MIDI-only tracks

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Hi - I downloaded LMMS for Mac only this morning, so forgive me for stupid questions.

I want to use LMMS primarily to sequence hardware MIDI instruments.

To get started, I just want a track that, when armed, routes MIDI from my MIDI keyboard, to my MIDI synth (two separate devices).

What I've achieved:
- In "Triple Oscillator" instrument track, I can record a pattern using my MIDI keyboard, hearing the Triple Oscillator VST, but at that time the MIDI notes aren't being sent to my synth.
- When I play that pattern back, it plays the Triple Oscillator VST *and* sends MIDI notes to my synth

So, two questions:
1. How do a create a track that doesn't play a VST instrument (e.g. is there a null VST I could use?)
2. What can I do so that MIDI notes from my keyboard reach my synth during recording? And while noodling prior to recording?

Thanks
ukslim wrote:
Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:35 am
Hi -
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I downloaded LMMS for Mac

LMMS is not fully functional with MAC There are options for VST -Blame Apple
forgive me for stupid questions.
We dont regards any as stupid here :)
I want to use LMMS primarily to sequence hardware MIDI instruments.
Atm lmms cant receive midi signals. That you need to know!
want a track that, when armed, routes MIDI from my MIDI keyboard, to my MIDI synth (two separate devices).
Lets see if i understand that when armed.
You would like to capture midi events you play on your MIDI-Keyboard, on LMMS' pianoroll.
That is possible!

But you also want your HW-Synth to play the notes you captured when you press play in lmms -right?
That is not possible
As DAW LMMS is meant to replay notes as midi-events through the instruments that is natively a part of lmms, or use VSTs, but MAC cant use VSTs
What I've achieved:
- In "Triple Oscillator" instrument track, I can record a pattern using my MIDI keyboard, hearing the Triple Oscillator VST, but at that time the MIDI notes aren't being sent to my synth
.
That is what i would expect
- When I play that pattern back, it plays the Triple Oscillator VST *and* sends MIDI notes to my synth
That is definitively more than i would have expected, and that routing must really depend on your MIDI-keyboard
So, two questions:
1. How do a create a track that doesn't play a VST instrument (e.g. is there a null VST I could use?)
Cant you just turn the vol-output on trippleOscilliator to 0? That would stop output from LMMS
2. What can I do so that MIDI notes from my keyboard reach my synth during recording? And while noodling prior to recording?
That is a difficult one! I believe you need to use a connection from your MIDI-KB to your HW-synth. LMMS cant
Thanks - I'm surprised by some of what you say.

The track has a MIDI preferences with an "In" (so I choose my keyboard) and an "Out" (so I choose my synth) - so I don't know why you'd be surprised that playback sends notes to that device -- what else would it do with that config?

I borrowed the "armed" term from Abelton Live. Of course I don't expect LMMS to imitate Live in all details (or I'd just keep using Live). But this seems like a sensible model:

You've got a bunch of MIDI tracks, and they're all configured to listen to your MIDI keyboard, and output to some MIDI device (hardware or software, doesn't matter). But you don't want to hear all your synths play the same note when you hit a keyboard note; so (in one mode, at least) when you click the "arm" button for a track, which means "when I record, record into this track", it begins forwarding MIDI notes from its input to its output. They call it MIDI monitoring.

I don't really want to have a virtual instrument playing with the volume turned down. It works, but it's chewing up CPU for no good reason.

But it sounds from your answers that I'm trying to use LMMS for a purpose it's not really designed for - so I should probably move on and find some other sequencer.

Thanks for your help!
I'm interested in this, but I have to admit that it's been a while since I tested this sort of thing with hardware.
Also it does seem that LMMS is currently limited with Macs, which is I think what you are using - as am I.

I thought it was possible to get LMMS to function as a sequencer to drive external Midi units - and that I have indeed done that - but it's possible that my memory is failing. It took me a long while to get some of my hardware to work, and I tried several DAWs including Logic, Garageband and Reaper, as well as LMMS.

Sometimes there are quite a few things to configure, and that also depends on the interfaces used. I have used both wired (Roland) Midi interfaces and Bluetooth interfaces (Yamaha).

I'm probably not going to revisit this in the immediate short term, and if you give up trying I'll probably shelve the issue for a while, but I might revisit it if suitably motivated next week.

Getting Macs to function with Midi and DAWs can be tricky, and you may have to make use of the Audio Midi Setup utility.

You might find that Reaper does what you want if you can't get LMMS to work, though I have to warn you that it may take a while to figure out how to do it. There are Youtube videos which explain, but you may have to watch quite a number to get things working.

Both Garageband and Logic will work. You might just find that Mainstage from Apple does something you'd want too, though many people have never heard of it. It seems to be quite popular amongst the church music community in the USA.