Extra Track (1-5) voice

[rev_02]

Hi all, not sure if this is the correct board to be posting under, but it is the most suitable that I can find (and its my first post, please feel free to advise me on etiquette etc).

On my PSR s 900 there is the option to route midi messages to 'Extra track' (1-5). This is outlined in the manual but I can't find a way to change the voice of these extra parts so I can play them with another midi controller. The reason that I would like to do this is that I would like to play the psr s 900 using both right 1 and right 2 voices whilst playing another part to a song using custom voices that I have edited (using a midi controller). Any help would be appreciated, many thanks.

[SeaGtGruff]

I have no experience with the PSR-S models, so I might be wrong, but I don't think you can set the voices for those five parts directly on the keyboard.

There might be a way to do it indirectly from the keyboard, but I think you are expected to send the necessary Bank Select, Program Change, and various Control Change messages to each of these five extra parts on whichever MIDI port and channel each part is set to receive from.

If you want to set the voice for one of the five extra parts from the keyboard, such as if the controller can't send the necessary messages, then you might be able to do it indirectly by transmitting the messages from the keyboard back to itself such that they're received on the appropriate port and channel. But the logistics of setting that up and then implementing it in a convenient fashion might be more trouble than it's worth.

Assuming you don't need to use all 16 of the song channels while you're playing the keyboard, what you could do is send the controller's Note data to whichever song channel(s) you aren't using, rather than sending to one or more of the five extra parts. Then you could set up your custom voices on the song channels such that loading the song file will (I think) select the desired voices and then you can use the controller to play on the song channels.

[rev_02]

Hi, I feared that this would be the case. I have found that if I go into the mixing console section and scroll across the tabs until I find the song section, I can change the voices that the songs will use for each channel, so I will try to use this.
This should work 99% of the time, but there are occasions when I play along to midi files. As for another way around it, I suppose I could Use a DAW to select the patch changes, but this seems like an awful lot of effort to me.
Thanks for your help.

[SeaGtGruff]

I have no way to try out any ideas, but I do have a few. I'll need to review some documentation to confirm a few things, then I'll get back to you.

Basically, I'm thinking that if your keyboard has two sets of MIDI In/Out ports-- A and B-- you could run a short MIDI cable from a MIDI Out port to a MIDI In port, such as from MIDI Out B to MIDI In B, so the keyboard can send MIDI messages to itself. You could still use the other MIDI ports for sending to and receiving from other MIDI devices.

This might let you send your user voices to the extra parts as desired, from the keyboard to itself.

What I need to look up for confirmation is
- whether you can save multiple custom MIDI setups,
- whether you can switch between different MIDI setups using a Registration,
- what MIDI setup parameters can be configured using XG, and
- whether you can transmit to different MIDI ports from within a MIDI file.

[rev_02]

Hi, my specific keyboard does not have two sets of midi ports, although this could be possible through some sort of virtual patch bay. However, if I was to go that far I may as well use a DAW to send patch change messages. Also, whilst I am able to save midi setups, these are not available within a registration. Thanks for your help, for now I'll stick to the method of using one of the song channels. Thanks for your help.