Working with external instruments is a very nice addition to MS2. However, I seem to have uncovered some limitations, unless someone else is able to offer an alternative: Basic config. I have a single midi controller (EWI) that only transmits on one channel (ch 1). I have an external synth and external effects unit I want to use in various patches. I have learned that you can't use the same keyboard object and assign it as the input for both the external synth and external effects unit.

Even though my EWI transmits on channel 1 only (monophonic) and in both MainStage and Audio Midi setup, the synth is set to receive on channel 1 and the effects to receive on channel 5, whenever I play notes and both external units are receiving their information from the same keyboard, the notes I play on channel 1 are somehow received on the effects unit on channel 5. The result is that the effects unit thinks its getting program changes when it's not.

My workaround is to create a Midi object (because I don't want two keyboards on the screen), and assign one to EWI channel 1 and the other to EWI channel 5. Then when creating my patch, I assign the midi input for the external synth to EWI(1) and the external effects to EWI(5). This seems to work, but I wonder if the creation of the extra midi object and assignments causes additional memory usage that could be avoided by using the same one for all things. In fact, since the external effects unit only needs to receive program changes, I wonder why it needs a midi input assignment anyway, since it should just be receiving the program changes from Mainstage and not my EWI. Any thoughts? Blueberry wrote: Hmm, I don't really understand your problem.

You can define a keyboard object to ignore the incoming channel. I only have 1 incoming channel - I don't know what you mean with 'MIDI object'. An external channel strip?

That channel strip doesn't allow to define a channel as an input. It only has a MIDI port and channel as an output.

The input for all channel strips is always a workspace object (which is abstract and doesn't have a channel) In MS2 there is a new object called Midi Object that seems to act as a replacement for a keyboard object, except it looks like a little bubble and doesn't display any layers. What I am trying to do is create a patch that is comprised of either two external instrument channel strips or one softsynth channnel strip and one external instrument channel strip where the external inst channel strip is used to send a midi program change to an external effects processor. In either of these two cases, I have found that if I make the midi input the same as my EWI (channel 1), even though it (the external effects unit) is configured to only receive data on channel 5, it still receives note information which appears to be program change messages. The only way to remedy this is to create either a second keyboard object or one of the new midi objects and assign it's input to EWI on midi channel 5, which technically is nothing since that incoming channel from the EWI, doesn't really exist. It seems like a bug to me because, using a patch bay like a MOTU MTP AV and assigning channels to unique pieces of gear helped to prevent any commands from going from one input device to an output device unless you wanted them to. Again, I don't really understand your problem.

I know I am probably not explaining this well. Ahh, the MIDI Activity screen object, yes, that object is identical to the MIDI Keyboard screen object - of course it looks different. I am not sure if this behavior is a bug or a feature, but - yes - you need to assign a MIDI input to the external instrument, even if you only want it to send MIDI out (My usual advice: please write feedback to ) And yes, you are right again: you can add the MIDI Activity object to the workspace, make it really small and set it's input to something that doesn't send MIDI. Then use that object as the input for your external instrument and you will only receive the program change, bank select and/or MIDI clock, depending what you activated in the MIDI Out inspector. It might be weird, but at least it is a simple work-around. Just to answer your original question, the additional memory overhead should be negligible. And since you are probably handling all of your audio input through a single one of the external instrument channel strips, or through a separate aux, as long as the input for a channel strip is set to 'No Input', it will not processing any audio (so it should not increase your cpu load).

I agree that you should be able to just create a single external instrument channel strip and set the input to be 'multitimbral,' and set the channels there, however I just tried this out and it doesn't work correctly: the channel always gets overridden by the channel selection in the external instrument channel strip. Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Well you can set it to be multitimbral, but that doesn't work either.

Will Ms2 Be Available For Macbook Pro

I tried setting mine to multitimbral EWI(1) and EWI(5) and it still had the same behavior. Module of 28 tools for macroeconomics. One other thing that is strange is, why are the notes I am playing being received as program changes on my effects unit? When I had the effects unit connected to the same midi input (keyboard 1), it not only responded to the program change that I put for the channel strip, but when I played my synths, I received a message on the front panel of my effects that Program B1 not found, as if a program change message is being passed through.

Thanks for the tip about turning off audio for that channel strip. It makes sense to keep the overhead down since all I am doing is sending a program change to the effects unit routed through an Aux bus with a send. It sounds like maybe your effects unit can accept notes to trigger some sort of preset effect?

Will Ms2 Be Available For Mac 2017

Since it has the word B1, that sounds suspiciously like a MIDI note. You can use something like MIDI Monitor to spy on the output of MainStage though and see what it is actually sending out. I submitted some feedback to Apple regarding the multitimbral behavior, so hopefully they will fix it in an update. Do you know what channel it is sending the message that is triggering the Program B1 message (is it coming through the channel 1 or channel 5 ext instrument channel strip?). My EWI is transmitting on channel 1, so all notes, etc.

From the EWI should go through that channel. I have my Eclipse set on channel 5, both in the Audio Midi Setup and the Midi Input EWI(5) in MainStage. I used to set up my HW rig this way so I could use my PMC10 pedal board to send a program change message on say channel 16 to my MOTU MTP/AV and the MTP would send out a canon message on all the required channels to do things like change the Eclipse program, the program on the synths, etc.

Then when I played with my EWI, through the MTP, only notes on channel one would be routed to the pieces of gear I wanted to receive. In this case here, I thought I had everything isolated by setting the Eclipse to only receive midi on channel 5 (not OMNI or 1) and keyboard 1 (EWI) is set to channel one so all my synths can be played. Also, yes you are correct, the Eventide Eclipse does have the ability to respond to midi note messages that are used to control certain patches that do harmonizing so you can send midi notes to let it know which key you are in for proper harmonizing. Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of any proposed solutions on the community forums. Apple disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third parties in connection with or related to your use of the site.

Will Ms2 Be Available For Mac Pro

All postings and use of the content on this site are subject to the.