Hello Cubase users,
Can someone explain this situation to me? I had to export a drum track from Cubase to Dorico. It wasn’t behaving as expected. So I checked and found it wasn’t assigned to MIDI Channel 10, but instead was on Channel 1. In fact, I checked further and found that every instrument in the project was assigned to Channel 1, although the project was playing back just fine.
So here are my questions…
(1) The score was imported from an old version of Cubase. Would that make a difference?
(2) If I add new channels, does Cubase not automatically assign them to different MIDI tracks?
(3) I thought percusssion could only play on Channell 10, but it looks like it can play on any channel. Is that right?
(4) If every instrument is playing on Channel 1, does that mean multiple copies of the Halion synth are running to play them back?#
Thanks for any advice.
(1) No
(2) No
(3) All Channels
(4) No
To clarify: Each track is usually connected to a VSTi. The VSTi decides what is played. A VSTi can provide different instruments or different articulations for the same instrument on different channels. The tracks are fully independent from each other.
If you go into the piano roll and click a note you can see in the info bar at the top, that the channel is set to 1. You can select any channel you like. That also means that within one part you can have single midi notes output to different channels.
IIRC you can also select a channel to which you want to output your midi in the Inspector.
As for drums on channel 10: This is just a convention. You can play drums on whatever channel you like.
Thanks mk1x86. That’s really helpful. All the best
Drums on midi channel 10 originates from the General Midi and Yamaha XG standards:
- Additional info. If you configure all instruments on midi channel 1 within one instance (one instrument track) of Halion. So you configure multiple slots all receiving on channel 1, it means you are actually layering these instruments because they are all responding to the same midi data. If you want them to respond separately you should create multiple instances of Halion or you could set the instrument slots to different midi channels. You can then create midi tracks transmitting to these other midi channels of this instance of Halion. But when doing this be aware of the limitations of midi channels. You can’t insert audio vst effects/inserts on midi channels. You can only do this within the Halion instance because that’s where the audio is happening. If you absolutely need to insert audio effects/inserts you can’t use within Halion you must create separate Instrument tracks using Halion. (Which is a better idea anyway in this case if you ask me?).