[LAU] midi channels....

[Stephen Doonan]

Grammostola Rosea wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> When I load an soundfont with all different sounds in it, i don't have 
> problems with sound...
> 
> But how should my setup be when I want to play with rosegarden or 
> qtractor and qsynth with an soundfont with one instrument?
> 
> Thanks in advance,


"load a soundfont"? Into Qsynth? Into your sound card memory? Somewhere 
else?

"Play with rosegarden or qtractor and qsynth"? You mean record MIDI into 
rosegarden or qtractor and then send that MIDI data to qsynth to produce 
sounds?

MIDI data can come from many places (a piano-like keyboard, electronic 
drum set, virtual MIDI keyboard in a computer, etc.). Those devices are 
typically set (by default or by the user) to send their MIDI data on one 
channel (of the 16 standard MIDI channels available), although it is 
usually also possible to transmit the same MIDI data on all 16 channels 
at the same time (although this is not often necessary or useful).

To record the MIDI data in qtractor or rosegarden, it doesn't matter 
which channel the MIDI data is transmitted on. Just make sure that the 
MIDI recorder ("sequencer") is receiving that data and--during the 
recording process--is depositing that MIDI data onto a track.

After the MIDI data is recorded, the MIDI channel it was received on 
becomes irrelevant. You can assign whatever MIDI channel you like to 
each track, so that the MIDI data of each track can be sent to qsynth or 
an external MIDI-triggered tone generator or wherever, through whichever 
MIDI channel you assign to each individual track of recorded MIDI data.

You can set 2 or more tracks to transmit using the same MIDI channel, 
which means that both tracks are likely to trigger the same sound in the 
MIDI-triggered tone-generator like qsynth; or you can assign different 
MIDI channels (one channel per track) to each of the tracks, and if 
qsynth is set up to have a different sound on each of those channels, 
the MIDI data sent by each track will trigger a different sound.

Just remember that a MIDI _input_ channel is important to know for 
recording purposes, but it does not have to match the MIDI _output_ 
channel (one channel can be used to receive and record the data, another 
channel to send and play it, for example), and that more than one track 
(all tracks, if you want) can be set to transmit on the same channel, or 
any track can be set to transmit on a separate, different channel (of 
the 16 standard MIDI channels).

I hope that makes sense. :-)

Steve