Basic midi question

I'm not quite sure what a "Style" is, but if it's similar to a Roland "Performance," what you need to do is be sure that you have "Accept MIDI patch change?" (or a similar wording) set to "YES," so that when you send new patch numbers to the various channels, your Style (Performance?) will allow the sounds to change.

I always create a Performance in all of my Roland gear that is set for the following:

Performance Name: Multi-timbral
Channels allocated: 2-8
Keyboard allocation: Full
Accept MIDI messages? YES

My channel 1 is ALWAYS my Kurzweil MicroPiano (2 units set on overflow mode). Also, I "cut down" the available channels available to each module to prevent "MIDI cram," where you start losing earlier notes if you "fill up" your polyphony..

So, in my setup:

MID1 CH1 - Kurzweil Micropiano (64 note poly)
MIDI CH2 - Roland 5080/SRX-7/SRX-11/SRX-12
MIDI CH3 - Roland 5080/SRX-7/SRX-11/SRX-12
MIDI CH4 - Roland 5080/SRX-7/SRX-11/SRX-12
MIDI CH5 - Roland 5080/SRX-7/SRX-11/SRX-12
MIDI CH6 - Roland 5080/SRX-7/SRX-11/SRX-12
MIDI CH7 - Roland 5080/SRX-7/SRX-11/SRX-12
MIDI CH8 - Roland 5080/SRX-7/SRX-11/SRX-12
MIDI CH9 - Roland 5050/SRX-3/SRX-6/SRX-10
MIDI CH10 - Roland CR80 (Drum module)
MIDI CH11 - Roland 5050/SRX-3/SRX-6/SRX-10
MIDI CH12 - Roland 5050/SRX-3/SRX-6/SRX-10
MIDI CH13 - Roland 5050/SRX-3/SRX-6/SRX-10
MIDI CH14 - Roland 5050/SRX-3/SRX-6/SRX-10
MIDI CH15 - Roland 5050/SRX-3/SRX-6/SRX-10
MIDI CH16 - Roland 5050/SRX-3/SRX-6/SRX-10

.. so with my PORT1 of my MIDI card, I have access to:

064 note - Piano
128 note/partial - 5080
16 note - trap drums
128 note/partial - 5050

.. for a total of 336 simultaneous notes/partials..

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? HOWEVER, if you have a "piano and strings" patch of some sort, and are playing a ballad, holding down the sustain pedal while you're arpeggiating underneath the vocal line, that Piano/Strings patch can easily be 4 "layers," which means everytime you hit ONE note, you're using up FOUR of your 128 note "polyphone."

OK, 128/4=32 notes.. So after you've hit 32 notes on that Piano/strings patch, you've used up the entire synth, nevermind what you might have playing on the other channels.

And then one has that well known effect of "stealing notes," where the synth will decide which notes are "discardable," and zap them to let the latest notes enter that particular synth.

ALSO, just imagine what a gliss would do to your "other" channels' sounds..

By running several modules/keyboards breaking up the 16 channels, you can get a fuller sound and your arrangements/sequences will indeed sound like they did in your head before you layed it down in the sequencer!

Cheers!

mm1

Thanks for the detailed reply but I am not referring to a performance.
A style is a series of short midi files put together to form
4 X intros
4 X main
4 X fills
4 X endings
The style can then be played playing any chord and then changing between intro,main,fill,ending etc

The short midi files I am using dont seem to specify msb,lsb,pc

So my query was what is the syntax for assigning these values to each channel in my midi file


I have the tone list of the gw-8 which specifies LSB,MSB,PC of each tone
eg.......do I code ?

controller Bank LSB 64 channel num
controller bank MSB 87
program change 32 25
note .....
etc