i'll do my best to answer this coherently
i'm sick with a stomach bug so i just took a fairly massive quantity of herb, so i hope this makes sense.
Basically, your midi keyboard is being routed to the 'active' channel in software, then those midi messages are being passed on out to the MPC
pretty much, expect of the active channel part is a little different. using the SWS extension (basically just additional actions for REAPER) i used the "snapshot" function to create different versions of my MIDI keyboard track. the different snapshots are of the MIDI keyboard sending MIDI to different channels of my MPC. thus, snapshot 1 is the MIDI keyboard track sending all of its data to the MPC on ch 1... snapshot 2 = ch 2, etc.
So all the sequencing is happening actually in the MPC, reading the midi spit out from the computer, then spitting it back to the computer on playback. So you can work out the longer sequences in the MPC, then just record the output back into Reaper.
exactly. with no noticeable added latency. the MPC is like a selective net, catching and/or passing through all received MIDI per channel. this is extra flexible because i could either use a VSTi on said channel OR onboard PGMs in the MPC, and then i can use the CCs in the MPC's pgm mixer OR pass them back into REAPER to control VST effects applied to the MPC sounds.
I'm most curious about the pre-setup midi CC messages and how you saved all those with the vstis. I'm not a huge reaper user, and never heard of a 'macro' for it before, so forgive me if that's a basic question.
macro is basically "custom actions." reaper is very "action driven" which i love, because you can put them on any key, midi note, midi cc, etc. you can chain a number of them together and then use them the same way as a regular action. you can even create custom actions combining other custom actions. the whole thing is very reflexive and pretty damned easy considering how complex the operations are.
regarding the pre-setup midi cc messages: i created a template track set to midi input ch 1 and then learned all the controls on my radium knobs/sliders the way i wanted to use them repeatedly (this is a great way to become quick with your parameters, too. muscle memory > mouse every time). i then saved the learned VSTis as FX chains - that is, an FX chain containing only 1 effect: the vsti. then, i created an action to do the following:
1- open the FX browser window for me to select the FX chain (learned Vsti) i want
2- prompt to continue (giving me time to select the FX)
3- reassign all the learn channels to the active MIDI track channel (basically, whatever track i'm currently using)
4- view the vsti for visual feedback.
i hope that made sense.
