Recording multiple MIDI channels simultaneously

Even if you're a one-finger player, there may be times when you want to record several MIDI parts at the same time. Ian Waugh explains how to do it all at once...

Many folks build up a song by recording one part at a time, perhaps on a keyboard or MIDI guitar. And that's fine, but there may be times when it would be helpful to record several MIDI parts simultaneously.

One example is the organ player whose organ transmits three MIDI parts on three separate MIDI channels from the two manuals and the pedals. Another example is the adept keyboard player who might prefer to record left and right hand parts at the same time using Keyboard Split but keep the two parts separate in the sequencer. Yet another example might be if you want to jam along with a fellow musician on another keyboard, say, and record both parts at the same time.

Finally, you might have a MIDI arrangement in a hardware sequencer or an old keyboard and want to transfer it to your computer. The most obvious way to so this would be to save it to disk as a Standard MIDI File and import it into your sequencer but this may not always be possible. If you're using a Mac, for instance, they don't have floppy drives any more (ah, the breadth of Apple's vision) so that would be impossible.

So, let's see how to record several MIDI parts at the same time.

Record making

In most cases it's very easy any you may already have worked this one out for yourself. Most sequencers will happily record data on several MIDI channels at the same time on the same track. You simply connect the MIDI output or outputs to your system's MIDI input, select a track for recording and off you go.

Now, one thing tends to happen in these situations. Most sequencers adopt a system that routes data arriving on a MIDI track out through the MIDI channel the track is set to.

So, for example, if your MIDI keyboard is set to transmit on MIDI channel 1, you can set up track 1 in the sequencer to transmit on MIDI channel 1, track 2 to transmit on channel 2 and so on. Route the output to a sound module or virtual instruments and you can play different sounds simply by highlighting different tracks.

So, if you record data from several MIDI channels on one track, as you do so it will all play with the same sound. This may be totally useless for live playing but not a problem for transferring pre-recorded MIDI files from other sources. It may also be quite acceptable for recording from an organ or a split keyboard.

However, one of the really neat things about MIDI is that you can change the sound that any part uses to playback simply by reassigning its MIDI channel to another program number or sound. To help do this, most sequencers have a Split, Demix by MIDI Channel or Explode by Channel function that splits out each MIDI channel and puts it on its own track.

Multirecord in Cubase

Some sequencers have a Multirecord mode which is even more useful. We'll see how it works in Steinberg's Cubase sequencer.

It can record several MIDI channels simultaneously and, what's more, it automatically splits the channels onto separate tracks during recording, allowing you to play each channel with a different sound. This would be useful for recording an organ, a split keyboard or for jamming along with a friend.

Here's how you set it up. From the Multirecord section of the Options menu, make sure Active and Channel Split are both ticked. This adds an R column to the Inspector.

Click in the R column of the first track and select the first entry from the pop-up menu. For the second track, select the second entry and so on. This will assign data on incoming MIDI channels 1 to 4 to tracks 1 to 4 respectively.

You can now assign each track to different sounds so incoming data on several MIDI channels will play using the sounds you have set up.

 

Ian Waugh
Read More of Ian's music reviews and tips at www.making-music.com