Adobe Audition 3.0 - MIDI Playback

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Junior Wright
Member Since: May 22, 2005

When I import a MIDI file (something I found on the web) it doesn't sound right when I assign the VSTi Adobe Soundfont Player. The file ounds fine played with Windows Media Player. Do I need a different VSTi?

How does Audition know what sound to play (ie bass track track vs. drum track etc.)?

I haven't done any work with MIDI for a couple years, but back then, in Cubase SE, it was pretty simple to get this to work?

Can anyone help?

Thanks, Pete

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Czar of Turd Polish
Member
Since: Jun 20, 2006


Nov 24, 2008 12:14 pm

I have audition 3, but have only dabbled in the midi. Sorry I have nothing to offer.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Nov 24, 2008 08:14 pm

If you got it off the net it is probably a General Midi file which holds to a common standard for instrument assignments. Adobe Soundfont Player may not be loaded with a correct General Midi font set. That could have something to do with it.

You can pick a new patch if you have a full set of sounds loaded. They might be XGM or a variation of the general midi sound set so they may be in different patch locations.

If Adobe sees the patches for the SF player you can then choose a different patch.

If you look at KVR at the link below you will find both pay for and free ones that abide strictly by the GM sound set. They are VSTi and DXi as well as some others.

www.kvraudio.com/get.php?...t=1&rpp=100

Junior Wright
Member
Since: May 22, 2005


Nov 25, 2008 12:16 pm

I took a look at the KVR site. I tried ForteDXi but it wasn't compatible with Audition. I like the looks of Bandstand by Native Instruments, but it doesn't have a trial version. Anyone know if it will work with Audition as a VST plugin?


Thanks

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Nov 25, 2008 08:44 pm

Here is one for the JS-Synthese AD which comes with a huge GM sound set as well as a ton of other goodies. This one is VSTi which the one you tried is only usable for DXi which is Direct X.

But yes, I use the NI Bandstand here as well for one of my GM authoring synths. It works great and is available in VSTi as well as AU and a couple other formats which are all on one installation disc.

I would imagine if Audition can use VSTi then it should work. Which I believe Audition uses all VST and VSTi does it not?

Junior Wright
Member
Since: May 22, 2005


Nov 26, 2008 09:06 am

I went to the JS-Synthese AD website and downloaded AD-Endorphin and AD-Endorphin-2. Audition didn't label them "unsupported" but they would not work. I'm going to see if I can send an e-mail to NI customer service to see if they can verify if Bandstand will work as a VST plugin with Adobe and automatically recognize and assign instruments for General MIDI files. I'll let you know how I make out.

Junior Wright
Member
Since: May 22, 2005


Nov 26, 2008 02:08 pm

Here's what I found out, which doesn't sound good for playing General MIDI with Audition.

Native Instruments response:Bandstand will work in any VST-compatible host. I'm not sure about how the
instruments are assigned in Audition, sorry.

Syntrillium Forum:When playing MIDI AA3 doesn't send instrument data. Therefore any MIDI device external to AA, either hardware or soft synth can only guess at the instrument and will normally guess instrument number 1 - piano. This is true regardless of the MIDI channel you choose. I have two hardware MIDI modules; one I can "trick" into playing different instruments, the other has front panel controls which allow manual override of instrument data. But softsynths such as Roland VSC or the GS Wavetable Synth have no such options.

You may have some luck with a VSTi using soundfonts. If you use the provided soundfont player you will need to play with the settings for attack etc. It also plays stereo soundfonts in mono. But I can never get soundfonts to sound "right" in AA3. I have used a variety of soundfonts in a variety of soundfont players in a variety of VSTi hosts and all but AA3 sound as expected. An expensive solution could be a third party sampler/soundfont player like Halion which has been reported to work well with AA3.

Adobe's goal for AA3 was to produce a very minimalist MIDI/VSTi sequencer. There are a few issues which could be dealt with in a dot release, but what they've achieved is mostly OK. For any sort of advanced MIDI work you still need another application, and that's fine.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Nov 26, 2008 09:41 pm

Ouch, I thought Adobe was building that to compete with the upper apps. I guess not from that response.

Is there any way you can set the patch for the VSTi such as Bandstand in the track itself? But that was silly of me, of course you can, but AA3 doesn't send the data.

I am wondering if you can use an app like bandstand and hard assign the patch selections in the VSTi itself.

Have you tried that yet with the JS ones you downloaded?

Junior Wright
Member
Since: May 22, 2005


Nov 27, 2008 08:02 am

I have a copy of Cubase LE4. When you load a General MIDI all the instruments are assigned and the song plays correctly. I'm just using MIDI to get backing tracks to play along with so I'll just use Cubase to tweak the MIDI, save as a WAV and then import into AA3 multi-track.

I'm pretty low-end on the technical scale so I was hoping to only have to deal with one software package, but General MIDI is just not there on AA3. Maybe they'll add that capability on a future release.

Thank for the help and suggestions.

Member
Since: Jul 02, 2003


Nov 27, 2008 01:59 pm

AA3.0 is Adobe's first stab at Midi/VSTi implementation, so it's understandable it's not going to compete with the heavy hitters like Sonar, no more than Sonar can compete with it when it comes to Audio editing. I think the next release will flesh it out quite a bit better. That said checking out the Audition forums I don't see any complaints about not being able to play SFZ though it appears most are using players such as The Play engine and Kompact etc. It must be doable some way or another or I'm sure there would be more talk about it.

Dan

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