How to layer sounds thru midi in logic express 9?

[dmajor100]

I am wating to layer sounds from certain plug ins and maybe even my hardware synth but I'm not sure on the process. How can this really be done,does it have something to do with setting up certain midi channels on the same channel? Do i need a different interface like a motu midi express or can i achieve this with a simple motu ultra light mk3 which has 1 midi in and 1 midid out? Please leave any videos you know of from youtube on the forum so i can see what must be done.

 

[krushing]

You can do this without a dedicated MIDI interface just fine, as you get those 16 MIDI channels from a single port - why I ended up with a separate MIDI interface was simply because MIDI's bandwidth is very limited and it just gets clogged up quickly if you send a lot of data through it. As a concrete example, my Nord Lead 3 sends MIDI data from all its knobs and automating a few of these is enough for the rest of the daisy chained devices to start stuttering and/or drop out of sync because of the amount of data. But for regular note data you're probably not gonna need a separate interface.

 

[bandcoach]

Layering sounds requires only that you can trigger the sounds...

If this means duplicating the track data and having it trigger a different vst which you then mix, that is what you must do.

Some daws allow you to use a rack of vsts and to set the MIDI channel for that vst to any midi channel. You would then set the output MIDI channel of each track to be the required channel number to trigger individual vsts either in combination or singly

For example,

I have a vst rack that has

• 1 - Violins I
• 2 - Violins II
• 3 - Violas
• 4 - Violoncellos
• 5 - Basses
• 6 - Timpani
• 1- Flutes
• 2- Oboes
• 3 - Clarinets
• 10 - Percussion
• 7 - Horn I
• 8 - Horn II
• 9 - Trumpet 1
• 9 - Trumpet 2
• 4 - Trombone
• 5- Tuba

I have set the MIDI channels of each instrument so that data for channel 1 will play both violins and flutes, data for channel 2 will play both violins and oboes and so on.

Using your external hardware may require that you have more than one midi interface set - most semi-pro setups have something like 2 ins and 4 outs or 4 ins and 4 outs.

Ultimately, you need to test your configuration before adding extra sets of MIDI channels - it may not be needed, but only you can do the grunt work to find out what will work for you....