MIDI sidechain input selector in the plugin device

[adamj]

A number of plugins these days have very useful MIDI sidechain features. For example: FabFilter Pro-G (open/close the gate via MIDI), Sonic Charge Bitspeek (control the pitch of the resynthesis) and iZotope Stutter Edit (trigger different FX patterns).

You can use MIDI sidechain with these plugins by sending the MIDI output of a MIDI track directly to the device in question. But this isn't very flexible. In some cases I want the MIDI to control an instrument while simultaneously sidechaining to some plugin. Sometimes I want to send the same MIDI to multiple plugins. There isn't an easy way to do any of this in Live right now (a couple less than ideal options: on OS X you can use IAC ports but this introduces latency; or you can build MIDI routing devices in Max for Live but this is more complicated to setup)

So I'm envisioning a MIDI sidechain input option in the plugin device itself, similar to how Live's built-in devices like Corpus work (where you click the triangle button and a small panel appears where you can select a sidechain input track). I should be able to select any MIDI track as the sidechain input for my device. This way I can easily route my MIDI wherever I want it, and route the same MIDI to multiple places.

Actually, it would be nice to have this sidechain input for audio sidechains too.

[andydes]

Can't you just create a new midi track with input set to the instrument track and output to the device you want side chained?

[adamj]

No, because in many cases I am using an audio plugin on an audio track that has MIDI sidechaining features. In fact, all of the plugins I mentioned (FabFilter Pro-G, Sonic Charge Bitspeek, and iZotope Stutter Edit) work this way.

[andydes]

Yeah I know. I mean add a midi track with nothing on it, just for routing midi from an instrument track to a audio track sidechain. I have done this.

[adamj]

Sure, I do that too. But it could be a lot easier and avoid extra track clutter, hence the feature request.

Also, as I mentioned in the OP, sometimes I would like to route the same MIDI to multiple plugins. Since any given track can only send it's MIDI to one other track/device, I don't think this is possible unless you route MIDI out of Live and back in (which introduces latency) or use Max for Live.

So yeah, there are ways to make this work right now. But it could be made very intuitive and easy Not to mention consistent with the way the built-in Live devices work.

[andydes]

Fair enough. I know it's not as good. Just didn't sound like you'd thought of it as you were talking about iac and m4l. Would be nicer if it could appear on the live interface of a plug in. Obviously nothing they can do about a plug in's own gui.

[adamj]

Just didn't sound like you'd thought of it as you were talking about iac and m4l.

Actually, yeah, I was being kind of stupid with my setup. During this conversation I realized there's no need for iac/m4l. You just need to create an extra MIDI track for *every plugin* you want to route too. When you want to do a lot of MIDI sidechain routing, the Live Set does tend to turn into a cluttered mess. You also have to remember to set monitor to "In" (instead of "Auto") on the routing tracks. I think with some of my projects that I started a while ago, I hadn't quite figured all of this out, and then got in the habit of using those alternative strategies.

Anyway, I guess we're in agreement it would be much nicer to just select sidechain input for plugins.