Thanks jazzmammal. I'm happy to say I understand you're answer - but I don't think I would understand it without having read documentation and tinkered with the RB program AND some vsti's on and off for 2 years now !

For what it's worth - here is my understanding so far. Perhaps it will help others.

Here's what really threw me - the RB keyboard. If I am correct, the RB keyboard can NOT be used to record Midi in RB (at least, not easily without lots of configuration with an accompanying VSTi)

For the longest time, I was trying to record midi from the RB keyboard without my MIDI IN set up - this silly assumption because I somehow managed (stumbled upon) how to set up some VSTi's that have their own keyboards, and was then able to record in RB from the VSTi keyboard as it made sounds and play back through RB - not really aware of all the configuration settings I had managed to 'align' to allow this. Of course, when you tinker and stumble on a working configuration, the initial elating feeling is soon replaced by the realization that you can not REPRODUCE this scenario at will.

For those of you having similar obstacles in onfiguring your VSTi ins/outs, just remember, think of the MIDI IN as a complete and distinct entity from the MIDI OUT - and if you want to be able to play and hear your VSTi while recording it, you must set BOTH MIDI IN and MIDI out properly in terms of MIDI CHANNELS, which must be set properly and match both in the RB "Midi" track AND the VSTi MIDI channel.


Also - Tracks are confusing because RB tracks can be EITHER Midi or Audio - which makes sense musically, but once you switch from one to the other, they are entirely different animals (in most respects) in terms of how they are set up and used. Once an RB midi TRACK is created - you have the choice of effectively recording from that single RB midi TRACK to any one of 16 MIDI channels - and each "MIDI CHANNEL" - not to be confused with a RB "midi" TRACK, really FUNCTIONS in a similar way to our typical conceptual understanding of the word 'track'.

Now, how and why to choose which MIDI CHANNEL you're going to record to is the part where I need more understanding (because of course, it depends what you plan to do later). I'm guessing if you have multiple MIDI MIDI instruments you want to record at the same time (e.g. jamming with your friends - one with a guitar synth and one with a Yamaha keyboard controller playing VSTi sounds through you're RB), you want to record to different MIDI channels (and of course, different RB midi TRACKS), so you can easily edit and tweek the MIDI data recorded from each instrument (guitar synth and keyboard) independently.

Now, I suppose you could easily accidentally record DIFFERENT instruments to the SAME MIDI Channel, using different RB Midi TRACKS, if you're not looking to avoid this situation and work by yourself in writing/recording - especially because the default channel set on each track is the same (MIDI channel ZERO - 0). Not sure why this makes sense as a default, because most VSTi's require you to choose a channel between 1 and 16. Once data from multiple RB "Midi" TRACKS is recorded to the SAME Midi CHANNEL, I'm guessing it can be harder to manipulate.

...perhaps someone understands the recent 'aha' I've had, and explain what I am trying to explain more eloquently. But in writing it out, the real hard lesson is in learning the many different technical parts (hence jazzman said my question should be in multiple threads) to what seems like a straightforward USE case, which is:

Use Case: An RB user would like to play and hear his VSTi's virtual keyboard (e.g. a keyboard displayed on the VSTi plugin) in real time, hear the output live in real time as RB is recording it, and play back the recorded MIDI data, to hear his performance.

Again - a common use case, with what was for me a very steep learning curve. Perhaps RB help should include such a tutorial, since I'm sure many users expect to easily be able to do this in a DAW and someone with very little background in MIDI would likewise probably find it challenging.

Thanks for listening,
Joe

Last edited by Joe V; 02/23/12 03:32 PM.