Sustain Pedal Issue with Two Keyboards

General discussion about Gig Performer
1

I have two physical keyboards: a Casio CTK-7200 and a Casio PX350.

I have been controlling GP exclusively through my CTK-7200.

I found a way using its “Registrations” to exclusively send data over Midi Channel 3. Its been working as expected. In each GP rackspace, I have it set my midi input box to only receive midi on channel 3. I also switch to default rackpsace without any connections (silent) when I am using the CTK-7200 as a sound source instead of GP.

I recently have been looking into incorporating my PX350 (digital piano with weighted keys). Because I am running out of USB slots, I have USB/Midi cables from both keyboards running through a hub. (I don’t know if this is relevant to my issue. But maybe it is(?))

The PX350 only sends out note on/off messages (I thought all midi data, but now I am not sure) on Channel 1. So, if I was going to use the PX350 as a controller, I planned to turn its master volume down for any particular song so you would only hear sounds through GP (without the PX350 internal sounds)

So far, so good. I thought this would work out well. Basically, when I was using my CTK-7200 as a controller I would only allow incoming midi on channel 1 (midi input box) and for when I wanted to use my PX350 as a controller (for example, I have better Rhodes sounds on my computer) I could use the PX350 on channel 1.

It seems to work fine.

But, now I am noticing when I hit the sustain pedal attached to the PX350, it is sustaining notes in GP where it should only be affected by the CTK-7200 (only incoming data is channel 3).

Like I said, I had thought my PX350 only sent midi data over channel 1.

The weird thing is when I open the rig manager and hit the sustain pedal attached to the PX350, it says it is sending data on Channel 4!

But, my rackspace midi input is not accepting incoming midi data from channel 4 (only from channel 3). So, if that was the case, the sustain pedal on my PX350 should still not be affecting the other sounds (that I want to control exclusively from my CTK-7200 and its sustain pedal).

Any ideas what I am doing wrong? Suggested fixes?

Thanks.

Jeff

2

Have you actually confirmed what you thought by opening the Global MIDI monitor and seeing exactly what is going on?

3

I’ll do that. Yep, next step.

Thx,

Jeff

4

According to the midi monitor, the sustain pedal attached to my PX350 is transmitting over midi channels 1,2,3 and 4.

Maybe this is a universal sustain pedal thing? Because the sustain pedal attached to my CTK-7200 also transmits over midi channels 1,2,3, and 4.

So, I guess I have to find a way within GP so that the sustain pedal attached to my PX350 only transmits over midi channel 1 (filtering out the other channels) and the sustain pedal attached to my CTK-7200 only transmits over midi channel 3 (filtering out the other channels) .

5

You can probably configure your system to that your keyboards send out MIDI only on a single channel. That’s how you should do things anyway.

Secondly, once that’s done, you can configure your main MIDI In blocks to block the sustain pedal and then have a separate MIDI In block that only allows Sustain messages and then you can route that wherever you need it.

1 Like
6

Thanks, I will work on this.

Jeff

7

I saw your question on the Casio forum but rather than respond there, I have some questions

  1. Why do you want each keyboard to be on a different channel? Assuming they are detected as different devices (which they should be if you’re using USB connections), then they can both be sending on MIDI channel 1

  2. If your PX350 is sending everything on four channels and you can’t figure out how to fix that, why don’t you just block the other three channels from your MIDI In Blocks, e.g.

screenshot_6215

2a) Save that MIDI block as a GP User Preset, call it Channel1 Only (say) and then that preset will show up in your Popup menu and in the Quick Insert Plugin dialog and you can easily insert them as often as you need

screenshot_6217

screenshot_6216

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screenshot_6219955×276 67.6 KB

8

Hello,

I originally set up my CTK7200 as my controller. I started using channel 3 as the exclusive channel for controlling GP because I didn’t want to play my internal CTK-7200 sounds at the same time.

I could have turned Local Control off, but it would have been unwieldy (impossible) to continually turn Local On and Local off throughout a gig. I suppose I could have turned down the master volume knob on my CTK-7200. But instead I used one of the Casio “Registrations” that sends midi on channel 3. I was able to tweak an organ patch so it made no sound. So far, it has worked. When i use that “Registration” (Part 3, lower keyboard) it acts excusively like a controller for GP without triggering the CTK-7200’s internal sounds.

But, now I am looking also connect my PX350 (weghted keyboard) to GP and sometimes use it for Rhodes, etc

The PX350 only transmits notes (playing the keys) on channel 1. So, I figured when I would use the PX350 I would turn down the master volume so I would not trigger its internal sounds (the same Local Control issue, really).

I thought everything should work fine. All my CTK-7200 incoming midi blocks only allow incoming midi data on channel 3.

And I thought the PX350 would only send midi data on channel 1.

But, now I kearn that the PX350 is sending sustain pedal data one 1, 2, 3 and 4.

If I could set it up so all data other than that transmitted on channel 3 is always blocked for the CTK-7200.

And all data other than that transmitted channel 1 was always blocked for the PX350, it would resolve the issue.

(Another wrinkle is I switch between different CTK-7200 and PX350s when Im playing a gig. I have duplicate rigs.)

I hope that makes sense.

Incidentally, it looks like the CTK-7200 will allow me to stop sending sustain data on channels other than 3.

But, it looks the the PX350 does not offer that type of control.

I will experiment with your suggestion. Thx!

9

I think the problem is the midi input block does not allow me to filter by midi device.

As long as the midi input block accepts data from all devices, there is no way to block the sustain pedal message when it comes from my PX350 while allowing it to come through from my CTK7200.

But, as always, I could be missing something.

10

Of course it does — use different MIDI input blocks, each one associated with the specific device (assuming that your keyboards are connected via individual USB so they show up as separate devices)

11

Yes, thank you. Hopefully that will do it. If I use a separate midi input block for each device that should solve this problem. (I’m still learning…thanks).