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Snoogins47
05-19-2006, 11:51 AM
Hey all... I guess you'd have to say that I'm primarily a guitarist, but I grew up playing piano as a kid, and... well, regardless of the extensive back story I'm sure I'll bore you all with eventually, I have a quick question about a product that I think I'm gonna be needing :)

If you don't want to be bored with the whole thing, the question is basically this: what sort of products would be good to run a master board into multiple sources? Basically, keyboard ->random modules/keyboards ->computer? Help a midi n00b out :P

Basically, until recently I used a fairly cheap Yamaha portable board for just about everything. I wasn't in much of a rush to get anything new, because probably close to 90+% of my sound generation comes from software... mediocre onboard sounds really didn't hamper me much hehe. However, a month or so ago I found a deal I couldn't refuse on an old Roland D-50 (Digital Native Dance ftw) and picked it up. I knew I'd dig the sounds that thing puts out, but what I didn't know is that the action/playability was going to be so nice! (This thing was in frighteningly good shape for being that old) I definitely want to set this up as a 'master' keyboard... which is fine for now... however:

I'm a total GASer, and have already planned to buy a few random modules to... you know, take up space, and make silly noises. At least one, which is too many given my current midisport 1x1 setup ;P So I guess what I need is some sort of either midi 'switch' or whatnot, to take midi from the master board, and route it out to whatever random crap I pick up. Even with my very limited knowledge of midi, I can already think of a few options as far as how to set it up, but I just have no experience with the sorts of products I would need, and am undoubtedly overlooking some options as well. Any advice/tips here?

Grey Loki
05-20-2006, 03:53 PM
I'd use your main board as a main controller, sending information on 16 different MIDI channels, then just daisy-chain your racks through MIDI like you would with guitar effects, with each rack set to receive MIDI on one channel, and 'forward' the remaining data down the line.

An example:

Keyboard>---<Rack One, MIDI Channel One>---<Rack Two, MIDI Channel Two>

To switch between the sounds and controls on the two different racks, you'd just switch what channel your Keyboard would send data on.

Hope this helps.