WISH Item: Song Specific Midi in Automation

[Zionplayer]

Arlo, you know how much I appreciate BH and all of the work and support - you have created a most excellent product. In trying to help I still try to think of ways to improve, and it has become quite a challenge to come up with ideas:

For my worklflow this could be really handy. Idea is for each song I am always attaching Midi Preset for Guitar Patch Change, Gtr Tempo, and a Light Scene Midi. Then in layout I create an automation on Song Select to send these 3 midi's.

Challenge is they differ for each song, so I create hundreds of automations for hundreds of songs.  And if I want to change, say Gtr Patch, I have to change it in Song and in Automation.  Works fine, but:

If there was a "Send Song Midi 1, 2, 3, 4..." in automation I could have 1 automation for all of my songs!

Appreciate you considering.

[arlo]

I'm glad you're liking the product!

Are you sending all these MIDI presets together at the start of the song? If so, you don't need an automation track; you can just turn on Settings > Audio & MIDI > Send MIDI Presets Together.

If you are sending them at different times in the song, then I think you would need different automation tracks anyway because the times will be different.

[Zionplayer]

Little bit of both -
I send Gtr Patch preset, Gtr Set Tempo preset, Set Light Scene 1 preset, Set SpotLight on singer preset as soon as I select the song. 
Then I use a footpedal for "Next Midi" to send the Light Scene 2 preset when the Singer finishes talking/intro, song starts

These 5 presets are specific/stored with each song.

If I could make one Automation that was Send Song Midi 1, Send Song Midi 2, Send Song Midi 3, Send Song Midi 4 I could copy it from Song to Song in Setlist without having to modify it specific to the song each time. (Or even better - On Song Selection with a Multipick list)

As is, Send Midi on Song Selection sends all 5, including the last Light Scene Preset that I need to wait for until ready.

Maybe what I do is move the Light Scene Change out of Song Presets and create an Automation just for that - Then I can Send Midi, and use my pedal for Start Automation...  that might work.  Would just edit the automation for each song one time for the Light Scene 2

Thanks!

[arlo]

Maybe what I do is move the Light Scene Change out of Song Presets and create an Automation just for that

An automation track can't call a preset that isn't attached to the song or the layout. But here are two ways to group your presets without using automation tracks:

Do you need to have your guitar programs loaded during the song introduction? And do you want to use different presets for the introductions of different songs? If no to both, you could attach your "intro" presets to the layout and call Send Layout MIDI from the song selection, and attach your song-specific presets to the song and call Send MIDI from the foot switch. That's the recommended way to have a default scene between songs.

Or you can make two new presets for each song named "[song name] Setup" and "[song name] Start." Attach the presets you want during the song introduction to the Setup preset and attach the presets you want during the song itself to the Start preset. Attach only the Setup and Start presets to the song and turn off the Send MIDI Presets Together setting. Then call Send MIDI from the song selection and Send MIDI Preset 2 from the foot switch.

[Zionplayer]

Had one other thought that would work for me -

If, in Automation, if there was a "Next Midi" option, I could put in 3 (or whatever number) of those Next Midi commands at start of Automation and (assuming it started at the top Midi) it would send the first 3 (or whatever number) in order of attachment. 

I could copy that Automation Song to Song without changes, and let the Song midi assignments change as needed.

[arlo]

You basically want two groups of MIDI presets, one that sends when you select a song and one that sends before you start playing the song. There's nothing being automated while you play in the way that automation tracks were designed to work. The two approaches I suggested would provide what you want without automation tracks.