MIDI routing possible in M50?

spring · Post by **spring** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:08 am

Hi guys, let me first just detail my setup:

Top board - Korg M50
Bottom board - Roland RD 300SX

I am using the M50 as a master sound generator and the RD 300 purely as a weighted controller for Pianos / EPs, connected via MIDI to the M50.

However, I want to use the RD 300's piano sound in my patches. I have tried setting the M50 up so that the combi output for a particular track is set to 'EXT' and this works fine when playing from the M50 keys, but I want to be able to trigger the RD 300's sound via its own keyboard but through MIDI (i.e. RD 300 --> M50 --> RD 300) . I know it would be so much easier just to play the RD as it is and leave the M50 out of the equation but some of the gigs I am playing require really fast patch changes which then have M50 sounds mapped out all over both keyboards, and I wouldn't have time to turn down the volume on the RD300 to mute the piano.

I hope this makes sense...in essence my question is whether I can get the M50 to recognise a MIDi input from the RD300 and to output that MIDI signal back into the RD300 to play a patch.

Cheers,

Steve

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:43 am

You don't want to do it this way. Besides, it doesn't make sense: how will you gain anything by sending the MIDI out and right back?

Back up a step. What kinds of setups do you want to accomplish? Does the RD 300 not accept program changes? Why wouldn't you want to change combis on the M50 and send a program change to the RD 300?

spring · Post by **spring** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:34 am

Hi - thanks for the reply. I am pretty sure it's the best and most logical way (that I know of) of setting up the patches. In essence, the M50 is the MIDI 'brain' and main sound source, and the RD300 is the weighted controller that just so happens to have a piano sound I want to use. I want to store all patch information on the M50 so that when I change patches, if there is piano required then the appropriate routing will be in place on the M50s 'brain' to accept the MIDI in from the RD and then send it back out. (I think this is what you meant by having a program change on the RD?) However, on some patches I might have an EP sound mapped over the RD's keyboard, generated by the M50. In this case the RD is just outputting MIDI data to the M50. This is why it wouldn't be practical to have the RD's local control set to 'on' and playing the piano live.....I would have to turn it off, or mute the volume every time I changed a patch that required the RD to function just as a MIDI controller.

So, this is my setup - I am just scratching my head trying to figure out why I can't get it to work. To recap.....I can get the RD's piano sound to trigger from the M50 keyboard, and can get the M50 sounds via the RD keyboard, but can't route the MIDI from RD--->M50--->RD. I have made sure the MIDI channels are all the same too.

I hope this gives a bit more info - if anyone can offer a solution or recommend a better setup I would be grateful to hear it!

addy73 · Post by **addy73** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:10 pm

Quick answer - program a "silent" sound on your "piano" board and send program change info from the m-50 to change to that silent sound and you won't have to touch the volume. No loop-back needed.

Long answer-
I use a similar setup with a Nord Electro 3 on top and a M50-88 on the bottom. I use the m-50 in combi mode for all patches. I use both boards for every song. There are 2 senerios.

I have my Nord set up to talk on midi ch 8. I always use sound #8 in the m-50 combo's since it uses midi ch 8 by default to talk to the Nord.

1. Nord plays it's own sounds and M-50 plays it's own sounds - For this I set sound #8 to EXT, select the patch on sound 8 that sends the patch change info to the nord, and (most importantly) set the key range for sound 8 on the m-50 to c8 - c8 (or whatever the highest is) so that the m-50 doesn't play when I hit the keys on the Nord.

2. M-50 sounds are played from both nord and m-50 (no nord sounds) - For this I made a "silent" program on the nord that has the volume all the way down so I don't have to touch the volume on the nord. For this I set sound #8 to EXT, select the patch on sound 8 that sends the patch change info for the "silent" sound on the nord, and set the key range for sound 8 on the m-50 to c8-c8 so that the m-50 doesn't play sound #8 when I hit the keys on the Nord. Then for each m-50 sound I want to be played from the nord I do as I normally do on the m-50 except change the midi chanel to 8 for that sound.

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:35 pm

Yeah, Addy beat me to it.

I looked in the manual for your Roland, and it *does* respond to MIDI program changes. You should be sending program changes from the M50 when you switch to a new combi, as addy described.

kikedeolivos · Post by **kikedeolivos** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 6:00 pm

Addy73 and Kanthos should be proclamed "MIDI Gurus" on this forum.

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:48 pm

kikedeolivos wrote:Addy73 and Kanthos should be proclamed "MIDI Gurus" on this forum.

Just wait until I get around to posting an article I have in mind detailing my live setup. There's only two keyboards and a laptop, but I've got a lot of tricks

I'm just waiting to get the setup more stable on my laptop (I've only been using Brainspawn Forte for a week so far), and then I'll get this done.

spring · Post by **spring** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:43 pm

Thanks guys, I'll try it in the morning and let you know how I get on.

RE Brainspawn Forte - are there alternatives for the Mac? A guy I know uses this for his shows and it looks great.

Cheers for the help!

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:06 pm

The only one I know of is Native Instruments' Kore. I dropped it in favor of Forte because of a few odd things it did, and a few instabilities it had on my PC. Ableton Live might be decent; I've never even seen it, let alone used it, so I can't comment more.

spring · Post by **spring** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:25 pm

I am still having problems with the setup!....

Fron reading the RD manual it seems it needs to be sent an MSB (85) LSB (0) and a Program Change (1-32 depending on which of the 32 setups are to be selected). But on the M50 there is only space under the 'EXT2' for The MSB and LSB. How do I get the Program Change value sent also?

I have set the MIDI channel for sound #1 to 2 (the channel sending the prog change) and the RD set to receive MIDI on ch.2. The Global Midi channel for the M50 is set at 1, as default, and all patches played on the M50 keyboard are set to Gc1

Argh! Help appreciated.....

addy73 · Post by **addy73** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 5:23 pm

Doh, I meant to update my post with this info! I had the same roadblocked (solved in the forum as well). You DON'T put any program inforation under the EXT or EXT2. Disregard all that MSB / LSB junk.

Just select EXT on the Midi page then go back to the main prog page and choose your patch from there (as you would for a local m-50 sound). So you might choose sound (A1 Mono Piano?) so it can send a program change to the RD to tell it to change to sound 1. Make sense?

Here's the post where I asked the same question - read the last reply.
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... highlight=

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 6:52 pm

Yeah, there are 128 sounds in a single bank under the MIDI spec; your Roland only has 32 so it's not even using a full bank. Since you're not *changing* banks, you don't need to send bank information.