Hi everyone, I am a long time user of PowerTracks and have accumulated over 150 songs over the years. Some are midi only but most are midi and audio together (saved as SEQ file).
I purchased Studio One last week. I want to open my songs in Studio One and use some plugins that will not work in PowerTracks.
However, it will not open a SEQ file! Any ideas? Also, it will open a mid file but does not seem to recognize control changes (volume control 7 and 87 and others).
I also have RealBand Thanks in advance.

A SEQ file is a proprietary file format used by Realband and PowerTracks. Other DAW' cannot open them, just like Realband can't open a Studio One file, which is saved in its Ian proprietary format.

MIDI files are a non-proprietary standards based file format that all DAWs recognize, as are WAV files also, for example.

To bring the SEQ files into Studio One, you'll need to open them in Realband or PowerTracks first, and then render all the wav content to individual WAV files that toy can then import into Studio One. You can, as you have already found, bring in the MIDI files, but Studio One will have no way of knowing which synths were assigned to each of the tracks or channels. Likewise with any effects assigned to either MIDI or audio tracks. You would then have to manually recreate those settings in Studio One.

This it's the case regardless of which DAW you are using. They each have their own proprietary file format.

Thanks John, Good explanation. Do you or anyone have any ideas on the control changes (Control 7) I thought control and program changes were standard for all sequencers.
Thanks again

I'm pretty sure controller changes should be in your MIDI saved file. Are you not seeing that?

What a new target DAW does with the data when you open the file is up to that DAW.

Yeah, CC7 should go with a MIDI file.

Is there a filter in Studio One hiding it?

Does the synth being used recognize it? This is a whole different issue. Most synths will, but they don't have to; you can have a synth that has no idea what CC7 is, if the synth is not GM compatible. Even then 'most' synths (even if not GM compatible) recognize CC7 .. but not all of them.

Hi, Let me give an example of a simple sequence in PowerTracks. First from a midi controller we lay down a drum track. Next, a piano track. Next, bass. and last muted guitar.
Now what I do next is set program and control changes. Drum track, I click on event list, insert, control change then enter 127. Next piano
event list ins, Program change 2 (bright acc piano) also on the same track Event list, CC7 enter 80
Next Bass PC 34 and CC7 100 next guitar muted, PC 29 and CC7 enter 70.
That's how I set up the instrument selection and mix. It works every time in powertracks.
When I open that same midi file in Studio One it seems to play the right instruments but the mix is all full volume.
I use Coyote in powertracks and whatever comes in studio one.
Thanks

After making these edits, do you save the file as a MIDI file?
If you just click save, it saves as a SEQ file as the default. Saving it as a MIDI file (.MID) should carry these CC messages over.
Use Save As
Either that or your default synth in Studio One is not recognizing common volume control changes (CC7 or even CC11 should work)
Can you see the Events in Studio One via an editor, or do they not exist??

Yes, I save as midi file. When I add audio (guitar vocals etc) I save as a seq file. I know the seq files won't even open. The midi songs open but all the tracks in the song volume is 100%.
There must be something like "PowerTracks event list" in Studio One somewhere. I did find a window somewhere with a slider that controlled the volume but, I did not see how to save it.
I only got the Studio One because I can't open or find many plugins in PowerTracks.

I just looked through the Studio One user manual and could unfortunately find no reference to what it does with imported MIDI files, other than the fact that it imports them.

Since I have Notion (a notation program by Presonus, that is integrated with Studio One), I might would bring the MIDI file into Notion (where I believe it preserves your MIDI settings), and then link it to my Studio One project.

But maybe someone with more knowledge about Studio One knows of a more elegant solution.