Drones for Ableton Native Instruments

The ableton instruments aren't true VSTs and cant be used outside of ableton. I've only ever managed to get them to work by using midi drones or via a virtual midi cable. However providing you save your ableton and synfire projects in the right order, everything does load up next time correctly configured.

There is an issue with routing midi out of the midi drones, perhaps as they initially report they output audio, you can only ever route one set of midi data out of the drone and you can't place an instrument on the same track as the drone. A feature request is on the cards to produce a midi effects drone. Once this is available it will simplify things considerably and allow us to use all 16 channels/outputs supported by a midi drone and place instruments on the same track as the drone. I've no idea how long it will be before Cognitone release this.

For all other non-ableton vsti you should be able to select them from within synfire and just switch to ableton to use the vsti interface. Check out the Cognitone video for help on using ableton with synfire ((http://users.cognitone.com/tutorial/synfire-daw-ableton-live)). Also there are a couple of other videos I've made that show how to use ableton automation with drones and also interfacing to ableton instruments ((http://users.cognitone.com/wiki/automating-ableton-live-native-instrume…) and (http://users.cognitone.com/wiki/automation-ableton-live-and-synfire))

I don't seem to be able to make my mind up on how to handle the virus in synfire. It is simpler to have it in a drone as a multi-timberal instrument. Then in synfire you just treat it the same as any multitimberal instrument. I always load or create my sounds in the virus and just give synfire a category and name, channel and which daw drone it is on. I don't bother with device descriptions.

When dragging the midi from the drone you have to add extra midi tracks and setup the routing on each of those tracks to feed it back into the drone (which will then be in local mode). This is the same workflow as you would use with any multitimberal instrument. 

However often I will have the virus on its own midi track in ableton, then add extra midi tracks with midi drones, setting the ableton routing up to feed the different channels on the virus plugin's track. In synfire I just set the category and name and the various midi drones. I find this method easier if Im going to rip synfire from the ableton project at some point, as all I need to is remove the drones (assuming Ive recorded or exported the midi into ableton). I end up with a pure ableton project which I can share with colaborators.

Lastly I do make use of the different plugin outputs on the virus, can't remember if I had problems doing this with the drone. Might be another reason why i sometimes use midi drones rather than a drone with the vsti embedded.

I am really looking forward to the day when Cognitone release a pure midi drone that reports itself as an effect. It will simplify working with ableton and overcome some of the limitations I've encountered working with the two.

Someone else also posted about setting up a rack of midi drones which is a nice way of hiding them in one track.

Lastly, I've been busy with other things so most of the above is at least a year old and may have changed slightly as Synfire is constantly being improved.

This is from memory....(and a bad one at that!)

Track 1 has a cognitone drone on it configured as a midi drone

Track 2 has the ableton live plugin loaded

On track 2, drop the midi from drop box down and select track 1(or what ever it is called)

On track 2, on the 2nd drop downbox (under the midi from box but above the send to one - Post fx), find the entry cognitone drone ( it is something like that, the last entry, the are two that don't work then a gap then the one you want). The turn the monitor setting for this track (2) to In.

That hopefully should help but might be slightly off. If you are still having trouble let me know and I'll fire everything up and check it.

Found an old low quality video I made which shows this

Once the routing is setup, and you are ready to finalise the track in ableton it is probably best to use drag and drop from the drone's title in ableton to drag the midi onto the track rather than using record.