Mix, Match and Splits – Part2

This post is in response to great questions asked by both Jeff and Bill in our original post. Since I can’t post pictures in the comments, I figured it would be easier to explain things in a separate post with a couple of pictures to help everyone follow along.

For review, here are the comments by Jeff and Bill. Let me also add that Ross and I have traded a few emails that are related to the allocation of MIDI channels. In response to Ross, I’ll be putting up a new video to better show what can happen and how you can move past the messages that come up in OAX.

Question 1: Ketron sounds mixed with OAX sounds.

Let’s start with the first screenshot of what I have setup on the Upper manual on the OAX side. On “Upper1” we have the sound “Violin 1” configured, and on “Upper2” we have a sound called “Ketron_C2” configured. Recall that the second sound will be coming from the Ketron based on data sent out from the Wersi on MIDI Channel 2.

Next, in the second screenshot, take a look at the edit options when I double click on the Violin 1 sound configured on Upper1. There is one critical piece of the puzzle missing. If you recall from seeing this same screen in some of our videos, there is normally an additional tab called “Routing” and also a button you can click called “Edit Sound.” The combination of those two options will allow you to both see and set the MIDI channel. Since Violin 1 is a “Factory Sound” it appears we don’t have those options – 🙁

To Jeff’s first question, he asked what happens if both the Wersi sound and an External MIDI sound are assigned to the same MIDI channel. The challenge here is knowing what MIDI channel that Violin 1 is assigned to since OAX selected it for us and sadly, is not showing which channel was selected.

 

A long way to say that Bill’s response to Jeff was right on the money which is –>  (c) Recognise that one sound is on an internal MIDI channel, the other on an external MIDI channel and allow the combination.

On to question 2: Ketron sounds mixed with other Ketron sounds.

Referring to the Ketron MIDI configuration screen above there are some subtle details that one might overlook at first glance, I sure did! The big one for me was in the top row you will see some of the boxes are titled Ch1. Ch2, Ch3, etc. I read that as Channel — WRONG! It’s Chord1, Chord2, Chord3, etc. 

If you remember way back in December of 2016 we posted about connecting from our Sonic to a Roland Integra 7 sound module. In that case, the system/dynamic channel assignment of MIDI channels done by OAX work great as the Roland could care less which channel does what. In the case of the Ketron, while we can certainly send data to it on all 16 channels, we do care a little about which ones are used for what. And in thinking about it, we might in the Roland configuration but for different reasons.

Let’s focus on the Ketron config for now. Back to the screenshot above of the SD40 MIDI config and look at the second row. Notice we have MIDI channel’s 13-16 “ON” and assigned to various “parts” of the SD40. May or may not be the perfect config, but I think it will work for most of the “organ crowd.”

The short answer to Jeff is should you select a User Sound configured on the Wersi that uses the same MIDI channel you will be greeted by the following regardless of the external device attached. At the top of this note, I mentioned that Ross, and I have been chatting via email, and this is precisely the situation that he has run into (so I have I). I do plan on tacking this topic in a video or two soon. Now, if you read that message closely, there are another one of those subtle clues in there. This goes to a comment by Bill regarding 16 vs. 32 MIDI channels.

To get an answer for Bill we created a new user sound on MIDI channel 2 BUT assigned it to MIDI port 2 on OAX. Check out the last screenshot to see that we can have two sounds on the Upper keyboard, both assigned to MIDI channel 2 BUT in our example, the sound on Upper1 would send data on MIDI Port2 while the sound on Upper2 would continue to send data on MIDI Port1. So, we could connect our Roland module back up and control it 100% separately from the Ketron and still assign a Wersi sound to Upper3. Would I stumble into some MIDI-conflicts? Probably. Those could be solved with some thought and planning of how things were set up but I’ll admit, a daunting task.

 

I have not said much about the “Registration” feature on the Ketron (yet). Think of a “Registration” on the Ketron as you think of a “Preset” on your Wersi. We can save whatever configuration we want and recall it quickly via a single touch of the screen. This is something we will show in some upcoming videos but those Ketron registrations can also be accessed via a program change sent from the Wersi. At this point, we have done limited testing and it works. Consider this:

You could have a User Preset on the Wersi that does nothing more than select a Registration on the Ketron or you could setup a User Preset on the Wersi that in addition to selecting a Registration on the Ketron it could also register various settings/sound/etc. on the Wersi – A very interesting configuration indeed!

This morning I moved the SD40 up to my office/studio, and we will be releasing some videos that show more about the SD40 features and functions. Most of that will be hosted over on our IMMusic site As you watch some of those videos and posts all of this hopefully will make more sense. You can subscribe here to follow along.

This is where I’ll ask if everyone here (on the Wersi site) would like to see that content? It won’t involve a Wersi but will have MIDI/Ketron/Roland/Native Instruments/Logic Pro and Sonar content. We are 100% happy to post on both sites but don’t want to offend the Wersi folks who might say “this has nothing to do with my Wersi”. True, but as we have said many times – MIDI is MIDI and portions of what we cover will apply, and at the same time you can learn more about Ketron should you like to add one to your studio. If that is something that interests you, contact us for more info.

Hopefully, you made it to the end of this post (congratulations!). It was a long one. Let the comments and questions begin! 🙂