Midi connect
- Thread starter Carl3813
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What brand and model of keyboard is it?
How are you connecting it to your laptop-- with a simple USB cable, with a MIDI-to-USB cable, or with an audio interface?
When you say you are getting only keyboard sounds but need drum sounds as well, are you talking about the sounds that the keyboard produces when you send MIDI to it from the keyboard, or something else?
What MIDI software are you using on your laptop?
I'm going to take a wild guess that you mean the sounds the keyboard makes when you send MIDI to it. If that is correct, then you've most likely got a successful MIDI connection and don't need help with that part-- but please do provide more details, anyway.
The rest of what follows is a general discussion that might overwhelm you, but it's meant to give you a broad picture of how MIDI works as far as selecting different sounds. Once you've provided some details about your setup, we can try to give you more specific help.
When you send MIDI Note events to a keyboard, the keyboard will play those notes using whichever sound has been selected. In MIDI terminology, those sounds are called "programs," although they might be called by some other term on the keyboard-- "voices" (Yamaha keyboards), "tones" (Casio keyboards), "patches" (synthesizers), "presets," and so on. In music, the proper term would probably be "timbre," or the uniquely identifiable sound that a particular instrument produces when it's played. But we'll use the MIDI term.
If you want the keyboard to play the notes it's receiving with a specific program, you need to send it a "Program Change" event. Depending on your MIDI software and your keyboard, this might be as simple as picking the desired program from a list of available programs, or it might be more complicated than that and require that you look up the correct Program Number in the keyboard's user manual and enter that Program Number into a Program Change event.
Most electronic keyboards are multitimbral, meaning they can produce the timbres or sounds of multiple instruments at the same time. They have multiple thingies called "parts" which are used for specific roles, and each part can be told to play its notes using a specific program.
On some keyboards these parts are associated with "splits" and "layers," meaning the keys are split into 2 or more different areas-- typically "left" and "right"-- and the keys in a particular area might be able to play 2 or more different timbres which are layered together. On other keyboards the parts are associated with "zones" that can be defined with a bit more freedom as far as which keys are associated with which zones. But in MIDI terminology, these splits, layers, zones, and other parts are generally referred to as "channels."
There are standard sets of Program Numbers which were decided upon years ago to help simplify the process of getting a keyboard to use a specific desired sound, such as an Acoustic Grand Piano, or Church Organ, or Nylon String Guitar, or French Horn, and so on. To tell the keyboard that you want a specific part to play a specific sound or timbre, you would send a Program Change for the desired timbre on the channel that's associated with the desired part.
In the GM or General MIDI standard, there are only 128 different Program Numbers. However, none of those were used for the drum or percussion sounds! Instead, they created a "standard drum kit" in which specific percussion sounds are assigned to specific notes. In this simple GM standard, channel 10 is always used for the standard drum kit, while channels 1 through 9, and channels 11 through 16, can be used to play notes with any of the 128 different program sounds.
This simple GM standard was later expanded by different keyboard manufacturers so they could have more than just 128 different timbres or program sounds. Yamaha created their XG standard, Roland created their GS standard, and so on. Then, to try to keep things from getting too disorganized, the GM2 or General MIDI Level 2 standard was created. In these different standards, the number of possible program sounds was expanded by allowing for multiple "banks" of program sounds, and two new "Bank Select" MIDI messages were created for selecting a particular bank of programs. Each message can have 128 possible values, but with two Bank Select messages there can be a total of 16,384 different banks (128 times 128), with each bank containing up to 128 different program sounds. The two Bank Select messages are "Bank Select MSB" or Most Significant Byte, and "Bank Select LSB" or Least Significant Byte. Some keyboards use only one of these and ignore the other one, and some keyboards use both of them, but generally speaking you need to specify values for both of them.
So to select a specific program sound or timbre on your keyboard, you normally need to send it 3 values on the channel that's associated with the part you want to control-- Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change. Your keyboard's user manual or other documentation should have a list of all the different sounds it can produce, with the Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change numbers needec to select each of those sounds.
Most multitimbral electronic keyboards are designed to default to the basic GM standard unless told otherwise, so by default they will usually play drum sounds from their GM Standard Drum Kit when you send them Note events on channel 10. When you send them Note events on any of the other 15 channels they will play those notes using their GM Acoustic Grand Piano program, because that is the timbre or program sound assigned to program 0 of bank 0-- that is, Bank Select MSB 0, Bank Select LSB 0, and Program Change 0.
However, if your keyboard is not limited exclusively to the basic GM standard, it should have more than just one drum kit-- possibly several dozen drum kits-- with each of its drum kits having its own Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change values. In that case, you should be able to select any of your keyboard's melodic timbres or percussive timbres on any of the 16 MIDI channels by sending the 3 values that correspond to the desired melodic sound or drum kit. If you choose a drum kit, you then select a specific percussive sound within that drum kit by sending the specific Note event which produces that specific percussive sound. Your keyboard's documentation should include a table showing which Note events produce which percussive sounds in which drum kits.
How are you connecting it to your laptop-- with a simple USB cable, with a MIDI-to-USB cable, or with an audio interface?
When you say you are getting only keyboard sounds but need drum sounds as well, are you talking about the sounds that the keyboard produces when you send MIDI to it from the keyboard, or something else?
What MIDI software are you using on your laptop?
I'm going to take a wild guess that you mean the sounds the keyboard makes when you send MIDI to it. If that is correct, then you've most likely got a successful MIDI connection and don't need help with that part-- but please do provide more details, anyway.
The rest of what follows is a general discussion that might overwhelm you, but it's meant to give you a broad picture of how MIDI works as far as selecting different sounds. Once you've provided some details about your setup, we can try to give you more specific help.
When you send MIDI Note events to a keyboard, the keyboard will play those notes using whichever sound has been selected. In MIDI terminology, those sounds are called "programs," although they might be called by some other term on the keyboard-- "voices" (Yamaha keyboards), "tones" (Casio keyboards), "patches" (synthesizers), "presets," and so on. In music, the proper term would probably be "timbre," or the uniquely identifiable sound that a particular instrument produces when it's played. But we'll use the MIDI term.
If you want the keyboard to play the notes it's receiving with a specific program, you need to send it a "Program Change" event. Depending on your MIDI software and your keyboard, this might be as simple as picking the desired program from a list of available programs, or it might be more complicated than that and require that you look up the correct Program Number in the keyboard's user manual and enter that Program Number into a Program Change event.
Most electronic keyboards are multitimbral, meaning they can produce the timbres or sounds of multiple instruments at the same time. They have multiple thingies called "parts" which are used for specific roles, and each part can be told to play its notes using a specific program.
On some keyboards these parts are associated with "splits" and "layers," meaning the keys are split into 2 or more different areas-- typically "left" and "right"-- and the keys in a particular area might be able to play 2 or more different timbres which are layered together. On other keyboards the parts are associated with "zones" that can be defined with a bit more freedom as far as which keys are associated with which zones. But in MIDI terminology, these splits, layers, zones, and other parts are generally referred to as "channels."
There are standard sets of Program Numbers which were decided upon years ago to help simplify the process of getting a keyboard to use a specific desired sound, such as an Acoustic Grand Piano, or Church Organ, or Nylon String Guitar, or French Horn, and so on. To tell the keyboard that you want a specific part to play a specific sound or timbre, you would send a Program Change for the desired timbre on the channel that's associated with the desired part.
In the GM or General MIDI standard, there are only 128 different Program Numbers. However, none of those were used for the drum or percussion sounds! Instead, they created a "standard drum kit" in which specific percussion sounds are assigned to specific notes. In this simple GM standard, channel 10 is always used for the standard drum kit, while channels 1 through 9, and channels 11 through 16, can be used to play notes with any of the 128 different program sounds.
This simple GM standard was later expanded by different keyboard manufacturers so they could have more than just 128 different timbres or program sounds. Yamaha created their XG standard, Roland created their GS standard, and so on. Then, to try to keep things from getting too disorganized, the GM2 or General MIDI Level 2 standard was created. In these different standards, the number of possible program sounds was expanded by allowing for multiple "banks" of program sounds, and two new "Bank Select" MIDI messages were created for selecting a particular bank of programs. Each message can have 128 possible values, but with two Bank Select messages there can be a total of 16,384 different banks (128 times 128), with each bank containing up to 128 different program sounds. The two Bank Select messages are "Bank Select MSB" or Most Significant Byte, and "Bank Select LSB" or Least Significant Byte. Some keyboards use only one of these and ignore the other one, and some keyboards use both of them, but generally speaking you need to specify values for both of them.
So to select a specific program sound or timbre on your keyboard, you normally need to send it 3 values on the channel that's associated with the part you want to control-- Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change. Your keyboard's user manual or other documentation should have a list of all the different sounds it can produce, with the Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change numbers needec to select each of those sounds.
Most multitimbral electronic keyboards are designed to default to the basic GM standard unless told otherwise, so by default they will usually play drum sounds from their GM Standard Drum Kit when you send them Note events on channel 10. When you send them Note events on any of the other 15 channels they will play those notes using their GM Acoustic Grand Piano program, because that is the timbre or program sound assigned to program 0 of bank 0-- that is, Bank Select MSB 0, Bank Select LSB 0, and Program Change 0.
However, if your keyboard is not limited exclusively to the basic GM standard, it should have more than just one drum kit-- possibly several dozen drum kits-- with each of its drum kits having its own Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB, and Program Change values. In that case, you should be able to select any of your keyboard's melodic timbres or percussive timbres on any of the 16 MIDI channels by sending the 3 values that correspond to the desired melodic sound or drum kit. If you choose a drum kit, you then select a specific percussive sound within that drum kit by sending the specific Note event which produces that specific percussive sound. Your keyboard's documentation should include a table showing which Note events produce which percussive sounds in which drum kits.