Using registrations to change midi channel?

[DrewFranck]

Hello,

 

I am going to be conducting a musical theatre pit, and was going to let my percussionist use the keyboard as a midi controller.

I want to use Opus eastwest samples from my computer for the timpani and mallet parts.

Is there any way to have the registration buttons change the midi channel, or somehow play the vst's through the keyboard and be able to switch between them quickly?

[Brad Saucier]

The only way to change MIDI channels with registrations is by storing various configurations of enabled/disabled upper and lower parts.  U1, U2, L1, L2, are MIDI channels 1, 2, 3, 4.  

 

I'm not entirely sure of your question however.  Are you saying you want to switch between local PX sounds and MIDI VST sounds quickly?  

[Jokeyman123]

I'm not clear why you can't use the PX560 timpani and mallet samples directly, unless you feel the PX560 tones quality are not adequate for a live pit orchestra. Otherwise-you will have to manually switch the midi out channel from the PX560's midi setting screen-and have your East-West samples as part of tracks in a DAW-and assign each track and sample a different midi channel from within the DAW. ino rder to play your samples-and you can only do this one at a time, and not too quickly. And as Brad posted, since registrations alone do not store midi channels, but the PX560 main tone menu screen parts are fixed at midi channels 1-4, and registrations will save those distinct configurations, you would have to set up a separate registration to configure which of those 4 channels/tones from the main screen are active or not. Pretty clumsy way of doing it. And you also have to make sure your PX560 midi settings are set to output "port A", since this port specifically sends out the midi channel data for only the 4 parts-2 upper and 2 lower. Port B sends out midi channel data for the auto-accompaniment parts only and port C doesn't send any midi data out at all. You might want to look over page A-5 in the user guide which shows clearly what all the midi channel in/out assignments are. Might be easier just getting some real timps and mallets in there!!!-I'm kidding, I used to cart all these around myself years back as a working percussionist...the chimes were the worst of the bunch....

[Brad Saucier]

Just a minor correction, the port selector (A, B, C) is only for MIDI input, hence the name "MIDI IN Port".  Port select does not affect MIDI OUT, at least it shouldn't, unless I missed something.  There is a separate menu item for accompaniment MIDI output, and on/off switch.