Bad_Mister showed me how to record "live" MIDI from my XF into Cubase a while ago. Today I tried doing this using a Master that controls a Pattern. I'm using the Master to split the keyboard so that I can play bass with my left hand, and a lead instrument with my right hand.
I have three lead instruments set up in the Pattern Mixing, each on its own MIDI channel. I have three Zones (with identical key ranges) set up for the right side of the keyboard, one for each lead instrument. When I'm playing "live," I control which lead instrument I actually hear by using the volume sliders, or by hitting Scene buttons.
When I record using this setup, I get duplicate MIDI notes for each of the three lead MIDI channels. I understand why this is. I'm wondering if there is a quick/easy way to change the MIDI channel of a Zone while I'm playing my song, so that I could just have just one Zone for my right hand and avoid ending up with all three lead instrument tracks recording every note I play with my right hand.
I know that I could just set up separate areas on the keyboard for each lead instrument, but there's not quite enough room on my XF7 to do this.
I know it's probably asking for a lot, but for all I know it's within the capabilities of my XF7.
While in MASTER mode you can quickly and easily turn OFF/ON Transmit Out for each Zone.
From the Master mode (Zone Switch = ON), when your Master is associated with a Song/Pattern Mixing setup:
Press [PERFORMANCE CONTROL]
The 16 numbered button will now indicate and control your current active Transmit Zones.
[1]-[8] control Internal Zone Transmit for Zones 1-8
[9]-[16] control External Zone Transmit for Zones 1-8
A light means that Zone is actively transmitting OUT via MIDI for Zone 1-8, respectively.
This feature was added to the Motif XF (and MOXF) in one of the many firmware updates (1.40 for the Motif XF, and is described in the Supplemental Manual released at that time).
I think you'll find that this will work to turn OFF transmitting to the Zones that you don't want at any particular moment.
You can develop a technique using two fingers (or more) to simultaneously command your transmitting options. For example, use two fingers simultaneously turning Off an active Zone while the second finger activates the adjacent Zone Switch. Try it out and see how it works for your particular application.
As you know, MIDI tracks (in Cubase) tend to record all incoming data, unless you setup a MIDI Filter to restrict the incoming data. Sequencing is a technique that evolved basically to record one Channel at a time, but in the event that you want to have multiple channels recording you either need to control it from the source (as described in the Master>Performance Control feature) or by setting up the Input Transformer which filters incoming events.
I think, since what you describe is a kind of spur of the moment, "on-the-fly" kind of scenario, the XF's new Master>Performance Control will work better. Let us know.
Thanks, Bad_Mister, that Performance Control feature is just what I needed.
The funny thing is, I remember reading about it when it came out in the 1.4 software update, and thinking how useful it would be. But then it drifted out of my mind, probably because the Motif's set of capabilities is so much bigger than my mind…