Sending Patch Changes via Midi

[badseed79]

HI - in all of the other Arturia software instruments I am able to save my own custom banks of presets, and then select them via Midi program changes. This greatly simplifies my live setup. Is there any reason why the standard Arturia preset browser has not been used with Minifreak V?

In Pigments for example, I have created 3 custom banks for different projects (Bank 1, 2 and 3), each with 15-30 presets (numbered 001 onwards). I then can conduct patch changes via Midi (either from my DAW or from my hardware sequencer - a Squarp Hapax). This is just using the standard midi patch change (Bank Number/Sub-bank/Patch Number), and it works seamlessly in every other Arturia software instrument.

I’ve tried sending patch changes to Minifreak V, but it doesn’t seem to respond. I don’t usually have a monitor visible when performing (headless Mac mini), so I can’t really go preset-hunting.

Any chance you can talk to your colleagues and look at standardising the preset management to align with your other products?

Does the hardware Minifreak respond to patch changes via Midi?

Thanks!

[matjones]

Hi @badseed79

Yes the hardware MF does respond to Prog/Bank change messages, i use them all the time in the studio for auditioning sounds as it’s easier to just scroll a mouse wheel.

Here’s a grab from page 110/120 from the MiniFreak Hardware Manual

HTH!

[badseed79]

Thanks @matjones - very much appreciated. So at least the hardware version is an option if it comes to that, but I would really like to avoid buying more gear if at all possible (I just resisted buying an Astrolab as it’s almost perfect for my needs - only way I could really justify it would be if it had at least 76 keys and fully weighted to replace my Nord Stage 2).

It just seems bizarre that Arturia have a perfectly useable preset browser in most, if not all of their other software instruments, that can handle midi program changes, and creating multiple custom banks, but instead they’ve made something that looks almost the same, but lacks that key (to me) functionality. I’m guessing they had to make some compromises to fit in with the hardware model, which as you say, does support midi program changes (4 banks of 128).

Ultimately I might have a go at recreating the patch in Pigments and see if I can get close enough to satisfy the live set.

[badseed79]

Ha - just figured out a workaround. Given that Analog Lab V does support Midi program changes so that will suffice for my Minifreak patches

Still bothers me that Arturia have this great preset browser that is standard across pretty much all of their plugins…except Minifreak V!

[reyneke]

Hey

just got me a new Minifreak Hardware and I’m checking out the VST. What a pity this does not include program change via midi - this would be so nice, as I could just work on my set with the synth and for gigs I would use the VST. As the constant need for CPU is so high, I cannot use my usual path of having several instances in different chains of rack in Ableton Live.
@badseed79 Did you manage to use this in Analog Lab Pro?

Thanks, Basti

[badseed79]

Hi @reyneke - it does indeed work fine in Analog Lab Pro. I’ve just queued up my Minifreak patches into a dedicated bank, and made sure that there were no additional effects active etc.

It’s nice to have this option as a workaround, but I still wish that Minifreak V supported this directly as it still makes it easier to directly map controls to Ableton, rather than having to map controls to the macros within Analog Pro, and then map to Ableton…

[reyneke]

Hi, thanks for your answer! Just to be sure - If I load the Minifreak into Analog Lab Pro, I have access to the full UI of the Minifreak? I am thinking about extending my liveset with the Minifreak, so I need the connection to the hardware + program change to be flexbile enough

(But I hope Arturia is updating the Minifreak V soon to include program change in the plugin itself :))

[badseed79]

You sure can. It’s not as straightforward as it could be (in my opinion), but the way to access the full Minifreak UI is:

1. Assuming that your preset is already active, open the preset browser window (the icon next to the ‘heart’ in the preset name window.
2. Click Explore in the menu on the left hand side of the preset browser.
3. On the right side of the list of presets, you should now see the preset name, and a picture of the Minifreak (or whatever other synth your preset is based on). Hover the cursor over the picture of the synth, and beneath it the option ‘Open Minifreak’ will appear. Click on this and away you go

It would be so much better if they just had support for program changes, and yes, hopefully they’ll put this in a future update. For now I either use this workaround, or I flatten the track to audio (or I sample the patch and play it from my 1010 Blackbox sampler…).

[stevenz]

Thank you @badseed79 for raising this question - I appreciate getting this request out there again! Like you, my goal with MiniFreak V was to take a lot of what I do with the physical MicroFreak into the virtual realm (using a Mac Mini too!) to help eliminate the amount of physical gear I need to haul while performing live. Although I’ve been able to successfully recreate the MicroFreak patches on the MiniFreak, the lack of midi PC support requires me to still bring my microfreak out. Btw, I also use the DX7 V live and that supports preset changes via PC messages perfectly fine…

FWIW, I raised this question via Arturia support almost exactly a year ago and was told that it was on the roadmap. I really wonder if it will actually ever get added?

In the meantime my workaround is to use preset hotswaps within Ableton Live which unfortunately can’t be automated or controlled via PC messages so it requires me to manually browse for presets via the Push controller which is not ideal in a live setting.

I’m curious about looking into the Analog Lab Pro option but I don’t own that yet and it’s probably not worth a purchase only to do this workaround.

Anyhow, thanks again!
Steve

[badseed79]

Yeah, it’s a weird limitation, and strange that they haven’t just utilised the standard approach used in their other virtual instruments.

In Ableton I do have a few other non-Arturia plugins that similarly don’t support program changes, so I use instrument racks, and then automate the patch selection using dummy clips (with the chain selector mapped to the first macro, along with the plugin on/off switch). It’s tedious to setup, and having to load all plugin instances (even those turned off) really adds to the session loading time. This is another reason I’ve moved to a hardware sampler (1010 Blackbox) - just to offload some sample-based plugins to reduce loading time in the live environment.

Interestingly I was looking at the AstroLab as a potential solution to some of this, as I’ve wanted a hardware version of Pigments for years now, but for the price I’d definitely want more than bi-timbrality, and certainly would need multiple audio outs.

Anyway, this is all how it works! Often the developers have assumptions about how their hardware or software will be used, but then we users have radically different ideas

[stevenz]

I too tried the chain selector approach, but as you mentioned I found it tedious and didn’t like having all the extra instances loaded simultaneously. Another thing that bothered me about this approach was that if I would tweak one of the selected instances, switch to another one and then back to the first “preset”, it bugged me that I couldn’t figure out a way to reset it to the original settings. And then if I save the project it would lose it’s original setting - way too confusing…

For now, I’ve been exploring two new options:

1. A m4l device called x-presets would probably work perfectly for my needs if MiniFreak V exposed all of its parameters as mappable (I don’t think this is the case, but could be wrong).

2. I started developing a new m4l patch that translates program changes to preset hot-swaps. This actually seems quite promising so far, but it’s a bit clunky because AppleScript is in the mix at the moment which can lead to some unintended results. I’m unsure if I’d be brave enough to bring this into my live set, but I’ll keep experimenting.

Honestly, I should probably just open another support case w/Arturia and see if there’s an ETA since they did say it was on their roadmap a year ago. Very true re: how we sometimes have radically different ideas than the developers!

[badseed79]

Sounds like we’ve been on very similar missions! I’ve spent far too many hours messing with the chain selector, putting automated changes to the macros within dummy midi clips etc.

I also tried the clyphx approach to presets (using the SWAP command), but it was just too slow to change presets using that model, and hence not really suitable for the live performance environment.

I had a quick look at x-presets but never tried it out. I like that it responds to program changes, which I can easily fire off from my Squarp Hapax sequencer. Thanks for the tip.