In the Cubase Pro Score Layout and Printing Manuel, it says:
Internally the program organizes the notes into voices by changing their MIDI channel values.
Normally you set it up so that notes with MIDI channel 3 belong to voice 3 etc. > Most of the time
the link between MIDI channels and voices is totally transparent to you as a user> . Sometimes you
can take advantage of this relationship.
Can anybody tell me how to figure out which polyphonic voice is on which channel? I am interested in having 4 different musical parts (violin 1, violin 2, viola, cello) on one track, which is what happens with polyphonic voicing. Is there a way to send the different musical parts to different output channels so that I can put a different instrument on each part. Is this possible? Thanks.
Zaffer
Violins, viola and Cello on the same staff is unusual, isn’t it?
Anyway, yes, this is possible.
Select your staff.
In the Scores menu select “Settings…” then go to Staff (tab) > Polyphonic, and set your voices and their corresponding MIDI channels. Apply.
Then use the Insert function in the extended toolbar to enter your notes in different voices, or, for existing notes, right-click on the notes and une the “Move to Voice …” function to distribute them into different voices.
Hi Maestro,
Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, having violins, viola, and cello on the same staff is unusual, but I would really like to be able to display them this way in Score View, because it makes composing easier for me.
If I use the polyphonic setup you describe, I do get all the instruments on one staff in Score View, but I also get them all on one track in Track View. From the one track, I can’t figure out a way to route each polyphonic voice/instrument to a separate MIDI channel out and thus to a separate MIDI channel in on my sample player, Vienna Instruments Pro. Is there a way to do this? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
In the Project window Inspector set the MIDI channel for the VEP MIDI IN to “Any”.
The only constraint is that you have to load your 4 instruments into the same instance of your sampler in VE Pro, each with a different channel of course.
Thus for the same track, the data cannot be sent to different MIDI INs, but different MIDI channel within the same MIDI IN.
Hope it’s clear.
Thanks Maestro,
I am attaching a screen shot of my setup. I think I’m still missing something. I have all four instruments (in this case, sop, alt, ten, bass) loaded into the same instance of VE Pro with outputs to 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8. In Cubase, I have 4 VST outs, 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8. I have the polyphonic MIDI channel set to Any and its Output Routing set to Vienna Ensemble -MIDIIN1, but I’m still hearing only the soprano. There is a tooltip in Cubase when I hover over Output Routing that says, "Output Routing (all selected with <Shift + Alt + Click>). Is this what I need to do? I can’t seem to make it work. Thanks again.
Zaffer
The problem here is that your single track can send data only to “soprano” instance, because it corresponds to MIDI In 1 in Cubase and VE Pro.
In the same way, your alto, tenor and bass receive data respectively on MIDI In 2, 3 and 4.
You can’t send the notes from your 4 instruments to separate MIDI Ports from the same track, and there is no way that I know to get around this.
What I explained in my earlier post was: “load your 4 instruments into the same instance of your sampler in VE Pro”. So all 4 instruments should be loaded into “soprano” in your example with distinct MIDI channels inside the Vienna Instrument.
After that, in VE Pro, for soprano, what you will just have to do is set MIDI channel to “All”.
However, keep in mind that there are two major downsides with this configuration:
first, and the most serious, is that you can’t have different articulations at a given time for your 4 instruments, as all articulations data are sent to all channels simultaneously. This is a Cubase limitation unfortunately.
Secondly, audio from your 4 instruments will be routed to the same outputs “OUT 1 / OUT 2”, so no mixing possible in Cubase.
You can’t send the notes from your 4 instruments to separate MIDI Ports from the same track, and there is no way that I know to get around this.
I kind of thought that this was true. Also, I finally understood the idea that I should try loading 4 instruments into one matrix, in this case, the soprano. I tried that, and it did work as you said, but yes, it’s too limiting. I already have detailed articulation matrices set up that I like to use with my different instruments. So I guess it’s back to square one. It was worth a try, though and I appreciate your explaining everything to me. Thanks.
I did come across a rather convoluted method of sending output from one MIDI track to different instruments and/or sample players by using MIDI sends for the track. Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMALekzHlNo. But that only works for all the notes – can’t separate out different channel/instruments. I don’t need to layer sounds that way. I can do it in the articulation slots in VE Pro.
One last thought. Do you know the Project Logical Editor and/or the Input Transformer? If you think I might accomplish what I want by using one or both of these, let me know, and I’ll read up on them. I have some programming experience.
Zaffer
I precisely had MIDI Sends in mind when I posted earlier, but there is no solution either using this feature, as “MIDI Sends” would send the same data to other channels.
There is a possibility to filter events and send to separate MIDI channels using Input Transformer loaded there, for example : sending notes only or controllers only, or you can transform data and send to other channels, but there is no way you can send different articulations and dynamics to distinct channels.
What is needed here is a fix for the polyphonic voices articulations issue.
Hi Maestro, I appreciate all your help and I learned some new things even though I learned ultimately, that “you can’t get there from here.” Thanks.
Zaffer
