Snow as midi controller

[Kutyu]

Hi guys, I saw that the virus ti has a control panel in the VC, but the snow is missing it? Does that mean that I cant use the snow as a midi controller? If so, how can I do it? I didnt find any anwser in the documentations.

[blairwillis]

Can you be more specific, and also elaborate on what you mean by "midi controller"?

A "midi controller" would be a hardware device that sends out MIDI signals to control another device (sw or hw). Yes, the Snow can do this. Determining what types of MIDI to send (such as knob behavior, arpeggio notes, program changes, etc.) is covered on pages 87-92 of the Virus TI Snow Reference manual. If you have specific questions, I might be able to help further.

Perhaps you mean a "midi interface"? A "midi interface" allows you to use the MIDI input/output ports to bring a MIDI signal in/out of the computer (which the Snow would be connected to via USB). In this case, the Snow can in fact be used as a "midi interface" and you'll just need to activate the ports in your audio host (DAW) software. Tell us what software you're using and someone can be more specific about that process.

Blair

[Splat!]

Nah, the knobs can't be mapped, not on the Snow.... it's barely got 5 knobs :P

and Blair, I haven't tried your Automap yet :P Will do it soon.


________
Toyota Cressida

[Kutyu]

Sorry for not peing more specific. I would like to use the Snow, to control parameters inside FL Studio, like softsynths or whatever, so it would send midi data through usb.
Blair says its possible? But splat says it cant be done? Im confused

[Splat!]

What Blair means is that we can use a "MIDI Controller" such as the Novation RemoteSL to control the Snow's parameters such as Arps, program change, osc's etc.

What you asked for, is the missing Control Assigning palette on the VC, which the snow doesn't have, maybe cause it has only 5 knobs. So Access doesn't want you to use your beautiful Snow to control VSTi's on your DAW :P
But, there might be a way according to Blair...

If you have a MIDI Controller, such as the RemoteSL, Oxygen, Axiom etc, ask Blair to help you map the parameters

[blairwillis]

Actually, the Snow can be used as a "MIDI controller" to some extent.

You will "map" the MIDI messages from the Snow to whatever function you want in your VSTi. I'm not familiar with FL's method, but in Ableton Live you simply click on the "MIDI" button and it lets you pick and choose any function to be mapped. You also will need to let the DAW know to activate the MIDI source. (In Live, that's the MIDI tab in Preferences, and select the Snow for "Remote" control.)

In the Snow, there are a few settings within the MIDI portion of the CONFIG menu that will determine how it sends certain MIDI message:

Page A: (SysEx, Controller Data)
Page B: (SysEx, Poly Pressure)
Both of these settings determine what sort of MIDI message is sent and received from Snow Parameters. Because the knobs control parameters, they are creating a MIDI message that can be received by other MIDI devices (hw/sw). You can map these parameter messages (such as Cutoff) to any MIDI controllable item in your DAW (like the Cutoff of a VSTi). The challenge with the Snow is that the definable soft knobs don't always control the same parameters, so if you map one of them to a certain function, then switch to a different Snow patch that assigns a different parameter to that soft knob, it will not affect the DAW the same. This might sound confusing, and it would be trying to map the soft knobs! In this case, you're really limiting the ability of the Snow to act as a MIDI controller, because instead of 5 functional knobs, it's really only the two (on the right) that are always addressing the same parameter. Another issue here is that the knobs aren't "endless" knobs, and you will run into some confusion turning knobs and having settings jump. (Knob behavior is also adjustable within the Snow CONFIG menu.) The Snow really isn't meant to function as a MIDI controller in the sense that you are trying to apply it here, but it will work... a little.

Arp Note Send: (Off, On)
This setting determines if notes created by the arpeggiator will be sent to the MIDI output instead of the original played notes. You would first have to be giving the Snow MIDI note input (from a keyboard controller, for example, or from a MIDI track in a DAW), and the Snow will replace this with the arpeggiated MIDI note data. Again, this is not of much use in a DAW setting, because you probably have a fairly functional software MIDI arpeggiator in your DAW.

MIDI Clock: Using the Send setting here, the Snow can be used as a MIDI Clock sync master, and control the MIDI clock of other MIDI sw/hw. Once more, of little use in this context as you'll probably want to use your DAW as the MIDI clock master.

So yes, you could use the Snow as a MIDI controller, but it makes little sense due to the few knobs that are available. Why not pickup an inexpensive hardware MIDI controller such as the Korg nanoKONTROL? That will give you plenty buttons and faders to map to a VSTi without much desktop space or expen$e, and you can leave the Snow to doing what it does best, making noise.

Blair

[Kutyu]

Ah ok, i got it to work, thank you for your help guys. I am thinking of getting a midi controller too, but I thought I would just fiddle around with the midi functionality before I get a proper controller.