I have an orchestral template where instrument articulations are on the same track, and midi is output to an external sample player. (linuxsampler)
In the new channel selector, i’ve set up 4 midi channels for piccolo, four for flute, etc. (There are nine midi ports, each of 16 channels, hence the need to careful assign instrument articulation channel numbers, where there is more than one instrument per port)
When I input notes manually, i’d like to be able to preselect the channel number, instead of inputting, opening the edit dialog, and changing each channel assignment one by one.
How would I do this on the fly? (if it’s possible to do this at all.)
It would be good if you can explain what you mean with “instrument articulations”. And why you think you need four channels for the same instrument. why can the four flutes not use the same channel?
The four chennels are for different articulations, MW, sustain, accent, staccato. Some instruments have more (each string section has six, for example)
When inputting notes, the user can switch between articulations using a channel designation, instead of using sample instruments that rely on keyswitches, as another method.
My instruments are played back using an external standalone sampler, to which I route ardour midi.
So the four channels may all be for a particular instrument, i.e. Flute, but they are set per articulation, so are…different. from one another.
This is an experiment with a modest sample lib, so I can test Ardour’s latest midi features, and workflow.
For a non-orchestral example, consider the setBFree B3 emulation, which wants MIDI notes for the two keyboard consoles and the pedals on separate MIDI channels (1 for the top console, 2 for the bottom, 3 for the pedals). These days I normally set up a single MIDI bus in Ardour, holding the setBFree instrument, and three MIDI tracks, each configured to playback on only the one desired channel: I can then record (or program) the parts for each console and the pedals on separate tracks, without needing to muck about with changing the MIDI channel on my keyboard controller.
A little bit faster of the edit dialog would be to press C to change just the channel of the selected notes.
If you are in “draw” mode (shortcut D) there is a toolbar above the edit window with length, channel and velocity for the input notes (picture below). Still sub-optimal, but if your four channels happen to be one after the other (e.g. channels 1, 2, 3, 4) you can cycle through them by hovering the mouse on the toolbar and using the scroll wheel.
I wonder if there is an assignable shortcut to this toolbar.
