Is there a guide on how to setup midi drones in a DAW?

Have you looked on the online manual yet, as all the information should be found there according to some synfire users ?

There is a video tutorial about setting up sounds, it doesnt actually show using a midi drone, but the work flow should be the same as using an external midi device except you select the midi drone, so hopefully that will help. Basically, drag the drone onto the track and tell synfire what type of instrument you've connected to that drone in the daw.

(https://users.cognitone.com/tutorial/sound-assignment-setup)

The Cognitone Drone is a VST, VST3 or AudioUnit plug-in that you can load into a DAW. It should appear in the plug-in browsers and menus of you DAW, unless you have installed it to a directory the DAW is not looking into when it scans for plug-ins (Windows).

So if you DAW is not looking ( canot find) for the plug-in , it will not show up

Freke70,

A few months ago I responded to another user as to how to set up MIDI Drones in Studio One. You can read my comments here:

https://users.cognitone.com/topic/midi-fx-drones

If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

i did a testsetup in Cubase with one drone in Cubase and one track in Synfire and it seems to be working: see pic
I play a track in Synfire and the soundmodule sits in Cubase 
If you can't figure it out, then i can write it down in steps.
HTH

Freke70,

After reading over your post once more, just a few things to keep in mind:

1. You must load the MIDI Drone in Studio One first before it will appear in Synfire. Otherwise, Synfire cannot "see" what channel you want to route to.

2. If I understand you correctly, you want to know how to assign an instrument to send to the MIDI Drone in Studio One. Is this right? If so, remember that you are not sending an instrument from Synfire to Studio One. You are only sending MIDI data to control an instrument VST that you've already loaded in Studio One. So once you have your MIDI Drone set up in Studio One, you will have to route it to an instrument (see the link for how to do that in my previoius reply to your post). After that you will see the MIDI Drone in Synfire. Drag that to the track and follow the instructions in the YouTube video in blacksun's reply.

So your steps should look like this (after you've opened Studio One):

1. Drag an instrument VST of your choice onto a Studio One track (in my example above, I chose MODO Bass).

2. Open the Mix panel in Studio One, right click and choose "Add FX Channel"

3. Insert a Cognitone MIDI Drone in the FX Channel you just created.

4. To route that MIDI Drone to the VST you loaded, go the the Studio One Inspector.

5. Now you will see the corresponding MIDI Drone in Synfire. Drag that on to the arrangment and follow the prompts.

6. You should now be able to send MIDI from Synfire to Studio One.

If something is not clear, feel free to ask more questions.

The audio Midi setup tab in Synfire is the place to connect a midi drone ( not for now  a midi fx drone)  to a daw
Can you do this ?

Hmmm, from what I can tell it looks like you're doing the same thing I do when I set up a MIDI Drone and I haven't had any issues so far. I wish that I could load Synfire and go over my steps again to make sure that I didn't miss something. Unfortunately (for me), my hard drive crashed a couple of weeks ago, so I no longer have access to my  Windows Administrator profile. And it looks like I'm unable to use Synfire on any of the secondary profiles. I'm planning to build a new computer, but until that time I don't have access to Synfire.

From reading your initial post, it sounds like what you were doing at first would show a corresponding MIDI Drone in Synfire. Have you tried doing that again? Do you see a Drone module in Synfire when you trace your original steps?

From your video it can be seen that you are on Synfire Express. MIDI FX drones are a Pro feature, though.

(https://docs.cognitone.com/synfire/EN/references/FeatureComparison.html)

However, it is of course confusing for the user that the MIDI FX drone plugin itself comes with Express, but is merely inaccessible in Synfire.

Very confusing indeed, mainly because it worked on synfire express 1.

No, the MIDI FX drone is new with Synfire 2.

The standard MIDI drone is still available, but that one shows up as audio drone. It is accessible like in Synfire 1 (probably also in Express, I guess), i. e. you have just to select the "MIDI only" checkbox at the rack module. So, there are three different drone versions now: Audio drones, MIDI drones (that show up as audio drones) and MIDI FX drones (that show up as effect plugins in the DAW). Probably only the latter are not available in Synfire Express. But I can't test that.

> And it looks like I'm unable to use Synfire on any of the secondary profiles

Side note: I am using Synfire as a non-admin user on Win 10. (In fact, I try to do all my work except system management with a non-admin account.) Various music applications have some problems initially when set up like this, and usually it is just some with accessing certain files or access rights (e.g., data might be installed in the admin user account during installation -- which I also do as an admin -- that is then not readable with a user account).

I do not remember exactly how I resolved using Synfire with a user account, but it seems that at least some of the Synfire data is stored now under C:\Users\Public\Documents\Synfire\. Perhaps you want to check whether this is also the case for you and whether as your non-admin user you have read-access rights to that folder and all its content.

> there are three different drone versions now: Audio drones, MIDI drones (that show up as audio drones) and MIDI FX drones (that show up as effect plugins in the DAW).

Oh! Can we have an official confirmation whether or not this is the case, or whether this is just the quirky behaviour of different DAWs and their handling of MIDI drones?

It could perhaps be useful if the discussion of MIDI drones would be more detailed in the manual (considering the discussions here in the forum). So far, it seems the discussion in the manual focusses on (audio) drones, and MIDI drones are only mentioned in passing. The link below showns all I found so far on actual MIDI drone details in the manual.

(https://docs.cognitone.com/synfire/EN/concepts/Drone.html#concept.audio…)

(https://docs.cognitone.com/synfire/EN/interface/DialogSoundAssignWizard…)

Oh! Can we have an official confirmation whether or not this is the case, 

That the two versions of the standard drone (or call it two modes) still exist is obvious, since the "Midi-Only" checkbox is still there (and because I use only this version of the MIDI drone). These appear as DAW Drones (Audio) in the Rack Module Library even with the "Midi only" checkbox enabled.

And in addition, there are the new drones that appear in the Rack Module Library as DAW Drones (MIDI). This kind of drones, however, I can not use in Cubase, because there the routing does not work with it. And in Synfire Express they are not available. But I'm pretty sure that you can still switch a standard drone into Midi only mode in Express. Just like you did it in Synfire 1.

I hope this is going to be better documented how and which drones to use for a DAW
In my case for Cubase 

In the loom video : the right bar in Synfire : what instrument selected ? : it must be the DAW instrument as a drone

See my enclosed picture here on forum: : The green colored drone sound assignment
You can assign this drone from another instrument what is probably now  showing up for your instrument track 
( use the bottom or top icon ..try this out )( i thought the bottom one) 

As you use synfire express, there is only  a midi drone to use as i understand it correct
 

Yes, that is the right one: now add a figure to the instrument track and for the drone in DAW: option.. play by synfire. 
Now you can play the instrument track in Synfire and  the soundmodule sits in your DAW.

It is also possible to record direct in your DAW working in Synfire with synchronization options for transport ?
But dragging and dropping midi from Synfire to DAW if you satisfied and go further in DAW for adding audio and for mixing to get the final arrangment.

Now you can create templates with drones for your DAW with Synfire.
I haven't done it yet for an FX midi drone, so need to try it all out.
Cubase 12 does not support synchronization for transport, so you have to go back to version 9 
I also bought VEP (vienna ensemble pro) on sale last year ( black friday,125, euros) and with this you can also create templates for your soundsetup. 
The CPU load is less with VEP and you are more flexible I think with a soundtemplate setup, but it does get more complicated.
I wonder if you use say 10 instruments in Synfire with drones if a VEP software is necessary ?

Strangely, reopening drone setup on windows computer now gives problems , as instrument in synfire cannot be heard in Cubase.
Apparently the same audio driver is called by Synfire and Cubase?
When creating the drone setup in Cubase, it did function properly at first and I could play back what was created in Synfire on the instrument track.
Known problem is that 2 audio programs cannot work simultaneously in Windows, while on the Mac computer they can.
Note: don't know if there is talk of using 1 audio driver for 2 audio programmes here in this setup ?
This audio problem no longer occurs when using the VEP ( vienna pro ensemble software).