16 Apr
2006
16 Apr
'06
2:58 p.m.
Hi All,
What's the canonical way to play a "one instrument" chord
in midi?
Do I send multiple note-on events to the same channel?
Or, should I split them up into different channels, and
make sure that the used channels have the same program
(or patch-value?)?
My intuition says stack up the notes on the one channel.
That would be more analoguous to a band situation where
each channel is an instrument. But, in practice are most
midi synths able to handle enough multiple notes on a channel?
For example a "piano" channel should be able to take up to say
5 notes, and still play them distinctly. Or the same with
a guitar channel where a guitar chord is commonly plucked
on 5 or 6 strings.
I'm using a soft-synth in my developement/learning/experimenting,
but I hope to eventually use hardware midi modules, and not have to
modify my code.
So quick question recap...
"Should I stack up to 6 note-ons on one midi channel, or should
I figure out how to split them up into multiple channels?"
I've been reading up up on general midi issues, but I haven't
seen any relevant docs about this.
thanks for any info/pointers/flames,
--
paul w
16 Apr
16 Apr
3:10 p.m.
Multiple note on events to the same channel, up to the polyphonic
limit of the synth playing the stream. Note that if you exceed the
polyphonic limit the results are not defined. Some synths will kill
older notes while others will ignore the newest notes.
Hope this helps,
Mark
On 4/16/06, paul wisehart <listreader(a)lupulin.net> wrote:
Hi All,
What's the canonical way to play a "one instrument" chord
in midi?
Do I send multiple note-on events to the same channel?
Or, should I split them up into different channels, and
make sure that the used channels have the same program
(or patch-value?)?
My intuition says stack up the notes on the one channel.
That would be more analoguous to a band situation where
each channel is an instrument. But, in practice are most
midi synths able to handle enough multiple notes on a channel?
For example a "piano" channel should be able to take up to say
5 notes, and still play them distinctly. Or the same with
a guitar channel where a guitar chord is commonly plucked
on 5 or 6 strings.
I'm using a soft-synth in my developement/learning/experimenting,
but I hope to eventually use hardware midi modules, and not have to
modify my code.
So quick question recap...
"Should I stack up to 6 note-ons on one midi channel, or should
I figure out how to split them up into multiple channels?"
I've been reading up up on general midi issues, but I haven't
seen any relevant docs about this.
thanks for any info/pointers/flames,
--
paul w
3:10 p.m.
On Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 12:57:39PM -0400, paul wisehart wrote:
What's the canonical way to play a "one instrument" chord
in midi?
Do I send multiple note-on events to the same channel?
Yes.
My intuition says stack up the notes on the one
channel.
That would be more analoguous to a band situation where
each channel is an instrument. But, in practice are most
midi synths able to handle enough multiple notes on a channel?
On common MIDI synths, you can play a patch with all 10 fingers
and bang your head on the keys same time and the number of notes
you will hear depend only on the number of voices the synthesizer
has.
I never heared of a channel related limit. At least in hardware,
MIDI is serial, so it's one event after the other, anyway.
Cheers,
Thorsten Wilms
6:33 p.m.
the general rule is, notes to the same voice share a channel. the
exection to this rule is polyphonic instruments with pitch bends on some
of the notes, i.e. guitar. pitch bend midi events apply to all the
notes in a channel, so if you want to bend just one whilst a chord plays
you'll need more than one "guitar" channel. make sense?
paul wisehart wrote:
Hi All,
What's the canonical way to play a "one instrument" chord
in midi?
Do I send multiple note-on events to the same channel?
Or, should I split them up into different channels, and
make sure that the used channels have the same program
(or patch-value?)?
My intuition says stack up the notes on the one channel.
That would be more analoguous to a band situation where
each channel is an instrument. But, in practice are most
midi synths able to handle enough multiple notes on a channel?
For example a "piano" channel should be able to take up to say
5 notes, and still play them distinctly. Or the same with
a guitar channel where a guitar chord is commonly plucked
on 5 or 6 strings.
I'm using a soft-synth in my developement/learning/experimenting,
but I hope to eventually use hardware midi modules, and not have to
modify my code.
So quick question recap...
"Should I stack up to 6 note-ons on one midi channel, or should
I figure out how to split them up into multiple channels?"
I've been reading up up on general midi issues, but I haven't
seen any relevant docs about this.
thanks for any info/pointers/flames,
--
paul w
6795
days inactive
6798
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Brian Dunn -
Gordonjcp -
Mark Knecht -
paul wisehart -
Thorsten Wilms