MINIMUM arranger spec for composing/production with a DAW

[nonchai]

For any arranger workstation to be classed or marketed as suitable for use by a composer, songwriter or producer working in a home studio or composer production suite with a DAW - here are what I consider the MINIMUM requirements for a hardware arranger to be usable SEAMLESSLY and thus workflow wise, productively...... WITH A DAW....

Firstly I will state the two areas content-wise which need to be seamlessly accessible or shareable by the DAW user:

A ) MIDI ( song and style data, along with program change messages )
B) Internal sounds used by the hardware by the MIDI above.

So how to support A ) seamlessly ?

    1 ) Allow the arranger MIDI data area used for internal sounds, as well as on any external memory sticks - to be accessed directly by allowing user data to be presented to the DAW computer as en external drive over USB.

2 ) failing 1 ) provide some kind of app on Mac/pc that via some proprietary means lets a user on a computer access data on the arranger AS IF IT WERE A HARD DRIVE....

having to continually swop USB thumb drives between arranger and computer is simply not good enough for the purposes being discussed here.


So how to support B ) seamlessly ?

   1 )  The arranger needs to support outputting digital audio over USB for at least 16 stereo channels.   

        The top workstations a( NAUTILUS, MONTAGE, FANTOM )  do this already.  It requires that the Arranger has onboard a suitable chip for example from XMOS -

      https://www.xmos.ai/usb-multichannel-audio/.   



2 ) In order to have total-recall of patch choices when using instruments in an arranger piped over USB into a DAW project its not enough - and impractical - to always have to include PC+MSB+LSB midi data in ones MIDI tracks.  So instead - two of the leading workstation brands - MONTAGE and KRONOS/NAUTILUS provide dedicated VST/AU plugins which when hosted in a DAW project, allow internal sounds and patches to be selected from the keyboard and piped into the DAW project.
But these plugins go further. Whenever the DAW project containing any of these plugins on one or more MIDI tracks is saved - a record of the actual patches used on the track gets saved into the plugin internal save-state. And whence the DAW project is reopened - say on a different day - the plugin sends the appropriate messages back to the connected keyboard in order that the same instruments that were used when the project was saved - get called up again.

Such "total recall" really is a time saver.

See here for how Yamaha and KORG themselves do this in MONTAGE and KRONOS.  A top end workstation arranger purported to be usable as a composition, song or production tool in a home/professional studio or composing suite- needs to have this functionality too.

--- How montage supports DAWs

https://youtu.be/11ccxrU2QzY

"MONTAGE Connect is a convenient tool which lets you transfer data between your computer and the MONTAGE. Song data created on the MONTAGE can be transferred to your computer and the Performance data edited on the MONTAGE can be saved as a file (.X7B) on the computer. MONTAGE Connect, based on Steinberg's VST3 technology, works as a VST3 plug-in with the Cubase series. The MONTAGE Connect also works as the same way as other VST instrument software, allowing you to save the edited settings of the MONTAGE, or use them for another project. MONTAGE Connect also works as an AU plug-in. For AU compatible DAW software, refer to the separate Release Notes. It can also be used as standalone software."

https://usa.yamaha.com/support/updates/montage_connect_mac.html

--- How KORG supports DAWs

https://www.korg.com/uk/news/2021/0916/

https://youtu.be/wS2L97iBiO8

[kbrkr]

I very much agree with you.  I have always felt Yamaha has a  conflict of interest in that they do not give us the best tools to make our own styles because they have an investment in the Musicsoft site in the business of making a profit on; selling styles!

They could very easily create an eco system built around the Montage and Motif DAW integration for the Genos, but I simply think they choose not to do it because of profit motives.

[nonchai]

But profit motive *could* work for Yamaha and Musicsoft - and customers too ..done right

I think of how Native Instruments have built an ecosystem that mates their hardware  ( controllers ) with their most profitable product ( and main modus operandi since they started ) namely software- but more importantly not so much software that is 100% pure (C++) coding - as in new synths, requiring highly skilled coders - but instead makes use of music content producers themselves to create - primarily KONTAKT libraries - PLAY instruments ( relatively little new coding going on in there - its mainly sound design and sampling ) - and also the ever growing MASCHINE expansion series.

Its all "locked in" to their own ecosystem via their website and NI make it super easy to spend your hard earned cash on their most profitable products- largely musician-created-and-curated content.

Now I realise NI is going thru some hard times but their model seems right.

I realise that - currently at least - Arrangers are a relatively small Market but the tech - once made suitable for producers - could become something that like say MASCHINE, KOMPLETE and KOMPLETE KONTROL - become bread and butter.

I think for example of the trend in so many production and "dawless" bits of kit to have the facility to conform any notes played in - whether by keyboard or MASCHINE/MPC type pads - to a chosen scale or mode.

Makes it real easy to come up with melodies.  then there are aids that will play chords for you that are musically diatonic to the mode chosen.   And more and more - sampler based instruments - often using KONTAKT scripting -like the relatively recent NI SESSION GUITARIST range - have built in patterns - that - surprise surprise - allow you to play one, two or three notes in the left hand - and the NI SESSION GUITARIST - will put out a pattern conformed to the harmony indicated by those 1,2 or 3 notes played by the left hand........
 
Remind you of anything?

"cough.. PSR Arrangers... lite " 

Trouble is - like much current pop - its all just for one scale/mode. And as yet the plugins themselves dont have even chord tracks like Cubase.

Now Cubase....  from Yamaha's own "stable"- has had chord tracks for a while - and can conform MIDI in other tracks to the chord at any time.
And plenty of synth workstations from FANTOM to MOTIF have patterns.

Where is everything logically leading to?
it leads to what HARDWARE - and SOFTWARE arrangers have been doing for many decades now. Now that - finally PSR and GENOS arrangers have ( like KORG has had for ages.. ) CHORD LOOPERS. The just recently launched KORG PA5x series shows wiht their most recent revamping GUI wise - how recording and editing and using chord progressions in a HW arranger can gradually - with time - become the second way that HW arranger users use their arrangers. For songwriting. production, for composing for the media. The arranger becomes a "band in a box".... but this time - LIKE "Band In A Box" ?  (at least in some ways -  as in before BIAB introduced audio RealTracks...  I'm not suggesting PSR ever gets into the BIAB RealTracks thing.. PSR and Genos should imo stick to MIDI )

But so far its clear theres no lucrative market for 3rd party styles - and even with BIAB all the styles come from PG music themselves.

But once hardware arrangers like 'GENOS N' become able to fit SEAMLESSLY into a producer suite - and gradually such arrangers are able to foster an expansion style and voice market that has content as up to date and hip sounding as the NI MASCHINE EXPANSION series- the value of a hardware arranger starts to become a no brainer - because as I see it - so much of the "producer" world is gradually incorporating technology thats been in arrangers for aeons.

And unlike say BIAB - the value of a hardware arranger - is its INSTANT.  Which for composing - asides from being essential for performing live - means inspiration, in the zone, quickly putting together on-the-fly ideas incorporating genre AND hip chord progressions.. ( arent we all longing for pop to again embrace the verse chorus bridge thing once again?  one chord vamps... sigh... jeez... )

( end of mini rant against pop of todays youth! )