Complet New Midi Guy

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madcat

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Hello-

I know the concept of midi is easy to understand, but I think it's one of those things that when you get it- you really GET IT. I'm not there, but I wanted to ask if I was thinking about it correctly- feel free to tell me where I'm wrong.

Besides midi as a protocol for electronic equipment to communicate. (With Cubase VST)...

Is this right? Each musical instrument, whether it be a hardware midi keyboard, synth, sampler or drum machine and/or software VST instrument or other- has 16 midi channels each.

So using Cubase as a sequencer this would mean that if I had two VST instruments, a midi keyboard and a Korg Triton- I would have four separate sets of 16 midi channels?

I saw a midi keyboard where you can program 16 channels. If you were using the midi keyboard in conjunction with a VST instrument, would that mean you can change the settings on the keyboard to where you have one sound on channel one- another on channel 2, channel 3 and so on all the way up to 16?
-Then you can flip back and forth to play those different sounds on each channel.

I don't mean polyphony- the sixteen channels are meant to be used for different instrument sounds right?

Can anyone give me a better way to think about midi channels?

Thanks for any insight!
 
I know the concept of midi is easy to understand

Wrong...
I think you'd have better luck reading information already available than having us recite it.
try this. http://www.harmony-central.com/MIDI/

So using Cubase as a sequencer this would mean that if I had two VST instruments, a midi keyboard and a Korg Triton- I would have four separate sets of 16 midi channels?

No. You only have 16 channels. Each track on cubase can be assigned to communicate through 1 of those channels to whichever device you choose. Some devices will accept commands from multiple channels at once. ie; you could have track 1 going out on midi channel 1 to the triton and have that channel programmed to play strings. Track 2 you could assign the output to midi channel 2 - 16 to the triton to play whatever sound you have programmed for that channel on the triton. And so on.
 
A more generic way to think about this is in terms of a MIDI port.

Each port has 16 channels available. A standard MIDI DIN plug is what is used to handle on port's worth of MIDI data. But since is just serial data, any number of proprietary cabling arrangements are possible.

A typical instrument (like my cheapo Yamaha MIDI keyboard) has one MIDI port. Fancier instruments may have multiple ports.
 
Good info from everyone.

Each Midi cable has 16 channels.
Each channel has 128 possible control messages.
Each control message has a resolution of 128 steps.

It does get confusing and once the light finally clicks on it's not so confusing. The hard part is understanding the difference between Audio tracks and channels and Software tracks and channels and Midi tracks and channels because they are all slightly different.
 
Well thank you for your replies and I will read at harmony central, but:
Each Midi cable has 16 channels.
Each channel has 128 possible control messages.
Each port has 16 channels available.
Cubase Power-
If you have only one MIDI port, you will have only sixteen channels of MIDI available using that port. Fortunately, every time you use a Virtual Instrument, you add an additional MIDI port, which means an addition sixteen channels of MIDI.
-->So I have to separate that from Cubase channels?
That's what is confusing. The number of ins and outs or ports does not directly relate to MIDI channels in Cubase...
 
madcat said:
The number of ins and outs or ports does not directly relate to MIDI channels in Cubase...

Right, when using VST instruments, forget about your actual physical MIDI ports for a second.

When you use a VST instrument, picture a little guy behind the screen of your monitor - he plugs a MIDI cable into the back of Cubase (into a virtual MIDI port, if you will) and then that little man runs over to your VST instrument and plugs that MIDI cable into the another MIDI port (that you can't see or touch) and you have another 16 channels of MIDI on that port - even though you don't have another actual port, or another actual module - it's in the computer. That is in addition to whatever you have externally (e.g. More MIDI ports connected to real modules, etc.)

Did that help, I know that it sounds kind of silly, but that is actually how I thought of it when I was learning about MIDI with regard to Cubase and VSTi's.

Then again, I do have an actual little man living in my computer. He tells me to do bad things sometimes.


Brad
 
That's how I need to visualize things though.

Let me go read up a bit more and I'm sure I'll have another question or two that will call for another little man analogy.

I really want to know what I can do with my little midi keyboard, Cubase and a couple free VST synths that I have. I have an audiophile 24/96. I mean 16 channels...hmmm...I can use the midi keyboard to play 16 channels (meaning different sounds) to X number of channels in Cubase?

It's cool, I'll get it.

Thanks again!
 
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