Controlling Virtual Instruments
You have your VIs and you want to make some noise with them. Since many VIs are keyboard oriented, or at least are related to traditional keyboard instruments, a MIDI keyboard controller is an obvious choice to manage your VIs. If you're not a keyboardist or are looking for alternative ways to control VIs, don't despair! VIs can respond to a variety of different kinds of input. How you control your VIs can be as personal as your music! You can use hardware controllers you actively play, controllers that have nothing but knobs and sliders on them, or simply your computer keyboard and mouse.
Playing Virtual Instruments
VIs can be played by any kind of MIDI input. You can use your mouse to create and edit MIDI information in your DAW's MIDI editors. You can even use your computer keyboard to play notes into your DAW. Those aren't the only alternatives to MIDI keyboards, though. If you play guitar, you can use a MIDI guitar to control VIs. There are MIDI drum kits, MIDI wind controllers, and MIDI pad controllers that can give any musician easy and familiar access to VIs. Just like MIDI keyboard controllers, all you need to use these MIDI controllers with your VIs is a MIDI interface. Many of these nonkey-board MIDI controllers even come with USB capabilities.
Programming Virtual Instruments
Perhaps you've found a VI with a sound that is almost perfect for your song, but you want to tweak it just a little. As you saw in Figure 13-1, there are plenty of on-screen controls that you can manipulate with your mouse, but there are other ways to program your VIs. Many MIDI controllers offer knobs and sliders. These can be assigned to control different parameters in your VIs. This can make programming your VIs much easier because it feels more like using a “real” instrument. Some VI developers even offer hardware units that can be used for programming their VIs, and other third party VIs.
Figure 13-2: A MIDI pad controller: The M-Audio Trigger Finger Courtesy of Avid Technology, Inc.
