Mixing MIDI

If you're using any VST, LV2 or DSSI instrument plugins under qtractor it is not currently possible to export the audio from these tracks without mixing their content down to audio tracks first. I wouldn't have a prob with this if qtractor would help automate this process as I find it tedious - which is a shame as I really enjoy qtractor otherwise.

As I understand it, here are the steps required to mix a MIDI tracks with instrument plugins down to audio tracks:

1 - Create a new audio track for each of your MIDI plugin tracks. qtractor has no way to batch create new tracks so this must be done one at a time.

2 - Enable dedicated JACK audio outputs for each plugin used. This has to be done manually for each plugin by selecting 'Dedicated' from the Audio submenu of the plugins context menu. I've just requested this be automated when you add a plugin to a track.

3 - Create a new mono or stereo input bus for every audio track to be used to mix down to. qtractor has no way to batch create buses so each one must be done individually.

4 - The next step is to pair each new input bus with its associated audio track by editing each tracks bus input setting

5 - Individually connect the dedicated JACK audio outputs of your MIDI tracks to their corresponding audio tracks (input buses)

I had to do this for 15+ MIDI tracks the other day - it took a good 30m or so of focused, repetitive clicking, creating tracks, buses and connecting them all up when I see no reason why this whole process couldn't be automated and done almost instantly. qtractor would greatly benefit from a feature that would auto-create the audio tracks, their input buses, assign the input buses to the audio tracks and make the relevant JACK connections for any number of selected MIDI plugin tracks. It would be useful to have the option of auto-creating mono or stereo tracks and buses for each selected MIDI track.

Thanks for doing what you can to make this less of a chore Rui!