MIDI Routing
About the signal flow of MIDI data
Input And MIDI Through
On the Inputs tab, you can enable the Input switch for individual MIDI ports and Audio Engine ports ().
These ports collect and merge all incoming MIDI data for recording and playback. If MIDI Through is enabled, the incoming data is forwarded to the Instrument you selected last. If you want incoming data to be sent to a different instrument, just click on its name on the Track Sheet or in the list of Global Instruments.
Targeting Specific MIDI Channels
It is usually not necessary to micro-manage MIDI channels, as Synfire uses the Device Description you selected for a Rack Module to manage them automatically. That is, if you select a particular sound for an instrument, the device description already knows where to send MIDI output.
If you need to address a specific MIDI channel, open the Sound Wizard for an instrument and create a new rack module on the desired MIDI port. On page two, you pick the Fixed Channels option and on the last page you pick a channel, name and category for the sound. Then the wizard creates and saves a device description for you.
You can also add a specific channel to an existing Device Description. On the device description editor, go to the Variants, Channels tab and add the desired channel. On the right sidebar you edit the properties of the sound found on that channel.
Dynamic Sound Allocation
Unlike a DAW, Synfire can open multiple arrangements and libraries at the same time, which may share the same devices on the global rack.
If Song A uses 12 sounds on Soundcase and Song B uses 10 different sounds on Soundcase, they can still both be open and play, although there are only 16 channels available. The song that comes to the foreground claims and selects the sounds it wants, replacing any sounds that the previously active song may have claimed and vice versa.
Similarly, within a single arrangement if an instrument needs a new sound on Soundcase (or any other multi-timbral instrument) it looks for the next unused channel and claims it. If an instrument is removed, its channel becomes available again. You don't have to micro-manage that.