Here's what I want to do, and what I have been doing.

I set up track 1 with Cakewalk TTS-1 as the synth plug in. I will only describe the 2 MIDI channels I want to discuss for brevity.

I have a piano set on MIDI channel 9, assigned to the 9th slot of the TTS-1 mixer screen.
I have strings set on channel 2, assigned to the 2nd slot of the TTS-1 mixer screen.

How can I play those 2 sounds stacked together?

I can't figure out a way to make one controller play 2 MIDI channels at once, since the controller can only send MIDI data on the selected channel.

Can I somehow set up another instance of that TTS-1 synth on another track and put the piano and strings on the same MIDI channel by putting them onto 2 different places on the MIDI mixer screen? I want to do this to play both layered sounds when I play on the controller, not just clone the first take onto another track.

At MIDI wits ends here.....

Hi Eddie,

There's no feature in RealBand that would allow you to play two MIDI tracks at once on your keyboard, sorry. You could record one track and then copy the MIDI notes to the other track pretty easily though.

That being said, it's possible that Pipeline has some trick up his sleeve to route MIDI to two channels at once using some third-party plugin.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

At least that stops the hair pulling. Thanks.

Another work around would be, if RB will let you record two tracks simultaneously, have two MIDI tracks set to record. For this example let me assume that you MIDI keyboard controller is set at channel 1 for output. Have both MIDI tracks set for your MIDI controller channel 1 input and one track set for channel 2 output and the other for channel 9 output.

I used to do this in Sonar all the time.

No sure exactly what you are doing, but can you make a copy of Cakewalk TTS-1.dll > TTS-1-2.dll so you have one in each track and both receive the midi from the keyboard.

You can have one in MiniHost also you can use Midi Channelize VST before it in the chain.

I don't know what those things mean but I will watch the videos to learn about it. Thanks.

watch dropbox video (below) from here http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=499491#Post499491

Been a long time but... I think MidiOx can rechannel 1 channel into multiple channels.

Been a long time but... I think MidiOx can rechannel 1 channel into multiple channels.

The dialog boxes shown on this video are not the same as the dialog boxes in Real Band. The very first instruction is Preferences, then MIDI settings, and the MIDI Settings in Real Band is nothing like this. The options selected do not translate to the options given in Real Band. That was an informative video but not helpful for this particular situation. It's ironic that the OGs here who have the most knowledge of PG software learned on BIAB, before there was such a thing as RB, and never then learned RB (which I use exclusively), so the deepest well of knowledge is in the software I don't use.

I tried to play with MIDI settings in RB as hey apply to the MIDI Thru but when I select Global I get no sound out of anything. I guess I just can't do what I want, as one of the PG folks said earlier in the thread. I am in essence trying to turn RB into a MIDI Thru box for virtual synths.

And in an unrelated matter, the metronome again quit working. From one session to the next, without me even opening the metronome dialog page (Meaning no settings were changed from the yesterday when it worked to the today when it stopped. I say that because the last time this happened everybody told me what settings to change, when nothing was changed from when it worked. Programs don't just go autonomously into one random setup panel and change one random parameter. Between this and the VU meters, I have had the same issues with every version of BIAB I ever bought. They just suddenly stopped working. And I will NOT reinstall. I shouldn't have to.), it just stopped working. My controller in the downstairs room requires me to turn my back on the screen so I need auditory feedback to record live input down here.

I used to use RB all the time but there were just too many crashes so I went to Reaper and no problems.
This is RB midi in set to Keyboard USB, the midi is going to track 1 that has IL MiniHost, and it has EZKeys, RealGuitar and 2 instances of the same Sforzando.dll with different instruments.
EDIT: and have RB set to ASIO and Always On.
Drag the flow arrows up/down for volume.
You can put a key range plugin to split the keyboard
and play one instrument on one octave and another on another octave.

When I copy and rename these they error out when I try to load them.

Sorry I thought it was a VSTi not a DXi, you would have to register the second one, but not sure if that would work,
http://forum.cakewalk.com/TTS1-multiple-instances-or-not-m3205638.aspx

The whole thing about this post, and what I was trying to accomplish, is to see that if I have 3 sounds assigned to three tracks and all on the same channel, could I play all of those sounds if the selected track was set to that common channel, and the answer is apparently "no". Real Band will only play the sound assigned to the track that is selected, and I can't select more than one track at a time to be controlled by the controller. I tried holding down the shift and selecting tracks 1, 2 and 3, and while it "selects" them, I can only play sound from the one that is red, not the 2 that are yellow.

So the bottom line is that I was trying to make Real Band act like a MIDI Thru box, and as I was told by the support team, it just doesn't work like that. I am quite aware that I can copy the track to another track, but I want to play those layers in real time.

is this doing what you want ?
you are recording the midi while monitoring the sound of all 3 instruments being played at the same time, so if you decide it's a good take you can then apply that midi to each instrument and render to separate tracks after.

How many years have I asked for an arm to record button on each track ?

The problem here Eddie is you're trying to do a simple layered patch using a GM only synth. You have your basic 128 GM patches and that's it. A real synth like Kontakt, Sampletank, whatever have literally hundreds if not thousands of patches layered with all kinds of things and you can change them to create your own layers.

Bob

Well, your example uses BIAB and I use RB. Much of the "language" doesn't translate.

Somewhere on a thread somewhere, someone had a wishlist post that at some point in the future there will be one or the other, or a hybrid of both. Over my years here I have had SO MANY well intentioned people try to help me solve a problem but they are all OG people who use BIAB exclusively because that's what they have always used because there was no RB when they started and they have never tried it. I am 180 from that. I have never even booted BIAB. I know that conceptually MIDI is MIDI but the practicality is that the 2 programs have different language, different screens, input boxes....

So "just click this icon and click this setting" doesn't apply as high as 75% of the time because there is no "this box" in Real Band like there is in BIAB.

And remember as I talk about this, I am not even yet to a recording stage. I just want to play those layers of virtual synths from one controller so I can audition what they would sound like and it is obvious to me now that it's not going to happen. I just hoped that anything on a channel would play no matter what track my controller was connected to. But like I say, not gonna happen. It's just not built that way.

What would help would be if that TTS-1 synth mixer panel would allow us to assign a channel to more than one of the 16 "tracks". You know what I mean? 1 is MIDI 1, 2 is MIDI 2..... If I could put 3 of those virtual instruments on MIDI channel; 1 I might be able to pull this off. Renaming that dll file for TTS-1 was a good idea but it doesn't work. I renamed TTS-1.dll to TTS-1-2.dll. When that failed I tried naming it something other than TTS-1 (I think I called it fred) and that didn't work either, though I was pretty sure it wouldn't.

So, bottom line, it just won't work.

Cakewalk's TTS-1 is a GM only synth? I ask that question that way because I don't know what makes something a GM synth. I have one template with a different grand piano synth on it's own track, and a separate backing vocal synth on it's own track, and so forth. The end game was to try and play strings from the TTS-1, the grand piano, and the vocal at the same time. I don't know what makes a general midi synth a general midi synth.

General MIDI vs Specific MIDI? LOL!!!

Hi Eddie,

General MIDI refers to the soundbank. Every General MIDI synth has the exact same 128 patches. 1 is Acoustic Piano, 2 is Bright Piano, 3 is Electric Grand Piano, 13 is Marimba, etc.

Band-in-a-Box and RealBand are designed to work within the General MIDI framework, which is why they can find the sounds they need easily if you use a GM synth like the Coyote WT or Forte, the old VSC, or the TTS-1.

General MIDI synths are nice and convenient, but more sophisticated software instruments don't tend to be General MIDI-compatible.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

It's using RB RB RB and it works !
I never used BB I always used RB ALWAYS , I'm the one that tried harder than anyone else to improve RB, things were changed and improved like VST Sync, it was a real battle with so much opposition against change, like getting a solo button on each track in RB, but in the end it wore me out so much I just use BB and REAPER, and now there's REATRAK that integrates BB/RB with REAPER https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=212645

Watch
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qwbthdqvd9653u6/RB-MiniHost.mp4?dl=0

Download
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qwbthdqvd9653u6/RB-MiniHost.mp4?dl=1

Ah. It can be done! Did you go through all that trouble making that video just for me??

I appreciate that very much! I will got on this the next time I sit down at that computer.