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Topic: Midi Channel Help!! (Read 3304 times) previous topic - next topic

Midi Channel Help!!

I have done searches on this topic, and have found nothing, but there is probably a thread I'm missing. Oh well.. anyway. I was looking through a couple songs on the Noteworthy Scriptorium and most of them sounded great. I checked the staff properties and noticed all the staves were on different and seemingly random channels. When i set them all to channel 1, it sounded completely different and thus horrible. Can anyone help? Thanks.

Re: Midi Channel Help!!

Reply #1 –
Each different instrument sound must be assigned to a different MIDI channel.  Which of the 16 channels each voice takes is immaterial except that usually channel 10 is reserved for percussion, with all percussion staffs using that channel.  To fix your problem, select each staff one at a time and press F2 to bring up staff properties.  Click on the MIDI tab and assign each staff to a different channel, avoiding channel 10 except for whatever percussion parts there may be.  That should fix your problem.  If not, post here again and I or someone else can probably talk you through it.

Re: Midi Channel Help!!

Reply #2 –
Hi Mitchell,
the quick answer is:
consider each midi channel to be a different instrument.

To expand a little: each staff should usually have its own channel.  Apart from percussion/drumkit which normally needs to be channel 10 (though some synths require channel 16) it doesn't really matter which instrument you assign to which channel as long as they are all different.

Of course, this limits you to 15 instruments plus a drum kit but "there are ways".  E.G if you have 2 trumpet staves they can quite often share a midi channel, or if you have 2 instruments that never play at the same time, you could assign them both to the same channel and simply insert instrument patches when you want to change the instrument.

There are lots of techniques in use to get around this limitation and some pitfalls in sharing channels but by and large there are few/no real problems.

Of course, if midi gave us 32 channels then life would be simpler still, but for the truly hungry you can always use multiple synths, each giving 16 channels...  Though this can make it hard to share your work with others who may not have multiple synths installed/available/configured/running...

For myself, I have to date been able to fit fairly comfortably inside the 16 channels.  I know others who notate large orchestral works etc. have had trouble with this limitation.

As you have found, assigning all the staves to one channel does not give the best result...  :)

Lawrie

Re: Midi Channel Help!!

Reply #3 –
Short answer is: Each instrument needs it's own channel. If you insert an instrument patch in a staff, it affects all other staves that share the same channel. Same goes for most multi-point controller options (pitch bend, expression, etc.) A notable exception is key velocity. Each note can have it's own velocity (but this is not easy with NoteWorthy).  That's why you need to replicate the right hand dynamics in the left hand for piano parts even if you set them to the same channel.

Longer answer is: Sometimes, you have to put the same instrument on two staves with different channels e.g., you want to bend one note of a saxophone but leave other sax notes unbent.  Other times, you can put several instruments on the same channel (and/or staff) as long as they never play at the same time. Visualize a bari sax player racking his sax to pick up a bass flute, then returning to the sax for that big ending. It could all go on the same channel with instrument patches in the appropriate places.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Midi Channel Help!!

Reply #4 –
Thanks all, I understand now. But can two instrunments of similar sound be on the same channel? (e.g. Violin and Viola)

Re: Midi Channel Help!!

Reply #5 –
Each MIDI channel can take only one instrument sound and will default to whatever the latest sound is that it finds a command for (control change) in that track.  In NoteworthyComposer a staff usually corresponds to a track and is assigned a free MIDI channel when created.  In practice, a notated violin part and a notated viola part may share the same MIDI channel since their sound is so similar as to be indistinguishable on most synths.  But you wouldn't want, say, a trumpet part and a French horn part to share a channel since their sounds are so different.

Re: Midi Channel Help!!

Reply #6 –
it's own
its own