Question on using my Korg M3 and VSTs on my Mac together live...

[s3000br]

Hey guys, so I play with my church's contemporary band, and I use many different sounds, mainly pianos (acoustic/electric), pads, organs, and some other filler sounds..So right now all I am using is my Korg M3 which is doing a great job, I am able to layer sounds, or split them into different sections on the keyboard, change pitch, footswitch it, etc...but I have some VSTs which I would like to use as well for some songs or part of a song, and I was wondering how could I do that? (btw I have a Macbook Pro)

All I can think of is this:

- From my keyboard's main out go to a "AB Router Pedal" (http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-BOS-AB2-LIST)
-From my keyboard's midi out go to Macbook (VST's)
-From Mac line out go to "AB Router Pedal"
-From "AB Router Pedal" to a Volume Pedal (Just in case the volume is a little hotter or lower)

So pretty much both of them will be playing all the time, but the router pedal will keep one on mute and let the other sound, and whenever I want to hear the other sound I just step on the pedal...What do you guys think? Any other solutions?

Thanks in Advance

[Maximus]

Hmm.. you're thinking about it the wrong way, sure you can do what you describe but its not the most efficient way, get a small mixer (yamaha's MG are nice) to run the M3 and the macbook at the same time, that way you will have no need to adjust your levels when you switch from the M3 to the VST's patches.
The M3 will sound like always, the thing is you will need to create a patch in the M3, a control Patch/Patches with no internal sound asign to it, that way you will access the macbook on a diferent midi channel than the ones you are using on the M3, so they wont sound at the same time, if thats what you want.

and there you go.

BTW are you using traditional midi cables or USB-Midi?

[St0rMl0rD]

Keep in mind Mac OS X machines do not use VSTs, but AU (audio units).

-J

[nikki-k]

Keep in mind Mac OS X machines do not use VSTs, but AU (audio units).

-J

VST is cross-platform. AU=Mac, DX=Windows.

As stated, small mixer. M3 on the way to me, but have not read the manual yet... doesn't the M3 have the ability to accept and pass input audio? Could have sworn there was a pair of (unbalanced) in's? Maybe it is the Fantom I am thinking of? (I know Jem/Frost* was passing through his V-Synth -> Fantom live.. yes?)

[s3000br]

Sorry for the delay, as of right now i have to use MIDI-USB for my mac, my home pc has a midi interface built in, but I didn't get anything like that for the mac. Do you think that would be a problem?

Thanks a lot for the info, it makes a lot more sense now, I never knew you could create control patches, so the same idea would probably be used when playing through a rack, everything would be connect to a mixer, and the control patches on the workstation would send Midi messages telling each rack unit when to play or not right?

[nikki-k]

I have an M3-73, and use the USB -> Computer for MIDI. Works great (so far).

I would just use a small mixer for a stereo out from the M3, plus a stereo out from the Macbook, and then mute/unmute and/or setup the M3 to control everything. All depends on if you want just the M3 to sound, just the VSTi's, or utilize a split on the keyboard (M3) and have one part of the split controlling M3, and the other VSTi's.

If you get lost, the Korg forums and Karma forums are pretty cool, and would be M3 specific... plus, lots of stuff to read, patches, videos on the Karma site, etc.

[osiris]

Doesn't the M3 have sampling ability? Could you not sample the vst and then assign each note or chord of the vst to trigger on one key of whatever M3 sounds you're playing?

Mean's you don't need to buy a small mixer and take both the laptop and M3...

[orphe]

Doesn't the M3 have sampling ability? Could you not sample the vst and then assign each note or chord of the vst to trigger on one key of whatever M3 sounds you're playing?

Mean's you don't need to buy a small mixer and take both the laptop and M3...

M3 has no sampler i think.

Having one empty control patch on the m3 and one muted patch on the laptop and send control changes to it when you want only the m3

[nikki-k]

Absolutely yes, it does have a Sampler. EXB-M256 RAM option adds 256M RAM to the 64M stock onboard for 320M total. Also, you can sample to USB stick/HD, but not play back from it- would have to load back to RAM.

Sampling a VSTi is totally viable (Jem from Frost* is one of many to do so; he uses a Fantom G7 tho). The M3, Fantom, and Motif all can do this, and forthcoming PC3K I would imagine as well. However, sampling in a VSTi means using the filters in the M3 instead of the VSTi itself.

Alternately, you could... use a mixer as stated; hook Macbook to M3 and pass audio through; hook M3 to Macbook and pass audio through.