The General Midi Standard; The Global Channel; The Chord 1 And Chord 2 Channels; The Control Channel - Korg PA1X User Manual

The General MIDI standard

Some years ago, the musical instruments world felt a need for
some further standardization. Then, the General MIDI Standard
(GM) was born. This extension of the basic MIDI sets new rules
for compatibility between instruments:
• A minimum of 16 MIDI channels was required.
• A basic set of 128 Sounds, correctly ordered, was manda-
tory.
• The Drum Kit had a standard order.
• Channel 10 had to be devoted to the Drum Kit.
A most recent extension is the GM2, that further expands the
Sounds database. The Pa1X is soundwise-compatible with the
GM2 standard.

The Global channel

Any channels with the Global option assigned (see "MIDI: MIDI
In Channels" on page 238) can simulate the Pa1X integrated
keyboard. When the Pa1X is connected to a master keyboard,
transmission should take place over the Global channel of the
Pa1X.
The MIDI messages received over a Global channel and not over
a standard channel are affected by the buttons of the KEY-
BOARD MODE section, as well from the split point. Therefore,
if the SPLIT button LED is lit up, the notes that arrive to the
Pa1X over this channel will be divided by the split point into the
Upper (above the split point) and Lower (below the split point)
parts.
The notes that arrive to a Global channel are used for the chord
recognition of the automatic accompaniment. If the KEY-
BOARD MODE is SPLIT, only the notes below the split point
will be used. These notes will be combined with the ones of the
special Chord 1 and Chord 2 channels.

The Chord 1 and Chord 2 channels

You can set two special Chord channels (see page 238) to send to
the Pa1X notes for the chord recognition. The notes will be com-
bined with the notes that go through the channel set as Global
(Global notes are recognized only under the split point, if the
SPLIT LED is lit up).
The Chord channels are not affected by the split point and the
KEYBOARD MODE section of the control panel. All the notes –
both above and below the split point – will be sent to the chord
recognition.
The buttons of the CHORD SCANNING section have a particu-
lar effect on the Chord channels:
• if you have selected LOWER, the chord recognition mode
will be set by the "Chord Recognition Mode" parameter in
the Style Play mode (see page 95);
The General MIDI standard
• if you have selected UPPER or FULL, the chord recognition
mode will always be Fingered 2 (you need to play at least
three notes in order for the chord to be detected).
These two channels are especially useful for accordion players to
assign a different Chord channel to the chords and the bass
played with the left hand. In this way, chords and bass will par-
ticipate to the creation of chords for the chord recognition of the
automatic accompaniment.

The Control channel

You can set a MIDI IN channel as the Control channel (see
page 238), to select Styles and Performance from an external
device. See the Appendix for a list of messages corresponding to
Pa1X internal data.

MIDI Setup

You can play Pa1X with an external controller, and use it simply
as a powerful sound generator. To help you configure the MIDI
channels, we have provided a set of MIDI Setups (see "Midi
Setup" on page 96 for the Style Play mode, "Midi Setup" on
page 153 for the Song Play mode, and "MIDI Setup" on page 236
for the Global mode).
We recommend you to consider each MIDI Setup as a starting
point you can freely tweak. Once you have selected the most
appropriate MIDI Setup for the connection to be made, you can
modify the parameters as necessary and save them in a MIDI
Setup (see "Write Global - Midi Setup dialog box" on page 257).

Connecting Pa1X to a Master keyboard

You can control the Pa1X with a master keyboard or any other
MIDI keyboard. You only need to connect the MIDI OUT con-
nector of the master keyboard to the MIDI IN connector of the
Pa1X. The master keyboard will become the integrated keyboard
of the Pa1X if it transmits over the same channel programmed as
Global in the Pa1X.
If the master keyboard transmits over the Global channel of the
Pa1X, the split point and the status of the KEYBOARD MODE
MIDI 281
MIDI IN
MIDI OUT