I’m having two problems getting the Arturia Mellotron plug-in to work correctly. I’m setting up my default goto Gig file. It’s got the Garritan CFX Piano (compact), Blue3 B3, a couple of Lounge Lizard EPs, Arturia’s Clavinet Farfisa, Vox and Mellotron and then a bunch of empty rackspaces and then NI’s Session Horns. I’ve got the horns after 3 empty rackspaces so I can keep it from loading until I want it to. It’s a pig. I’ve got predictive loading turned on set to 5. This gig file works very well for me in general.
The first problem I’m having with the Mellotron is that is will stop making sounds sometimes if I switch away from it and then back. I can see that it is receiving MIDI signals but no sounds come out. If I restart GP it will be fine. This happens with no changes made to the basic Mellotron setup.
My second problem occurs when I try to have two instances of the Mellotron plugin in the same rackspace. I want to do this as the Mellotron is only a three octave instrument so on my 88 key controller (Arturia Keylab 88) I could easily play one Mellotron with my left had and one with my right.
Unfortunately I cannot get a second Mellotron to make any sounds at all. I can add a different plugin as a second input in the same setup without any problem. Is there a technical reason why I can’t have two instances of the same plug in the same rackspace?
I’m still very much a GP novice (about six weeks in), so I may be missing something obvious. I welcome all comments and suggestions.
No. At least, there shouldn’t be one. Having multiple instances of the same plugin is a valid and popular use case of GP (so if this would be a geniuinely broken in GP, it would probably be noticed before). So I see two remaining sources of error:
The plugin has a bug which causes this
You made a mistake in connecting the plugins. Can you confirm that the plugin receives MIDI data (via a MIDI monitor block as opposed to the global MIDI monitor)?
For this use case, you do not need two instances of the mellotron plugin at all - just connect two MIDI in blocks to the same Mellotron plugin and adapt the key range and transpose settings in the MIDI In blocks.
Thanks for the reply. I’m sure the plugin receives MIDI data as I can see the keys being depressed in the second plugin when play. I’m not sure what you mean by monitor block vs. global MIDI monitor.
The reason I want to use two separate instances of the plugin is that I want to set them up differently. When I connect two MIDI in blocks to the same instance it works fine.
Here’s the rackspace as it exists now. As I am having two problems, I’m not sure which one you are addressing. (Next time I’ll create two different topics…)
Anyway, this rackspace just has the single instance of the plugin. Shall I also recreate the non-working dual instance and upload that?
I just tested whatever I do I always can hear a sound.
I included a 2nd instance and it is working too.
Are you sure that Midi notes are sent correctly from your controller when you switch away from a rackspace and switch back again?
How to you switch the rackspaces, from your controller?
I appreciate the effort you are putting into this. When I switch away from the Mellotron rackspace and then back I don’t always lose the sound, just sometimes. This can happen no matter how I switch away and back.
There are three ways that I typically switch rackspaces: 1) using a mouse at the laptop, 2) Using a program change command I have programmed into one of my pads, and 3) using the [Move up] and [Move down] Global MIDI commands I have assigned to a couple of buttons on my controller. When I lose the sound of the plugin it happens no matter which method I’m using to switch rackspaces.
I’ll update the other issue in a new topic just to keep things clear.
The global MIDI monitor can be opened from the Window menu and shows all incoming MIDI data.
But you can also insert a MIDI Monitor Block in the Connection view (like any other plugin) which shows you only the data coming through its input port. To open it, just double-click the block.
I decided not to split the thread as I now think that the two issues are related. To test the issue with the second instance of the plugin here’s what I did and the results:
I exported the problem rackspace from my main gigfile and imported it into a new gigfile.
I then added a second instance of the plug-in using CMD-P. (I had previously been adding the second instance by right-clicking on the first instance and selecting [Duplicate].) It worked fine.
I reopened my main gigfile and added the second instance of the plug-in to the rackspace using CMD-P. It worked fine.
I removed the second instance and re-added it using the [Duplicate] function. It did NOT work, i.e. I could not get it to make any sounds.
At this point I thought “AHA! I just can’t use the [Duplicate] function in this way”. Unfortunately that was not to be the case.
I removed the second instance again and re-added it using CMD-P. It did NOT work.
I then saved the configuration, restarted GP and tested it again. This time it worked.
So now my tentative hypothesis is that the problem with the second instance has the same root cause as a single instance rackspace stopping working when I switch away and back.
However, this behavior is inconsistent, which makes diagnosis very difficult.
Ezra, if instead of using the Mellotron, you use one of the other Arturia plugins and create two instances, switch away, switch back, etc…does that work?
I’ll give it a try. The Mellotron is problematic even in single instance mode (see the beginning of this thread for details). But I’ve had no issues with the other Arturia plugins I use on a regular basis (generally the Vox and Farfisa organs).
I’ll update this thread tomorrow when I get a chance to try dual instances of other Arturia plugins.
Hi Ezra,
Also I’ve encountered your problem, when Mellotron suddenly stop to load and play when you change from Rackspaces and this event happen to me sometimes. Midi is receiving messages but there is no audio output.
I think that is a plugin bug, because it doesn’t happen with other Arturias plugins. We should have ask to Arturia about this bug issue…
That’s really interesting. It’s good to have some confirmation. I think it might be an interaction between the Mellotron plugin and some other gigfile configuration as I’ve just completely rebuilt my main gigfile and so far the Mellotron plugin has been stable.
I’ll update this thread if it becomes unstable again.