I hate to be a noobie asking dumb questions, stumbling around the interface in ignorance of what is likely some basic and common understandings. I’ve got a bunch of tracks with my own voice with tones making chords, some crystal bowls added in, but then I saw the post of BBC Symphony sounds, then looked up Spitfire Audio app, downloaded the BBC content, and then I also found “LABS” which has some pretty sweet sounding musical instruments.
I can see the BBC Symphony Orchestra and LABS listed in the Plugin Manager, and I’ve used the Virtual Midi Keyboard to insert some of the notes into a media track. My big question is, how do I access the specific instrument to play in my midi track? There is a “Fog Horn” selection from LABS, and I’m loving the sounds of those horns to drop into my midi track. I at one point opened up some window that allowed me to go into all of those different sounds, but I was not aware how to get a selected choice to go into the Midi keyboard, to be recorded into my Midi track.
I hope this is clear what I’m asking. I’ll keep searching and reading, and I appreciate any heads up I get from any of you.
Looking at your other posts, I believe you are using a Mac? It’s best to be explicit about those things, so you can get decent support. I don’t know Mac, nor MS.
The generic answer would be that under “Edit > Preferences > Plugins” there will be some options regarding how and where to look for plugins.
There is a two step process. First you have to add the instrument plugin to the MIDI track, which gets the ability to play sampled sounds, but does not necessarily load any sounds. After the plugin is inserted in the track, you have to click on the plugin to open whatever interface it provides for selecting sounds/samples/patches/instruments (various terms that may be used for different plugins).
The specifics will vary per plugin, so you have to read the user manual for whatever plugin you choose to use.
Oh, yes. I’m on a Mac. Thanks for cluing me in on the importance of making mention of that. I’ll include that in future posts needing technical assistance.
Thanks much for the response. I saw one interface within Ardour the other night that I’ve not been able to return to, which featured all of the instruments and sounds I had downloaded, including “Fog Horns” which had ships, lighthouses, and I could listen to any I selected and play them with the virtual keyboard. I was utterly delighted. Since then, I only find this bank of patches, no matter if I choose LABS or BBC Symphony plugins, and by default for a day, I only seem to get a pipe organ to play, popping around selecting other instruments doesn’t switch the pipe organ. So much doesn’t yet make sense as to why I can’t get consistent results, but I assume operator error at this point as I continue to read and seek better to understand.
This is the default Bank of Patches that I’m seeing, which is pretty exciting, or will be when I click between them and actually have the change of instrument evident. Exciting exploration, but more of a learning curve for me than I anticipated.
Here is how I found to get into the plugins and select the instruments I wanted. I need to go to the Cue or Mix screen’s of the project and then I can double click the name of my MIDI track, which enables me to see the GUI interface. From there, the plugin pops up, and I can browse for the instrument I want, then double click to load it into my track.
And then, here is that dialogue box that pops up after double clicking the track name. I can then move through and select various options of strings, brass, and other instruments. When I see one I like, I double click it, and it loads that as the instrument for that track:
