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MIDI By Example (Part 2) | |
Making the switch
Though by no means an essential item, a MIDI Switch box can make life a lot easier when two into one simply will not go...
Anyone who works with a mixer and a tape recorder will have probably found themselves having to splice together a couple of audio leads at some point. The most common occurence is finding yourself with a single input on an amplifier and outputs from two separate instruments. Though strictly speaking, you should use a couple of resistors to construct a basic mixer configuration, it's often not essential to do so. After all, the bodge works, why worry about it? Try the same thing with two MIDI Out cables, however, and you've got problems.
But first of all, let's look at reasons for wanting to connect two MIDI Out cables to a single MIDI In. One possibility would be having to share a sound module with another musician - each of you using your own keyboard. In this situation, because you need simultaneous control over the module, a special MIDI 'Merge' box would be needed - and this will be the subject of a later article.
There are occasions, however, when, though two sets of MIDI Output data may need to be sent, this does not necessarily have to be at the same time. You could, of course, simply unplug one lead and connect the other when the need arises. But a more elegant solution would be to use a simple MIDI Switch box which would allow you, for example, to select between incoming data to a sequencer from two different sources - say, the MIDI note data generated by a synth and that generated by playing the pads of a drum machine.
Figure 1 illustrates this situation. As you will see, you can connect either of the MIDI Out cables (represented by the dashed lines) from the drum machine and synthesiser to the MIDI In of the sequencer - but not both at the same time. The rest of the connections ensure that all MIDI information on sequencer playback is received by both the synth and the drum machine.
A MIDI Switch box is a simple affair. It usually comprises a rotary switch which selects one of various inputs and directs the signal to its output. A typical example would be the Philip Rees 2S which has two inputs and one output (£14.95). By wiring this as in Figure 2, life is made much simpler; you simply rotate the switch to determine whether it's the synth or drum machine which is the Master Controller. No more having to reconfigure the wiring.
Read the next part in this series:
MIDI By Example (Part 3)
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Part 1 | Part 2 (Viewing) | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Feature by Vic Lennard
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