Recording more than one sound from korg r3 to ableton live.

whitesnake5150 · Post by **whitesnake5150** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:31 pm

Hi, i own a korg r3 and im trying to record multiple parts onto ableton live. I have the r3 connected ok to ableton and i can record which ever sound im playing on the r3 to ableton but when i change the sound on the r3 to sometime else it also change on ableton even when i open a new midi track. Im not exactly an expert on all this but what im trying to do is record more than one sound from the r3 to ableton. I think im missing something simple here so if anyone knows id be so grateful.

phattbuzz · Post by **phattbuzz** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:54 pm

The R3 is not multi-timbral. You can record to audio instead of midi and then layer as many tracks as you need.

DaniH · Post by **DaniH** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 7:48 pm

Try to disable the midi-in on Ableton. That is why you are probably changing something inside of Ableton.

X-Trade · Post by **X-Trade** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:37 pm

When you 'record' on a MIDI track you are only recording the note and other performance data that tells the R3 how to play back the performance.
Your actual R3 sound isn't recorded into ableton and you need the R3 hooked up to hear it again. The R3 will just play back the same notes on whatever sound you have selected on the R3.

This also presents a problem when you want to create a final recording for your friends and others to listen to. The solution is to record the audio coming out of the Main L/R audio jacks, with a sound card or audio interface connected to your computer.

This sticky thread by Tpantano covers the subject in some detail:
- NOT RECEIVING SOUNDS FROM USB/MIDI? Read this -

whitesnake5150 · Post by **whitesnake5150** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:38 pm

Hey thanks for the reply but i cant seem to get it to play through the audio track. Doesnt seem to pick it up. I have the korg r3 connected through usb. Is there any special settings i should have selected on ableton or the r3 for it to work?

whitesnake5150 · Post by **whitesnake5150** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:47 pm

Thanks x-trade. I dont have an external sound card and wasnt sure before if i really needed one. I have an mme/directx driver installed but cant select any input device when i select this. So an external sound card is all i need to solve this problem?

Re-Member · Post by **Re-Member** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 7:11 pm

phattbuzz wrote:The R3 is not multi-timbral. You can record to audio instead of midi and then layer as many tracks as you need.

The R3 is actually multi-timbral. There's a double timbre Mode called Multi where you can change the MIDI channel that timbre 2 operates on so it can be played from either a seperate keyboard or sequencer MIDI track.

Samus2012 · Post by **Samus2012** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:22 am

The R3 is actually multi-timbral. There's a double timbre Mode called Multi where you can change the MIDI channel that timbre 2 operates on so it can be played from either a seperate keyboard or sequencer MIDI track.

I've been trying to get this to work all day. I've set the MIDI channels for timbre 1 and 2 as instructed in the R3 manual using "Page 42 MIDI" and "Page 1 Voice" on the R3.

I'm using the SEQ24 MIDI sequencer and I get the two voices fine when clicking the keyboard, but when I start the playback of the MIDI tracks I loose the second timbre. Each track has a Program Change at the start to select the desired preset for the track.

I don't think its a setting in SEQ24 as I can get multiple voices from the Waldorf Blofeld fine using a different MIDI channel for each track.

What setting could I be overlooking on the R3?

Thanks in advance.

Samus2012 · Post by **Samus2012** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 6:21 am

Found what I was overlooking.

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... i+channels

You can't use two programs, only one program can be used at a time and then edit its timbres to be the two sounds desired.

Re-Member · Post by **Re-Member** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:24 pm

Samus2012 wrote:Found what I was overlooking.

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... i+channels

You can't use two programs, only one program can be used at a time and then edit its timbres to be the two sounds desired.

When set to Multi mode, the R3 can respond to seperate program changes that lets you swap the individual timbres with ones from other programs. So you can actually use two programs at once, but it only works if the two sounds you want originally operate as one timbre.

It took me awhile to figure it out, but it's in the MIDI implementation guide:

Program MIDI Out [Hex] [Dec]
Program A1 - P8 mm,bb,pp = 00,00,00~7F / 00,00,000~127
Timbre1 A1 - P8 20,20,00~7F / 32,32,000~127 (only Receive)
Timbre2 A1 - P8 20,21,00~7F / 32,33,000~127 (only Receive)

With my microSTATION, I can set program change messages using MSB & LSB numbers. For selecting the first timbre of any program, I had to set MSB/LSB to 032/032 then use numbers 000 to 127 to select timbre 1 of any of the R3's programs. For accessing timbre 2 sounds, the MSB/LSB numbers were 032/033, then numbers 000 to 127.

If you create all your Programs to operate as Split or Multi and treat the individual timbres as single sounds, you technically have 256 sounds to juggle between, rather than 128.

Samus2012 · Post by **Samus2012** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:49 am

Thanks for the info.

Since I'm just starting to experiment with MIDI, I'm just using the SEQ24 sequencer and I'm not sure how flexible it is with being able to take advantage of all the info contained in the R3's accompanying MIDI Implementation document.

In the meantime I did experimenting with the R3's various "Multi" presets and SEQ24 is controlling each timbre via MIDI just fine.

Re-Member · Post by **Re-Member** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:30 pm

There's also the "Copy Program" shift function that let's you swap timbres around. It's on page 75 in the manual. For example, if you have two single timbre programs, one on bank C-1 then other on D-3, you could set C-1 to MULTI, then use the copy feature to place D-3 Timbre 1 onto C-1 Timbre 2. Now you've got both programs operating side by side on seperate channels, no MIDI program change messages required.