I need help with my new "amateur music studio"

[atarisince1989]

Hi, first of all, apologies for this long post. I hope to not make you bored and to get some help on configuring my new amateur music studio.

Recently I decided to reserve a corner of my living room to create an area dedicated exclusively to my musical creations, with the aim of bringing alive again my hobby of creating music with computers, which I've stopped some years ago.

Around 1992 my first band split, and I decided to do some stuff on my own. I bought a Korg X5DR module, a Roland PC-180a control keyboard and obtained a copy of Cakewalk for the PC (yes, I made music with a PC God forgive me ).

Some days ago, in my new music corner I installed my Falcon030 and borrowed a Yamaha PSRE-323 from a friend.

Now I'm using (imported) my old MIDI files, but obviously the sounds on the Korg are not the same as the ones on the Yamaha, and I get really confusing sounds, specially for the drum parts.

I remember I used channel 10 for percussion, but either I don't know how to use Cubase or the Yamaha doesn't work the same way.

Changing programs or channels does not seems to solve the problem, and sometimes, after playing a bit, even the same song will sound different, like for example being percussions tracks changed for simple piano sounds

And finally, my question

What I should do to make Cubase understand my keyboard? Is SysEx the solution? I have hear about SysEx for years, but never get into it.

Many many thanks for any clarifying reply. Hope I made clear myself.

Cheers,
Dave

[mal7921]

The problem here is that until the birth of the General MIDI standard, different sounds mapped onto different locations in the midi map, so program 35 on a Roland may well be a glass harp, but the same program on a Yamaha could be a synthesized elephant mating call (As a rather silly example).

As you had percussion on channel 10, the chances are you were using an approximation of the General MIDI standard and here you can at least gen an idea of what mapped where. If you do a search for General MIDI patch list, you should be able to find a list of what went on to what programs (ie Piano was in the first location, strings were somewhere around the 60's, effects were from 110ish onward).

Now the tricky bit...

In your MIDI import, it is possible that program change messages are embedded in the MIDI data, Cubase does not always pick these up and put them where you expect, so you change the patch, press play and the embedded data changes it back. If you click on a part at the beginning of a track, go to the edit menu and select List edit, this lists ALL the MIDI data within that part, and what you are looking for is a Program Change message. This can be clicked on and deleted and once this is done, any selection you make on the part or track takes priority. Note that parts can also have their own program change assignemnts, so check these as well.

[atarisince1989]

The problem here is that until the birth of the General MIDI standard, different sounds mapped onto different locations in the midi map, so program 35 on a Roland may well be a glass harp, but the same program on a Yamaha could be a synthesized elephant mating call (As a rather silly example).

I like your example, though the Yamaha seems to not have elephants

As you had percussion on channel 10, the chances are you were using an approximation of the General MIDI standard and here you can at least gen an idea of what mapped where. If you do a search for General MIDI patch list, you should be able to find a list of what went on to what programs (ie Piano was in the first location, strings were somewhere around the 60's, effects were from 110ish onward).

Yes, that is exactly what I though, because the Yamaha have the sounds divided like that, but maybe I didn't understood it. DO you mean that I could keep using same channel for everything and then just change the program? Like Ch1-Pgr1=Piano and Ch1-Prg100=Drums?

Now the tricky bit...

In your MIDI import, it is possible that program change messages are embedded in the MIDI data, Cubase does not always pick these up and put them where you expect, so you change the patch, press play and the embedded data changes it back. If you click on a part at the beginning of a track, go to the edit menu and select List edit, this lists ALL the MIDI data within that part, and what you are looking for is a Program Change message. This can be clicked on and deleted and once this is done, any selection you make on the part or track takes priority. Note that parts can also have their own program change assignemnts, so check these as well.

Indeed, I had a look in the List edit and I saw that all my tracks have around 5 to 8 events for changing program, master volume, echo level, etc. I didn't tried to remove it as you suggest though. Thanks for the tip, I'll try today.

Thanks a lot for the info.

[mal7921]

The thing to remember is that MIDI is a serial protocol, so the last program change played is the one that determines the voice. Cubase will set the track voice with the program change you set for the track, but if a part within that track has a different program change, that will override it, and if the MIDI data within that part has another program change within that, that will override the part program change. So, to be sure, remove program change messages from within parts, set all parts program changes to Off and use the track program change to set what you want.

Now, on to voices and standards that are not quite standard.

While General MIDI should allow MIDI files to go from device to device supporting the standard, no one actually defined how those voices should really sound. As a result a grand piano on a Roland is different to a grand piano on a Yamaha or a Korg, but they are still grand piano's and reside at the same program change number. In short, each manufacturer put together their own collection of sounds.

To make things worse, some manufacturers (Like Yamaha and Roland) invented their own enhancements to the standard, expanding it beyond what was considered by some to be the dreary selection and implementation laid down in the spec. Bank switching was used to select 'More exciting' sounds from the expanded implementation, effectively turning the General Midi standard into at times, an almost appalling joke as to make the expanded sounds more appealing, the original standard sounds were not as polished as they should have been. Why use the 'rubbish' sounds when these better ones were available?

Best thing you can do is make sure what you have uses general MIDI, if not, you need to figure out what instruments play on what channel, remove the program change values from the MIDI data and change the program change for each channel to match to an instrument as closely as you can. Trouble is, with that program change data still residing in the MIDI stream, and change you make in Cubase will be overridden.

You can select all parts within a track, open list editor and set the filters to only display program change commands, then it's a case of selecting them all and pressing delete.

[mal7921]

Before I forget as well, some systems need to switch into the General MIDI sound set as it's not always selected by default, unfortunately this can vary from machine to machine so you may need to look this up in your keyboards manual, assuming it does have a General MIDI sound bank.

[atarisince1989]

Many thanks for your detailed explanation. I guessed something like that was the case, as the specifications for this Yamaha keyboard says "482 GM & XGlite Compatible". I remember reading long ago that XG was the extension created by Yamaha to the GM standard. My old Korg I think only used GM, as a "GM Midi" sticker was in the front of the device.

The Yamaha's user manual have a voices's list at the end, and it is divided into 2 sections; "Panel Voice List" and "XGlite Voice List". I always assumed that "Panel Voice List" was GM.

In that list, for example, Grand Piano is program 1 for both, but there is a different value for Bank Select LSB (112 for the GM and 0 for the XGlist).

I had a look in Internet, and found that MSB stands for Most Significant Byte and LSB stands for Least Significant Byte, which I understand it is related with the binary data sent between two devices, right?. Hence, my guessing is that to follow GM standards I have, somehow, to set LSB=112 and Prg=1 to have the GM Gran Piano, even it may sound different from one brand to another.

Percussion, as explained in the manual, is set at MSB=127, LSB=0 and then different programs for each drum kit (17 for the Rock Kit).

Do you know how I can set the MSB and LSB in Cubase? (I really need a Cubase manual ).

Before I forget as well, some systems need to switch into the General MIDI sound set as it's not always selected by default, unfortunately this can vary from machine to machine so you may need to look this up in your keyboards manual, assuming it does have a General MIDI sound bank.

That make sense. I haven't found any comment about it in the user's manual though. I think it is related with teh LSB/MSB I mentioned.


BTW, thanks a lot Malcom, you are certainly being a great help.

[mal7921]

The MSB and LSB parts of the bank switch message are taken care of by Cubase, though if you really want to create a button to do the switch for you, this is possible in the MIDI Mixer (Though that is a whole article in itself). The easiest way to do the bank switching is from the inspector. Near where the program change section is, there is another section called Bank, this can be used for the bank switching and takes care of all the MIDI stuff in the background. Entering 112 into the Bank and the program you want into the program change will swap to the bank change command (the LSB) and the bank you want (The MSB). Similarly, with the program change, your LSB will be the command and the MSB the program change value (For example patch 38).

Why we use MSB and LSB is as a result of how (And when) MIDI was designed. The commands and values are all 8 bit, which generally gives values of 0 to 255, though a lot of the time only 7 bits are used (0 to 127). The exceptions to this are pitch bend, some older exotic types of bank switching and some even more exotic system exclusive commands. These then use the LSB/MSB format so that the data can still be broken down into 8 bit chunks. Why 8 bit? Well most protocols and interfaces of the time (Around 1982 when this was being designed) were 8 bit and buffers were designed with boundaries and buffers of a multiple of 8, for example, MIDI's closest relative (So to speak), the old serial RS232 interface.

While MIDI was forward thinking, the technology available at a reasonable cost at the time have locked the standard down into what it still is today, a serial 8 bit protocol, running at a speed which if you proposed it today, would probably be laughed off the table.

But it's universal appeal, ability to adapt (MIDI Sample Dump anyone?) and universal adoption have ensured it has survived longer than the devices that introduced it.