noob question

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wook

Post by wook » Fri Dec 05, 2003 6:40 am

Currently I use Cakewalk 8 (going to upgrade soon) with an old Yamaha PSR520. I just added a Roland TD-8 for drums.

With the default setup (daisy chained the devices together and turned them on), drums are coming from the TD-8, and so are some of the other tracks that should be coming from the keyboard.

When I set the keyboard's remote channel to 2, and specified that the bass track play on channel 2 within Cakewalk, it still comes from the TD-8.
I can change patches on the TD-8 from Cakewalk, and it seems proper, however, I can't seem to make Cakewalk control the keyboard.

Do I have to tell the TD-8 not to listen on channel 2 ?

Basically, I want to be able to choose which device I want for each track.
Am I missing something here ?

Another unrelated question.

Is it possible to seperate drums into different tracks in cakewalk. For instance, I want Kick and Toms on track 1, Snare on 2, Cymbals on 3 etc, so that I can control their volumes individually ? I suspect this may be a limitation of the old version of Cakewalk I have.

Thanx for your time.


GretscGuy
Posts: 434
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2003 1:26 pm
Location: Massachusetts USA

Post by GretscGuy » Fri Dec 05, 2003 3:10 pm

QUOTE:
Is it possible to seperate drums into different tracks in cakewalk. For instance, I want Kick and Toms on track 1, Snare on 2, Cymbals on 3 etc, so that I can control their volumes individually ? I suspect this may be a limitation of the old version of Cakewalk I have.

Yes it is. You can write a .cal script to do this. I belive there is one in the .cal library on Cakewalk's site. If these are the types of things you like, learn CAL it's worth it. There is a great tutorial in your manual.

About the Daisy Chain situation:

There is a myth that daisy chaining will introduce a delay as much as 3 miliseconds per device in the chain. The last synth in the chain would supposadley respond later than the first synth in the chain.

This myth is patently and categoricly untrue. It is worth looking at for a number of interesting reasons. If it really was true, it would cause serious problems.

The actual delay of a midi signal passing through the in and thru jacks of a properly designed device is about three MICROSECONDS (.0003).

Therefore, about 100 midi devices could be chained togetehr before a delay equal to a single midi byte would be encountered.

This myth is due to two things:

1- An article that was a misprint in Keyboard back in 1986

2- midi sequensers do impose a relativley long delay when recording, filtering mapping and channelizing data - NOT when just passing it along (which is what a midi thru jack does). Many people think the midi through jack of a hardware synth works the same as the thru jack on a synth which is a completely different animal.

There is a downside to daisy chaining. It doesn't have to do with delay, but with the degration of the midi signal. As the chain gets longer, the midi signal (on "logical 0) and off (logial 1) starts to get shorter and shorter.

If the signal gets short enough the bit may not be recognized by it's reciever. A start bit may be missed or a 0 may be interprited as a 1. This is definitley a situation to be avoided.

I could have given you a shorter answer, however I think that sometimes if you understand the reasons behind problems you can avoid them in the future.

Good Luck!

wook

Post by wook » Fri Dec 05, 2003 5:32 pm

Thanx for the info on .cal, I totally overlooked it before. I will read the manual a bit on that subject.

What happens when you hook up a device like a drum module and a keyboard to a computer with Cakewalk ?

Is it as simple as specifying on the device which channel to listen on, then setting specific tracks in Cakewalk to certain channels ?

I can't seem to get my drum module to stop playing bass and keyboard tracks despite having set them to the channel I set the keyboard to.

GretscGuy
Posts: 434
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2003 1:26 pm
Location: Massachusetts USA

Post by GretscGuy » Fri Dec 05, 2003 9:30 pm

Make sure that local control is shut off on your drum machine and that it is configured to send/recieve midi data correctly. Sounds like some settings are off.

You do want (as you said) to make sure you are sending and recieving on the correct channels.

Good Luck!

wook

Post by wook » Sat Dec 06, 2003 6:13 am

Thanx for the info!

I will be tweaking it tomorrow.

GretscGuy
Posts: 434
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2003 1:26 pm
Location: Massachusetts USA

Post by GretscGuy » Mon Dec 08, 2003 2:50 pm

Let us know how you make out!

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