Old MIDI questions

[pascual]

This puzzle might make it sound like I’m a complete noob. Mind you, I’ve been making music with my computer for 20 years. I have an electronic band and regularly perform and Dj.
My setup is pretty simple. A main mixer hubs my mics, bass, guitar, and computer with a new Key-lab midi keyboard.

It all works pretty well.
For different tracks I link the controller to different synths and samplers in ableton, and use the QWERTY keys to switch between channels and midi input.
Still, there’s many midi features that I have never used or understood. One of the main mysteries is ‘midi channels’. I have never changed a midi channel and don’t even know why I would do that. As far as I know I’m always on ch.1.
Am I missing out on something?
Keyboard split? Don’t know either.
Saving slider and knob mappings for different synths and being able to load those in new projects? Haven’t been able to succeed at this.

Anyway. Can someone come over to my house and guide me through it all? I’ll cook, make coffee, open some beers, roll a spliff and then we can take a beach walk break.

Or maybe some words of wisdom.
Peace,
B.

[thecontrolcentre]

Multiple midi channels means you can address different voices on a mulitimbral synth or sampler. Also you can send midi with different patterns to multiple synths (responding on different midi channels). Hope this helps. If not I can drop by for a smoke sometime.

[NTO]

Keyboard split is often defined within the keyboard, here down one channel, upward another. Synth will do same for patches rather than channel.
For plug patch saving, sure live has some way, but don't use it. Check their docs/ utube...

[thecontrolcentre]

The way to save synth settings in Live is to drop the synth into an instrument rack, set up knob assignments and midi channel, then save (as instrument rack) into your Live library.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/instr ... ect-racks/

[pascual]

The way to save synth settings in Live is to drop the synth into an instrument rack, set up knob assignments and midi channel, then save (as instrument rack) into your Live library.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/instr ... ect-racks/

Well, thank y'all for the feedback. I swear though, that I did try that approach. I mapped all the necessary knobs and sliders to Tal-u-no, grouped it in an instrument rack, saved to my instrument presets, and when I reopened it was all gone. :-/
Must be a particular step/switch/setting i forgot. Will try again...

[pascual]

Multiple midi channels means you can address different voices on a mulitimbral synth or sampler. Also you can send midi with different patterns to multiple synths (responding on different midi channels). Hope this helps. If not I can drop by for a smoke sometime.

Does this mean that, say, for live purposes I can have my controller on channel 1 mapped to vst synth a, channel 2 to vst synth b, channel 3 to vst effect x, and channel 4 to vst effect y? por ejemplo....
So, mid track, on the fly and without hunching over the computer I can just use the controller midi channel change buttons to access different sounds/effects? True dat?

[thecontrolcentre]

Did you try dropping the synth into a rack then assigning midi controls using the racks macro?

[thecontrolcentre]

Multiple midi channels means you can address different voices on a mulitimbral synth or sampler. Also you can send midi with different patterns to multiple synths (responding on different midi channels). Hope this helps. If not I can drop by for a smoke sometime.

Does this mean that, say, for live purposes I can have my controller on channel 1 mapped to vst synth a, channel 2 to vst synth b, channel 3 to vst effect x, and channel 4 to vst effect y? por ejemplo....
So, mid track, on the fly and without hunching over the computer I can just use the controller midi channel change buttons to access different sounds/effects? True dat?

I don't know if it works with VSTs (might do), but it works with hardware external effects & instruments.

[fmr]

Multiple midi channels means you can address different voices on a mulitimbral synth or sampler. Also you can send midi with different patterns to multiple synths (responding on different midi channels). Hope this helps. If not I can drop by for a smoke sometime.

Does this mean that, say, for live purposes I can have my controller on channel 1 mapped to vst synth a, channel 2 to vst synth b, channel 3 to vst effect x, and channel 4 to vst effect y? por ejemplo....
So, mid track, on the fly and without hunching over the computer I can just use the controller midi channel change buttons to access different sounds/effects? True dat?

I don't know if it works with VSTs (might do), but it works with hardware external effects & instruments.

If you had a host where MIDI is connected to all the instruments at the same time (for example Vienna Ensemble Pro) yes, you could do that.

In a DAW, you would need to have all tracks record enabled (in order to be able to receive MIDI), and define each track for a different MIDI channel (it will only record messages coming from that channel), and monitoring turned on.

With the host set that way, you would just need to change the MIDI channel your controller is sending, and it will play the instrument which track is set to receive on that same channel (the other won't play.

With a multi-channel VST instrument, like Kontakt, for example, you can have a Multi with 16 instruments, each configured for it's own MIDI channel. Only the channel your controller is sending will play.

In theory, it's how it works, however, there may be need for some extra configurations, depending on the host. I don't have Live, so I cannot help you with that particular one.

[pascual]

Multiple midi channels means you can address different voices on a mulitimbral synth or sampler. Also you can send midi with different patterns to multiple synths (responding on different midi channels). Hope this helps. If not I can drop by for a smoke sometime.

Does this mean that, say, for live purposes I can have my controller on channel 1 mapped to vst synth a, channel 2 to vst synth b, channel 3 to vst effect x, and channel 4 to vst effect y? por ejemplo....
So, mid track, on the fly and without hunching over the computer I can just use the controller midi channel change buttons to access different sounds/effects? True dat?

I don't know if it works with VSTs (might do), but it works with hardware external effects & instruments.

If you had a host where MIDI is connected to all the instruments at the same time (for example Vienna Ensemble Pro) yes, you could do that.

In a DAW, you would need to have all tracks record enabled (in order to be able to receive MIDI), and define each track for a different MIDI channel....

Thank you!!

[pascual]

The way to save synth settings in Live is to drop the synth into an instrument rack, set up knob assignments and midi channel, then save (as instrument rack) into your Live library.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/instr ... ect-racks/

Well, thank y'all for the feedback. I swear though, that I did try that approach. I mapped all the necessary knobs and sliders to Tal-u-no, grouped it in an instrument rack, saved to my instrument presets, and when I reopened it was all gone. :-/
Must be a particular step/switch/setting i forgot. Will try again...

Not working.
The steps im taking are the following.

1. KeyLab map select user 1. (Or else Ableton doesn't pick up slider movements)
2. Load Vst (Tal-U-no) Kintopp instrument rack.
3. Map macros to different parameters.
4. Link the macros to knobs/sliders.
5. Save instrument rack to presets in Ableton.
6. Close project.
7. Open new project, load preset rack. Its all there. Macros are mapped to parameters but not to the midi controller.

?

[Reefius]

Back in the days I had just one MIDI out on my Atari ST and several hardware synths. There were no VST's back then and also no USB MIDI. The only way to 'talk' to synths was by using 5-pin DIN MIDI cables.
Most synths had MIDI in, MIDI out and MIDI thru, so the trick was to build a 'chain' from Atari MIDI out to synth 1 MIDI in, then from synth 1 MIDI thru to synth 2 MIDI in, until all synths were connected.
This is where MIDI channels came in: Synth 1 was set to only receive on MIDI channel 1, synth 2 on channel 2, ...
With this setup it was possible to use 16 synths using only one MIDI out port.

Today every modern hardware synth has its own dedicated MIDI port via USB and VSTi's use the DAW's internal routing, making different MIDI channels obsolete (unless you're using multitimbral synths).

[pascual]

The way to save synth settings in Live is to drop the synth into an instrument rack, set up knob assignments and midi channel, then save (as instrument rack) into your Live library.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/instr ... ect-racks/

Well, thank y'all for the feedback. I swear though, that I did try that approach. I mapped all the necessary knobs and sliders to Tal-u-no, grouped it in an instrument rack, saved to my instrument presets, and when I reopened it was all gone. :-/
Must be a particular step/switch/setting i forgot. Will try again...

Not working.
The steps im taking are the following.

1. KeyLab map select user 1. (Or else Ableton doesn't pick up slider movements)
2. Load Vst (Tal-U-no) Kintopp instrument rack.
3. Map macros to different parameters.
4. Link the macros to knobs/sliders.
5. Save instrument rack to presets in Ableton.
6. Close project.
7. Open new project, load preset rack. Its all there. Macros are mapped to parameters but not to the midi controller.

?

I made it work following this tutorial..

https://youtu.be/y-kiQMfJ3jE

It requires some system log editing inside ableton files, but pretty straightforward. Haven’t tested Ed it with more than one synth but it works.