Re: [linux-audio-user] midi programming question regarding channels

From: Brian Dunn <job17and9@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Sun Apr 16 2006 - 23:33:08 EEST

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
>
>
>
Received on Mon Apr 17 00:15:04 2006

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon Apr 17 2006 - 00:15:04 EEST