A friend of mine has sent me a heap of MIDI files - some are excellent. However, when I load them into BIAB all of the tracks appear on the Melody channel. How do I split them? I've tried the Sequencer, and tried loading them into Realband but to no avail. Can anyone give me a step-by-step instruction of how to do it? Thanks in advance
Not sure the technique that was used Keith, and I don't know if this helps, but try this?
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
RB should give you the opportunity to place each midi on a separate channel and most users find it's preferable to BIAB to edit midi.
In BIAB: With a Midi file loaded, Open the Sequencer to determine the number of midi tracks and the assigned channel.
Select the Edit Menu - Copy Special > - Copy\Move Tracks selection.
From this window you can select midi instruments and move the midi data to a BIAB Mixer track. For instance, if the midi file on the Melody Channel has a bass on channel 2, in the Copy\Move window, check channel 2 and move it to the BIAB Mixer Bass Channel. This moves the data and freezes the track.
With the data loaded onto the BIAB Mixer channel, you can assign any patch, effects, dynamics to the track. Depending on the data in the midi file, you may also be able to control volume and panning. Attempting to assign a RealTrack to the channel and have the RT respond to the midi data doesn't work. Midi, SuperMidi and Hi-Q midi does.
As an example, I imported a midi file of Proud Mary onto the BIAB Mixer Melody Channel. The Midi file contained 7 tracks. Track 1 was an alto sax patch and played the melody notes. I moved the remaining six tracks to the Soloist Channel. I opened the Edit Menu, selected copy special > command and then copy/move.
On the Soloist Channel, the Bass patch was channel 7. I selected box 7 and moved the bass patch data to the BIAB Mixer Bass Channel. I repeated this action to move the Drums patch data assigned to channel 10 to the BIAB Mixer Drums channel. These tracks are frozen but I chose to convert them to Artist Performance Tracks which also automatically creates a physical audio file of the track.
From the Stylepicker, I selected a RealStyle to play along with these midi tracks and I chose to mute the remaining midi tracks on the Soloist Channel.
I've attached a screen shot of the Mixer for clarity.
If you simply open a midi file in real band it may say file is type 0 Extract channels to multiple tracks. Click yes, that's it job done.
I suspect that the files you have from your friend are all saved as type 0 midi. There are plenty of free converters on the web but you don't really need them as most DAWS will split them on loading.
NOTE BIAB will always put them on one track if you just open them
RealBand is the one you need. If you open as Mike suggests you can easily see the separate tracks in a way you can't in BIAB. I'm sure he's right about type O midi files. Some of the stand alone file players like the yamaha file players need type O files.
BIAB is an auto accompaniment program. RB is a much easier program for opening and editing midi files.
OK, got it. Thanks guys, you've been a great help. I've split the first MIDI file sucessfully. I really only need the lead & chords as I like to do my own arrangements.
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