tx and Rx) but if you don’t need this and have it disabled, the upper, lower and pedal channel transmit and receive channels are completely customizable.
The more I work with the XK-5 the more I love it and I am starting to use it more and more as the main keyboard / command center along with GP. It’s heavy and so I want to use it as my one and only keyboard for rehearsals vs draging along a second keyboard, which means I need to configure some of my setups for more splits and more rackspace/program changes per song to do what I would do with two keyboards but so far I am happy with working more in this direction.
If it goes well, I might get the lower manual XLK-5 addition to the XK-5 and make that my all in one controller/organ. It’s not great for piano work but the action is much friendlier to my hands than my SL-73 is and it feels natural enough for doing Rhodes/Clav and of course synth stuff.
The XK-5 is a bit of a learning curve but I find the manual to be very through and well thought out, just takes a few weeks of really living with it to get comfortable.
Worth noting, the MIDI DIN plug on the Numa organ 2 has more capabilities than the USB MIDI plug and when I owned that keyboard I used the old school MIDI DIN plugs for this reason. It did not however have a ‘local off’ feature.
I don’t believe it does David… it does have some parameters like glide and expression that can be controlled by other input devices but no keyboard after touch that I am aware of.
