Is there a way to automate the midi channel of an instrument track?

Cubase
#1

Hello Forum!

This may be a silly question, but is there a way of automating the midi channel of an instrument track?

My reasoning -
I have a Kontakt instrument, let’s say it’s a guitar, I have 3 patches loaded up, 1 - Single notes, 2 - Chords, 3 - Octaves.
I want to be able to swap the midi channel at any point in the track to each of those articulations.
I don’t want three separate tracks so I can keep the amount of tracks in the template down and for ease when exporting to notation software.

Ideally I’d like to be able to change the midi channel of the track as I go along. Or maybe there is a better way to do what I’m trying?

Very many thanks in advance,

Ethan

#2

You can set the MIDI Channel of the notes.

#3

So would that mean I’d have to play the notes in first THEN change them to trigger a different midi channel?
I don’t think that will work for what I need as I’d need the midi to be changed before I played in.

#4

Then you have to have multiple tracks.

#5

Ugh, That’s disappointing. Thank you for clarifying for me! Much appreciated.

#6

I have a MIDI keyboard that I can change MIDI channel on the fly with two buttons. Cubase does not channelize the incoming MIDI data. So if you send channel 1 in, it will be recorded on channel 1. It does channelize the outgoing messages.

#7

My point of bringing up the channelizing is that even if you could set the output on the fly, that would not be the channel associated with the note. The note itself carries channel data based on what is being sent in. Even if you got the switching working perfect in Cubase, the channel data would be wrong when exported.

#8

Yes, I think I understand what you mean.

#9

I believe that setting output MIDI channel to “any” means that the note data (as recorded) is not changed.

#10

Indeed.

#11

Hi there, thanks for your input, but this doesn’t help my issue. What I’m trying to do is have 3 instruments on one instance of Kontakt, then use midi channel changes to swap between them on the one track. Obviously recording those changes like key switches.

But it seems this can’t be done.

#12

You can do that using Expression Maps, that’s one of the reasons why they were invented. What you’re trying to do is so easy to setup that you could make simple temporary maps for single projects. Of course you should save setups you find yourself using often as presets to save time.

#13

Some virtual instruments you need to enable the multiple outputs in the VSTi settings when adding it; has an “e” next to the name of the virtual instrument in the list.

Good luck, good producitons, man!

#14

Amazing! Thank you so much, this is exactly the pointer I needed. I shall have a look into this and try and figure them out. Thanks again.