My midi is bleeding from one track to the next [solved]

[RexRed]

My midi tracks used to be self contained.

Now if I have midi on one track in the project it plays in other tracks too.

I did not used to have to fuss with channels... the tracks seemed to be self contained.

Now if i don't freeze every track in the project the midi tracks wreak havoc with each other.

I record midi and my recording is filled with misc events from other tracks and it seems the instruments are feeding sequence events also into the midi stream.

So what ever I record is obliterated by events simultaneously streaming into the record chain.

How do i fix this?

Edited June 2, 2021 by RexRed

[David Baay]

If a MIDI track's input is set to Omni, which is the default when Input Echo is enabled for the first time (either manually or by Always Echo Current MIDI Track in preferences), that track can receive MIDI from anywhere, including virtual MIDI outputs of other synths, which is probably the issue in your case.

The solution is to deliberately set a the Input of every track only to a specific port and channel (usually matching your controller keyboard) when you create it. You may also want to disable MIDI Out in the properties of virtual instruments that have one that you're not using.

Personally, I keep Always Echo Current MIDI Track disabled because I like to be in control of which tracks are echoing even if it takes a little extra clicking.

[RexRed]

Wow, I had Echo Current Midi Track enabled. It seems that is a global setting.

I do know better than to output midi to my synth controller though (snicker).  

Problem seems fixed. 

Setting up channels is not really that complicated but I have not had to do it for years other than occasionally setting native instruments tracks to channel 1 to get them to function sometimes. I have forgotten a lot about channels.

Not sure how to tell which channels and ports my instruments are outputting on.

Capturing instrument sequence/arp/switch midi is a very useful thing when you are trying to do that specifically.

When not trying to do that and having data coming from everywhere into the midi stream that is very confusing and frustrating.

Thank you David, your response has been very helpful indeed!

Best to you!  

[David Baay]

Glad to help. Just setting the track Input to a specific port will avoid problems in most cases. Except in the case of multitimbral synths, you can have everything on channel 1, and just depend on every synth having it's own virtual MIDI port(s) to keep things isolated. Even with multitimbral instruments, most users still record/input all the actual MIDI events as channel 1 on every track, and just depend on the forced output 'CH' assignment in the track to re-channel the data on playback for the intended synth channel.

[RexRed]

You bring up some interesting points. 

Usually I never use multitimbral mode with instruments, I like to isolate even each drum patch into its own track.

But with these news synths that have "sequences" they output several sounds at once. Most of the time the keyboard is split.

I still like to isolate each patch to a separate track. I am not sure how that is done with the Vengeance Avenger synth yet.

I assume each note has a channel assigned to it. many sequences even have drum along with a split keyboard.

I prefer using the sequencer in Cakewalk much better in most cases.

I suppose If I can isolate the midi sections, high and low parts and switches events and paste these into separate tracks and then isolate the Vengeance patches then I could break these sequence parts up into their own isolated tracks. 

Thanks for your insight on this!

Is there a Cakewalk switch that forces each track to output to its own assigned instrument channels?

Thanks for you help David. Lots of great info here!

[David Baay]

14 hours ago, RexRed said:

Is there a Cakewalk switch that forces each track to output to its own assigned instrument channels?

Each MIDI track has a CH widget. That's the Output Channel assignment. If it's not showing in the track headers by default, you can use the Inspector. Everything in the track will get 'forced' to that channel on playback so it's non-destructive, and can quickly be changed to another channel.

Edited June 2, 2021 by David Baay