... Metronome Settings. I have checked Beats only
"Beat" is not enough, also check "Bar". Otherwise you would miss the first beat.
I understand that I am trying to convert the MIDI events that I am seeing to CTRL events and set the number to 20 - using the transformer - is that right?
Correct. With Beat and Bar checked you get the notes C#1 with velocity 112 (for each bar) and velocity 88 (for each beat). And there is a note-off after each note. You can hardly see that in Logic, not even in a monitor object after the MIDI Click, but MIDI Monitor shows it clearly. We have of course to get rid of this note-off. Would we convert it also, we would get two events per beat instead of one.
I guess what you want at the transformer's output is Control Change on channel 1, with number 20 and the highest value (127):
I can see Mode, Condition and Operation entries in the transformer. Various modes - different Cond & Oper parameters depending on mode and 4 elements for each Conditions and Operations lines. Can you advise on what mode I should be using and what Conditions and Operations I should set.
Well, working with transformers needs a bit of analysis.
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Mode:
We want the transformer to process only specific messages and to block everything else. Therefore we set it to the mode "Apply operation and filter non-matching events". This means, only the events that match our criteria in the "Conditions" area will get processed by the settings in the "Operations" area and sent out. Other events are swallowed by the transformer.
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Conditions:
We need to find good criteria to pick our events out of the incoming stream. In this case it is quite easy, because the transformer sits after the MIDI Click. There are only notes C#1 and all on the same channel. To eliminate the note-off we would just accept velocities above zero. But for learning purposes let us do a complete setup ...
First field (Status): We want to process notes.
Second field (Channel): Our notes come on channel 10.
Third field (Pitch): It is a C#1.
Fourth field (Velocity): Everything but zero. This should remove the note-off.
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Operations:
After we've set our criteria, we can be sure that we process only note C#1 on channel 10 with velocities higher than 0. Nothing else. What do we want to do with them? I think they should migrate from Note to Control Change, go to channel 1, turn into controller number 20 and - which value? Let's say 127, the target device should be happy with that.
First field (Status): Control Change.
Second field (Channel): 1.
Third field (not labeled, this is the controller number): 20.
Fourth field (not labeled, this is the controller value): 127.
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The complete transformer setup looks like this:
Attention:
In the example above we set the coutput channel in the "Conditions" area. For that set your instrument icon to "All" channels. Then the channel number is under control of the transformer.
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Simplified transformer setting:
The full setup above is not always necessary. Remember, there are only notes coming in, all on the same channel and with the same pitch. Setting the velocity to avoid the note-offs would be enough. For the "Conditions" it depends. Yes we have to set the Control Change message type. Do we care about the channel? Probably not if the target device doesn't care. We have to set the controller number. Do we care about the controller value?
A simplified setup may look like the screenshot below:
It is a personal preference if you prefer to set everything as exactly as possible or just the mode, conditions and operations you really need. And it depends on the type of environment patch. The most important thing is that you plan your patch, even if it is only one transformer. Check the messages with monitor objects in Logic and check them with MIDI Monitor. The Environment is a kind of graphical programming language and the better your plan and settings are, the more reliable is the result.
There is much more to say, especially about the transformer modes. But I think for now we are through, you should be able to set up your transformer and to tweak it if you need something different than you originally thought.
