Play more than 16 instruments

2009-04-13 10:56 am

Hi everybody

Question is in title, how must I do to play more than 16 instruments, I write Ravel's bolero and at end there are 35 instruments.

Thanks for your answers

Re: Play more than 16 instruments

Reply #1 – 2009-04-13 12:54 pm

G'day Alex,
there are several things tecniques that can be used, but the most basic is to share channels amongst like instruments:

If you have 4 Horns, you are most likely able to put all 4 on the same MIDI channel as it is probable there will be no need to have different channel volumes etc. between them.

Then you can put your first and second violins on the same channel - at a pinch, you could add violas to the same channel as the violins. Trumpets share a channel, as do Trombones - I'm sure you see the pattern...

Then, you may have a situation where a double up won't really cut it. So look for another channel where an instrument is silent for the necessary bars and do an instrument change on that channel and put the one you can't double up there - if possible - this may not be an available option. Be creative.

Of course, if you have no need to share the work with others, then you could think about using 2 (or more) synths - NWC allows for this. Also note that you really only have 15 channels per synth as channel 10 is always a drum kit...

Most modern Creative cards have 2 synths. Or you could look into multiple soft synths, or a combination of software and hardware synths (be wary of latency differences here). One possibility is the use of VST and multiple synth implementations using several MIDIYoke (or similar soft cable) connections. Checkout https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=6528.0 for some basic info on VST.

See also:
https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=6486.0
https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=1220.0