Loading MIDI from USB and mapping to tracks (E463)

[tilusnet]

Hi,

Can anyone explain how does the a Yamaha PSR (eg. the e463) map a USB loaded MIDI file's channels to the 5+1 track buttons when the Song is played?
What happens if the MIDI file has many more, eg. 10 channels?
I tried to find this documented somewhere with no luck so far.

Thank you.

[SciNote]

Well, I'll be honest -- I have very limited experience with this, but I'll provide what is basically an educated guess based on what I have read here in the past and on a little bit of research that I just did now when I read your question.

For context, I'll start by going the other way -- saving an existing User Song, meaning a song you recorded using the multi-track sequencer, as a Midi file.  As far as I know, for the 16 tracks of the Midi file, it allocates the first 8 to the melody tracks, and the second 8 to the accompaniment.  And to go deeper, those first 8 tracks are based on the main and dual voices of the 5 melody tracks.  Of course, that would give you 10 tracks (5 sets of main and 5 sets of dual), not 8 -- so I believe 2 of the dual voice tracks are not saved.  Which ones?  I'm not sure -- but if I was to search for the missing tracks, I'd start with the dual voices of tracks 4 and 5.  I'm also not sure what order these tracks are mapped to Midi channels.  One possibility is that they are done in pairs -- where the keyboard's track 1 main and dual voices are send to Midi channels 1 and 2, and the the keyboard's track 2 main and dual are sent to Midi channels 3 and 4, and so on.  But maybe all the main voices grouped together and sent to channels 1 through 5, and then 3 of the dual voices are sent to channels 6 through 8.  Again, I'm just guessing here.

The accompaniment, as far as I know, is then sent to the remaining 8 Midi channels, or channels 9-16.  Now, the keyboard shows 6 parts for accompaniment on the track buttons -- track parts for bass, pads, drums, and so on.  I believe that some of these keyboard tracks are split into two channels, so that the 6 accompaniment tracks from the keyboard are sent to 8 Midi channels.

So, with that context, my guess would be that Midi songs that you load would be mapped in a similar way.  On my PSR-E433, there are 100 pre-recorded songs built in, and I experimented with some of them to see what happened when I turned off and on the different tracks using the track buttons.  One of the surprising things is that the accompaniment track can be quite complex.  It does not have to be a simple repeating pattern or style.  I guess, when creating a Midi song on a more advanced external source, you can set those accompaniment tracks to be essentially up to 8 additional counterpoint melodies -- as the accompaniment track is likely mapped to 8 Midi channels -- channels 9-16 -- as far as I know.

So, this is my guess.  I could be way off -- like I said, I have never really messed around with Midi too much.  So if anyone else here has any input on this or corrections to what I stated, please post what you know.

But otherwise, you can experiment by taking a Midi file -- one where you know what instruments are on what channels -- and then load it into the keyboard and see what happens.  Turn on and off the various track buttons on the keyboard while the song is playing to see what track buttons affect what instruments, and that can help you determine which Midi channels are mapped to which keyboard tracks.  One other possibility is that Midi songs loaded in the keyboard can only be played in full, without the ability to mute the individual tracks.  Like I said -- the best way to see what is possible is to load a Midi file and see what happens when you turn the track buttons on and off.

ADDT'L INFO... Keep in mind that, as far as I know, there is no way to edit imported Midi songs on the keyboard itself.  They don't get loaded into the User Song memory (where you make your own recordings), but instead just become additional prerecorded songs you can play, just like the included demo songs, as far as I know.

[tilusnet]

Bob, thank you so much for taking the time to answer.
Your insights seem to confirm thoughts I started having myself.

> One of the surprising things is that the accompaniment track can be quite complex.

I noticed this too.

> But otherwise, you can experiment by taking a Midi file -- one where you know what instruments are on what channels -- and then load it into the keyboard and see what happens.

Yes, that's what I started doing. I also noticed that midi SMF type 0 vs type 1 will influence the mapping.
Ultimately I am after using external midi files as a practice method whereby I have predictable control over the loaded midi tracks I switch on/off.

[tilusnet]

Update to confirm further -

The melody / accompaniment track assignment seems indeed hardwired to (input file) midi channels 0-7 / 8-15, respectively.

Example:
I tested with a midi file having channels 0, 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
The channel->track mapping is as follows:
Ch 0 -> Tr 1
Ch 1 -> Tr 2
Ch 2 -> Tr 3
Ch 3 -> Tr 4
Ch 8 -> A (!)
Ch 9 -> A
...
Ch 15 -> A

The interesting one is the Ch 8 to Accompaniment (A) mapping, despite Tr 5 being available!
And that's presumably due to the channel falling in the upper pool 8-15 hardwired to the Accompaniment.

My conclusion: if one wants melody track control on input midi files, make sure to assign those to midi channels 0-7.

Getting there.

[SciNote]

Yeah, that's more or less what I was thinking.  I was numbering the channels from 1 to 16, while you're numbering them from 0 to 15 -- maybe that is more correct -- Like I said, I have not ever really done much with Midi or Midi files.

But using the 0-15 numbering system, as I understand it, channels 0 through 7 are for the melody tracks, while channels 8 through 15 are for the accompaniment.  And since the 5 melody tracks on the keyboard consist of a main voice and a dual voice, each track would map to 2 Midi channels -- Except that would be 10 channels, whereas only 8 are available (channels 0-7).  So, I believe the dual voices of two of the tracks are not used when exporting a Midi file from the keyboard (which dual voices are omitted, I do not know).  But when loading an external Midi file, I would guess that channels 0 through 7 get mapped to the various main voices and dual voices of the 5 tracks, with the dual voices of two of the tracks not being used or loaded with anything -- again, which two dual voices not being used, I don't know.

Once again, I'm kind of guessing at some of the possibilities here.  Anyone with more concrete information, please let us know!