>>>From: Nick Batzdorf <recording@...>: >>> What is the advantage of a multitimbral instrument over just >>> instantiating multiple instances of the instrument? I don't get it.. >> The advantage is that you can set up a drum set with the instruments >> divided however to be routed through different processing however you >> like then you can play the drums on the song and hear the processing >> live. There is also the advantage that you don't have to spread the >> drums over a bunch of tracks in the arrange window. > Ah, right - you might want to have different note groups come out > different outputs but play them all on the same keyboard. I just got > through posting that there are no functional advantages but it's an > interface issue, and I left this out. > You accomplish this by assigning EXS Groups to different outputs, so > actually it is still a user interface question rather than a missing > feature. No, it is a missing feature, at least the way VSTi's are currently implemented in Logic. For example, I want to make an EXS drumkit to play in realtime from the keyboard or from a MIDI drumkit. I need to have different filter and envelope (and other) settings for the different drums in the kit, and the Group offsets in the Editor don't handle the adjustments required (ie different velocity to attack settings or different velocity to sample start settings). Plus, I need to crossfade between closed, half-open, and open hihats with a modwheel or MIDI pedal. As it stands now, EXS can't do this, however, if it were multitimbral (like EXSP, apparently), I could put different drums and cymbals on the different channels, and have a full set of programming controls for each individual drum and cymbal; that and a couple of Environment patches on the way in to EXS and I could accomplish all of the above and more.. While I could instantiate a number of EXSs on different Audio Instrument strips and accomplish the individual programming, I then can't play the whole kit in realtime (as I require), triggering all the EXS instances at the same time via cabling or whatever, because Logic introduces unacceptable latency to every VSTi but the first. If you *could* record and play multiple instances simultaneously (with the transport either moving or stopped, just like you can with multiple MIDI instruments), then that would also be a solution, but it isn't available now.. Let's not forget that some of us play our MIDI parts in in realtime! ;-) From: Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@...>: > The only problem is that in Logic you can't play more than one EXS- > instance (or any other virtual instrument) at the same time without > serious latency issues. So in our everyday Logic-practice there _is_ > indeed a functional difference - although the solution should not be having > a multitimbral instrument, but Emagic fixing this annoying behaviour of > virtual instruments - thus negating the need for multitimbral instruments.. Exactly, though multitimbral capability would still be more convenient for some situations I think, but with the the VSTi layering issues fixed, it *would* then just be an interface issue.. It seems to me that if EXSP is multitimbral, then there's no reason why EXS wouldn't be, except they just haven't got around to updating that feature yet.. Perhaps the mysterious disappearing EXS MkII will eventually incorporate it (along with better envelopes, per-patch modulation routings, and a host of other small improvements that would add up to some serious programming capabilities (ala Kontakt)); EXS is great, and it's integration in Logic is a big plus, so it would be nice if they beefed it up just a bit.. :-) Cheers, Joe Albano ROOFTOP PRODUCTIONS NYC, NY