How do I import a 16-channel MIDI track into a session template?

I have composed a symphony (3 movements so far) using Rosegarden and saved each movement as a single MIDI file. Each instrument corresponds to one MIDI channel. I have created an orchestral session template with all the tracks in the same order and I’d like to be able to import the MIDI file with each channel in its corresponding track.

I tried these import settings:
Add files to selected tracks
Mapping one track per channel
MIDI track names by track number
Insert at session start
Use MIDI tempo map
I don’t think the other settings are relevant.

It didn’t do what I expected. Ardour just dumped all 16 tracks on top of each other in track 3 and assigned all the notes to MIDI channel 3.
If I import them as new tracks it behaves as expected, but naturally I have to either move them or manually set up the template, which isn’t my favourite workflow.

Am I doing something wrong or is this a known issue?
EDIT: I’m guessing from the lack of responses that there isn’t an obvious solution

I’m running 6.9.0 on Debian - Linux 5.15.0-1-amd64

Incidentally, if I Add files as new tracks it still assigns them all to channel 3. This isn’t a showstopper, but it does involve about half an hour’s extra work to correct the import errors. I’ll have to see if there is a way to view the contents of the .mid files just to make sure the problem isn’t caused by Rosegarden’s encoding. As I’m not a developer this doesn’t come naturally

I finally had a chance to try this out on my system [Linux Mint 20.02 | Linux-5.4.0-90-lowlatency (x86_64) | Ardour 6.9.0].

I don’t have very many multi-channel MIDI files, but I tried with one I had which contained 3 instruments, each on their own channel.

In Ardour I started a new empty session (I didn’t add any MIDI tracks beforehand), then went to File/Import, and selected my MIDI file.

I chose the following import options:

Add Files: as new tracks
Mapping: one track per channel
MIDI Track Names: by instrument name
Insert at: session start
*Use MIDI Tempo Map… (I tried this both selected and un-selected on two different import tests)

Result:
Ardour imported each channel onto it’s own separate track. Each track also has it’s own MIDI channel. At least for my test MIDI file it appears to work as expected. I wonder if you are on to something regarding MIDI file formatting from Rosegarden and compatibility. I don’t use Rosegarden, so I’m not much help there.

While I couldn’t reproduce the issue you are running into, I hope this little bit of info helps point you in the right direction.

Cheers,
Bella

Yep, that works for me too. Do your tracks go to the expected MIDI channels? Mine all end up on channel 3 regardless.

What I’m trying to achieve is to pour a multichannel MIDI file into an orchestral session template

I haven’t tried importing into a preconfigured template, but I may be able to try that today.

As far as MIDI channels, during my test yesterday, the import was bringing in the correct MIDI channel for each track (in my case ch.8, 11, and 13).

Bella

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