In a thread over on vi-control I was asked if I could share the keyswitch re-mapping template (click to download) that I use. If it’s unclear, please leave a comment or go to this thread over on vi-control.
I have a separate 2 octave keyboard (an old Oxygen8) that I use exclusively for keyswitching. I remap every new instrument so that the keyswitches are as consistent as possible, meaning legato is always on one and the same key, spiccato on the same key and so on…
Please note that you can use the template below with any keyswitched instrument from any manufacturer and any VSTi. All the transformations are done before the MIDI signal hits the VSTi.
MIDI signal routing
Open the environment window and look at the MIDI routing: The very first thing that happens is in the “Clicks&Ports” layer. All Oxygen8 MIDI will be transformed to channel 2.
The real transformations happens on the “VE Special Edition” layer. It would be a bit too much to explain all the transformations in text. In short: every transformer maps the incoming note of the Oxygen8 to the note that the sampler instrument reacts to. Because these transformations are all done before reaching the VSTi this method works for any kind of VSTi .
The transformers at the end of the chain are there to quickly map controllers to cc numbers in the VSTi. That way, I never have to program the hardware to send a specific cc-message. Because those assignments are often lost when resetting the hardware. Which, as you may well know, has to be done every so often.