Ways of Panning MIDI? [SOLVED]

[Monkeymonkey35]

Hi All,

 

I'm curious if there is a way to pan midi in stereo (specifically, some low-bit percussion sounds) other than:

 

-The panning automation parameter within midi (not specific enough, in that the tail end of hits will be thrown to a different position if there are too many quick notes with different panning)

-Using two different tracks per sound, one panned left, one right.

 

Is this a a job for ultrabeat/GM drum kit?

[EdgarRothermich]

Are you sure you clear about the difference between a MIDI and an Audio signal?

You pan audio signals on an audio channel strip. You cannot pan MIDI events. MIDI is a data stream with (mostly) musical instructions that you feed into the sound module to create the sound with whatever preset you choose. The output of the sound module then is an audio signal and that one you can pan.

 

Example:

If you record a piano player, then you can pan that piano signal on your mixer left or right on the channel strip. However the notes the piano player has in front of him doesn't have the instruction " play the first chord through the left channel and the second chord through the right channel". The piano score (the MIDI instruction) only has the information what and how to play the music.

[Monkeymonkey35]

So, I thought that "Pan" was number 10 on the MIDI control change list.. Working from the piano roll in Logic, I am able to pan sound. Is that not from the midi, but instead working off of the channel strip?

 

edit: I see the channel strip moving with an automated "pan" parameter. Confusing!

[EdgarRothermich]

Yes and No. In the case of Pan and Volume, they live a double live as MIDI data and Automation data.

 

Maybe it is just the confusion of the terminology.

 

I was referring to the MIDI notes which are just the note information and velocity.

In your case, you are referring to MIDI controller data (CC10) to to set the pan level on a Channel Strip similar to the CC7 that sets the Level of channel strip.

 

Both are MIDI events, one for storing musical information and the other for storing control information.

 

The stuff gets a little bit more complicated when you entering automation in Logic. Logic uses its own Meta data to store automation. This data has a similar syntax as MIDI. Volume and Pan are actually controlled by the real MIDI cc7 and cc10 (some sort of overlapping). That's where it get's really interesting when you interchange region automation data and track automation data. CC7 and CC10 are store in standard MIDI Region (Region Automation) but Track Automation is stored in Automation Region on a hidden Arrange window, where you can do more automation edits (if you are more of the explorer type a guy)

[David Nahmani]

I'm curious if there is a way to pan midi in stereo (specifically, some low-bit percussion sounds) other than:

 

-The panning automation parameter within midi (not specific enough, in that the tail end of hits will be thrown to a different position if there are too many quick notes with different panning)

-Using two different tracks per sound, one panned left, one right.

Short answer = no.

 

You can pan an instrument, but you can't pan NOTES individually: all the notes the instrument plays are going to come from the location where you panned the instrument. If you move the instrument, the tail end of any notes that instrument is sustaining are moving with the instrument. So if you truly want to have some notes on the right and some on the left when some of those notes may be overlapping, you need two instruments, as you suggested yourself.

 

Hope that helps.

[EdgarRothermich]

Exactly, that is what I tried to say but David explained it much better.

[Monkeymonkey35]

Thanks guys, MUCH appreciated!!

[David Nahmani]

You're welcome!