Documentation confusion regarding MIDI.
Greetings All, I preface this by acknowledging that I know nothing about the innerworkings of MIDI. In section 3.5.7 of the NR, which deals with MIDI channel mapping, there appears to be a discrepancy in the wording about channels and tracks. The third paragraph implies that channels and tracks are synonymous, stating that LilyPond creates separate MIDI tracks for staves, instruments, or voices depending on the value of Score.midiChannelMapping. This is immediately followed by the statement that there is no limit to the number of tracks. The impression left is that layers upon layers of sound could be generated. This obviously is not true. The Selected Snippet at the bottom of that page states that only 16 channels are available per track and then details ways of avoiding the running out of channels. This page appears to need some clarification. I would offer replacement text, but knowing nothing on the topic, I am hardly qualified. I simply know from experience that midiChannelMapping offers a bit of wiggle room in an otherwise restrictive situation, especially for orchestral or other large ensemble context. Hwaen Ch'uqi
Re: Documentation confusion regarding MIDI.
Well,. I'm part of the same club, the Midi environment has always been a hard chapter, anyhow, I know the difference between 'track' and 'channel' : in sound or video editing software, the track is just a container, you can have multiple tracks, video tracks, audio tracks, Midi tracks and so on, any track has its own properties, regarding the 'nature' of the carried information, in example you can have a mono or stereo audio track. Channels are tracks you can play (or record) simultaneously, for example my Tascam portable stereo recorder has four tracks capability, then I can use four microphones at the same time, but channels are always two, to listen all four tracks I have to mix them into two channels. Hoping it helps, bye Dario Il lun 7 mar 2022, 07:46 Hwaen Ch'uqi ha scritto: > Greetings All, > > I preface this by acknowledging that I know nothing about the > innerworkings of MIDI. In section 3.5.7 of the NR, which deals with > MIDI channel mapping, there appears to be a discrepancy in the wording > about channels and tracks. The third paragraph implies that channels > and tracks are synonymous, stating that LilyPond creates separate MIDI > tracks for staves, instruments, or voices depending on the value of > Score.midiChannelMapping. This is immediately followed by the > statement that there is no limit to the number of tracks. The > impression left is that layers upon layers of sound could be > generated. This obviously is not true. The Selected Snippet at the > bottom of that page states that only 16 channels are available per > track and then details ways of avoiding the running out of channels. > This page appears to need some clarification. I would offer > replacement text, but knowing nothing on the topic, I am hardly > qualified. I simply know from experience that midiChannelMapping > offers a bit of wiggle room in an otherwise restrictive situation, > especially for orchestral or other large ensemble context. > > Hwaen Ch'uqi > >
Re: Documentation confusion regarding MIDI.
I preface this by acknowledging that I know nothing about the innerworkings of MIDI. In section 3.5.7 of the NR, which deals with MIDI channel mapping, there appears to be a discrepancy in the wording about channels and tracks. The third paragraph implies that channels and tracks are synonymous, stating that LilyPond creates separate MIDI tracks for staves, instruments, or voices depending on the value of Score.midiChannelMapping. This is immediately followed by the statement that there is no limit to the number of tracks. The impression left is that layers upon layers of sound could be generated. This obviously is not true. The Selected Snippet at the bottom of that page states that only 16 channels are available per track and then details ways of avoiding the running out of channels. This page appears to need some clarification. I would offer replacement text, but knowing nothing on the topic, I am hardly qualified. I simply know from experience that midiChannelMapping offers a bit of wiggle room in an otherwise restrictive situation, especially for orchestral or other large ensemble context. I think you are mixing up things. Lilypond does not imply a limitation on the number of tracks. You can indeed create layers upon layers of sound in lilypond. That impression is - as far as lilypond is concerned - correct. However there is a limit on the number of different midi channels per midi track imposed by the midi specification, namely 16 channels. Lilypond will allocate sounds (aka midi channels) in a round robin fashion when exceeding the 16 channel midi limit. Either follow the suggested methods as of the documentation or deal with this in a DAW or proper midi sequencer in post processing (e.g. by reallocating excess channels to new tracks). Kind regards, Michael -- Michael Gerdau email: m...@qata.de GPG-keys available on request or at public keyserver
