exactly right, Chuck, you only use merge when you need it, and although mixing voices on one track is perfectly possible, it just makes editing unnecessarily complicated

Hi Chuck,

It would seem that the best example of why you would use a midi track merge is the for the drums.

Since the normal way drums are recorded on the Technics keyboards is to use 2 tracks when this file is converted to midi, merging both to track 10 allows them to play on a computer without needing to edit the file and reassign midi channels.

If they are not merged then you need to load the midi file into a sequencer program and make sure both tracks are set to midi channel 10 which almost all sound cards use as the default channel for drums.

Technics has chosen to uses a 16 Track sequencer where each Track equeals one one the 16 Midi Channels. On most sequencers a Track as no channel assignment.

Power Tracks for example has 255 Tracks yet it can still only use 16 midi channels. Each channel sends note data and control data.

So how does this relate to your question?

For the sake of speed and convience, each midi channel carries one instrument patch(sound)at any given time and the note data that goes with it. The last patch data sent before the next note data is the one used for the notes until another patch data is sent. So if you record 2 tracks of information say track one is patch 1(piano) and notes cdefg and track 2 is patch 57(trumpet) and notes gfedc when the tracks are merged (depending of timing) the merged track would look something like this.

Patch 1
Patch 57
c
g
d
f
e
e
f
d
g
c

As you can see all the notes would sound as a trumpet.

To mix them and make both patches work the file would need to be edited to

Patch 1
c
Patch 57
g
Patch 1
d
Patch 57
f
Patch 1
e
Patch 57
e
Patch 1
f
Patch 57
d
Patch 1
g
Patch 57
c

The problem here is that if both notes happen to play at exactly the same instant in time the channel would not be able to send both notes so only the last one would be heard anyway.

I hope this helps explain it.

Heather

Thanks, Heather, for your detailed explanation. And thanks to everyone else for shedding some light on this subject. You are a great bunch of people and appreciated more than you know.

Best Wishes to All,

Chuck