vArranger Forums

Hi,

I hope you are all well in these troubled times..

I came across this real time midi controller company and I thought it may be of interest to some of you (I'm sure many of you are already aware - but I'd never heard of them).  They look really interesting for using multiple controllers at the same time when you are lacking ports:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=183&v=CwG-4xpEli8&feature=emb_logo

and https://www.audiofront.net/MIDIExpression.php

I hope its of use to somebody - Keep safe!

Barry

Hi,

A Merry Xmas to you all.

Dan - PLEASE can I have a XMAS present?

Every time I use vA (and I do try often because I think it is very good) - I get so frustrated I stop using it.   But maybe I am missing something again (as I certainly was with split point saving)!

So lets try and explain, and hopefully fix, my main frustration - which is related to the volume of simple left and right sounds (as the song moves along).

So if you take a very simple example   (using the SD1000 or SD2):-

Lets say that we have a song that only uses 1 Left Hand accompaniment sound called 'Dark String' and that we want it at different volumes for different parts of the song  (e.g 10% for the first verse, 40% for first chorus, 30% for second verse, 50% for second chorus etc).   The problem is that there is no easy way, that I can discover, to do this as the volume (in this case) of 'LEFT 1' always remains at 100% and the volume of 'MASTER LEFT' remains what it was when you loaded the song.

The only way that I can see currently to solve this problem is to save the 'Dark String' Left Sound as 4 separate user voices, each with a different volume setting, and then add these user sounds separately to the 'left sound bar'.   If this is indeed the only way to solve this problem then its frankly daft - because, if nothing else,  it means that the number of user voices ends up getting ever larger.

SO - to my XMAS present :  as a suggestion for the solution (as there will be other ways):  can we please have some sort of option that allows you to (say) right click on a voice (user or otherwise) INSIDE the sound bar that says something like 'restore L/R' voice volume to the current setting of Left1/2 or Right 1/2/3/4 on change.   That way there would be a very simple way to deal with volume changes without having to create meaningless user voices.   It should also be easy to keep it compatible with exisiting songs.

Or is there a better way that I haven't yet discovered?

Thanks
Barry

Hi,

Does anyone know about this software or maybe have tried it? ...

https://www.kbd-infinity.com/style_master.html

It says that it will create styles compatible with yamaha keyboards - so maybe they would work OK with vA

Barry

Hi,

I have been hoping for some time that Dan would add the facility of registration/performance memory to vA.  If vA is ever to compete with hardware arrangers (which it most definitely could) - then it really need this important feature.

I found the following video on YouTube which demonstrates what this could add if it was implemented in vA. The set of 8 green buttons on the lower right hand side of the keyboard are the registration memory buttons.  Notice that he stores complete settings of the keyboard (voices, styles, lots of other settings) into these buttons and by pressing just one of these eight buttons he can choose to change the entire setup in one go (e.g.  style and/or the complete set of voices - no need to save multi-voices to a user voice as we have to in vA).  Thus he can play a complete song, or set of songs, without ever going near the style buttons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CboWVzXL5-8

Please can we have this ....

Thanks
Barry

Hi,

I agree with Lylo with his reply to one of the yet more SPAM messages we seem have had an increasing number of lately.

Dan - so why can't this rubbish be filtered out...   

I cannot actually see the point of these spam messages - does anyone actually read them and act on them.   As far as I can tell all they do is just annoy people.

Barry

Hi Chaps,

I came across this useful free book on tuning Windows for audio (for musicians).    Obviously its geared towards the Cantabile VST host - but it has useful information and is worth reading:-

https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitchfree/

And for completeness - here is another useful page from Steinberg on the same topic:-

https://www.steinberg.net/nc/en/support/knowledgebase_new/show_details/kb_show/optimizing-windows-for-daws.html

There are many others if you do a suitable google search...

Barry

Hi,

I have just noticed that Roland have released their Sound Canvas plugin as a VST.  There is apparently a demo available - so it might be useful as a sound source for VA.   It costs 115 Euros - so not outrageously expensive if it does the job.

See:  http://www.roland.com/products/sound_canvas_va/

Seasons greeting to everyone.

Barry

Dear All,

I have been using vArranger since August 2013 and I am disappointed to say that I am beginning to become increasingly frustrated with it.  It has undoubted strengths - but song/reload can sometimes be a downright pain.

I raised this in a thread on the forum last week related to muting song chords - but decided that the issue actually deserved its own thread.   What I said then was that: "The biggest fault with vArranger for me is that it doesn't have what I call performance, registration or total user presets modes.".  Certainly most top of the range arrangers do have this facility and vA has aspirations to join this illustrious group. 

In the thread I indicated the way (as its apparently not widely known) that something akin to performance mode could be simulated by stringing together several small songs (i.e. music sections) in real time.   And by using assignable midi controllers - it is possible to flexibly call up these music sections with a button push from your keyboard.   This part works extremely well and is very easy to use:  see   http://www.varranger.com/vforum/index.php/topic,1964.0.html?PHPSESSID=01fc60bb49b5ab79856cf362b25d09df  for more details.

That's the good bit.  But what is a severe problem to me is that SONG SAVE does not save a whole load of parameters/items that I feel it should and it consequently removes a lot of potential flexibility and usability.  For example:  using very short song segments still means you need to set up a MySounds sound bar (or even a multi-voice) even if it contains only one sound - rather than more simply leaving the sounds as they were in the Left (1-3) and Right (1-4) sound windows. I have been raising this matter privately with Dan for well over a year - but he doesn't seem to accept there is an issue and this is adding greatly to my frustration. 

For me - a fundamental problem is that the settings of the Left (1-3) and Right (1-4) sounds and lots of other things are not stored - and that when you load a song (any song) then those sections are set to something completely different to what they were when the song was saved!  I believe it should be possible to save the settings of nearly everything on the screen (and some hidden) when you save a song - and have them reloaded later EXACTLY as they were saved - and not have vArranger  decide to arbitrarily change it to what it chooses.   Below is a list of things not saved in a song, which I believe should be:-

- Left (1-3) and Right (1-4) and 2nd voice:-
  Sound selection
  Volume sliders
- For all sound sections including accompaniments:-
  On/off buttons
  Solo Buttons
  Chorus/ reverb controllers
  Left/right pan
  Aftertouch settings (in voice edit - but why?).
  Voice edit parameters (but maybe should the reason for a User Sound)
- Under FX2 - Delay setting
- Under FX2 - Disto setting
- HOLD button
- LEFT button
- Accompaniment section BASS - Octave Bass
- Fill In: Auto button
- What others?

The point that I keep making to Dan is that as far as I can tell there should be no negative impact in saving all the above stuff and restoring them on loading - and people can carry on using vA exactly as now if they wish.   By all means make it user selectable - that would desirable and even better.   But it makes no sense to me that people would actually not want vA to load a song exactly as they stored it, rather than have it arbitrarily change it - which it currently does!

The major advantage is that it means you would be able to load a song and then start to play as soon as you reload it -  and not have to fiddle around setting things like split point and the left hold parameters etc.  But the real gain, for me,  would be that it would be possible to reload the last settings of the sound (e.g. sound, sliders, mute buttons) without having to go through the flog of needing to pre-save sounds unnecessarily in advance (either as user sound or via the MySounds bar). 

So - I really do not understand why this simple problem cannot be fixed - particularly when it increases the usability and flexibility of vA.   

Does anyone else find it a problem?

Regards
Barry

Dear All,

This is my first post to this forum as I have only recently acquired vArranger (which I think is great). 

I don't believe this has already been mentioned - but if it has then apologies.

One of the problems with collecting styles from the Internet is that it is virtually impossible to avoid collecting duplicate styles and the result is a mess.

One solution I have found which helps is to use a duplicate file finder program.   Basically this digs into all the files selected and looks for anything that is internally identical (ignoring filenames and dates) - and then gives you an option to delete the duplicates en-mass.  What it cannot do is remove styles that are only slightly different but are really the same (e.g.  maybe someone has slightly tweaked a volume in the new version - so it sounds identical but is completely different internally at the file level). 

Anyway - in case anyone is interested - here is the program I used to do this task.  It is free for home use:-

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/duplicate-file-finder/   . 

To use it:-

1) Keep a backup of all your style files in case you screw up.
2) Make sure your style files are in a single directory tree (with no other file types in the tree) - otherwise you will finish up processing other files on the disk - and that may be a tad undesirable.  I have a directory called Styles with sub-directories called Yamaha, Roland, Ketron etc. 
3) Run the program.   It may be obvious but you do not need to run the program separately for each style type  (i.e. Roland, Yamaha etc) as these cannot cause a conflict because they will have a different fundamental structure
4) Select the path\directories where the styles exist  (e.g. D:\styles\
5) Select [ x ] 'Look for all file types'
6) Clear [   ]  'Ignore small files'
7) Clear [   ] 'Ignore large files'
8 ) Select  [ x ] 'Ignore file names'
9) Select [ x ] 'Ignore file dates'
10) Let the program run - it could take some time.

You should then finish up with a highlighted list of duplicates which can be deleted.

NOTE:  Delete nothing unless you have a backup of your original files mentioned in 1) above and do make sure that you are not processing directories other than ones containing the styles otherwise you might delete something important.     

I believe it is quite safe - but use only at your own risk!!!

I hope this is of some use to someone.

Cheers
Barry