As much as I have used MIDI in performance over the years, and my rig in the Motown band was AMAZING to see in action, when I sit at a computer I am a total MIDIot. I know some controller numbers, but I know nothing about SYSex, or the WHY and WHEREFORE of how plugins actually work. I get that you assign a synth to a track and control the synth from a controller, but the HOW it works behind the obvious "you transmit note numbers and velocities to the synth" levels there has to be more. I struggle to get VSTs to work and don't know why a VST and a VSTi are not the same thing. Like Cakewalk's TSS-1 as an example (in Real Band). I can copy it from one computer to another, search for it on the new computer, but unless Cakewalk is installed I can't detect it or load it into RB. And there's when the WHY questions start. It's a file names TSS-1.dll like every other VST instrument I have, yet I can't make it work without the laborious and space eating installation of Cakewalk on a just freshly wiped computer that now runs Win 11, a program that I don't really want and won't use. Yet I may have to install Cakewalk to use TSS-1, which is a really handy synth. I don't even know what to copy from the old computer (downstairs) to the new installation (upstairs).

I feel like I did when I was 4 and sat down at a piano for the first time. Totally new world to me and I am lost. I am sure there are things about MIDI that I don't even need to know, but I don't understand why VSTs don't just work. very video I find is DAW specific. How to use TSS-1 on FL Studio. How to use it on Reaper. How to use it on Cakewalk. I just want to use it on Real Band. (Wiping my computer to put Win 11 on it also erased Pro Tools but as little as I used it, I won't even reload it.)

All I want to do is keep my VSTs in a folder called "64bit VST" and have them work.

Last edited by eddie1261; 09/16/22 03:59 AM.
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.