Splitting keyboard -> separate tracks?

[fluffy_little_something]

I am not that familiar with Midi beyond the basics, but I was wondering if it is possible to split my Midi keyboard's notes up into different tracks in the DAW by defining a Midi note as the split point in the DAW.

Why? For instance I have two electric bass patches, the lower one is slower, while the fast upper one emulates slap/pop, often played one octave higher. It is very hard to record the two patches separately, one after the other, the rhythm and flow usually gets lost, unlike when playing both live.

So, is there a DAW which can do that?

[chk071]

Any DAW could do that. Just use different MIDI channels for the 2 tracks, and create MIDI splits in your keyboard (should be described in the manual, and that's that. For the keyboard split, let's say you create 2 splits with 2 octaves each, you can also set the MIDI note range, so, for example, you can apply the same note range C1-B2 to both keyboard splits. Or have one split going from C1 to B2, and the other from C3 to B4, if you want that. Or anything else.

[fluffy_little_something]

I doubt my keyboard has that splitting functionality, that's why I was wondering if it can be done within the DAW instead, so that the DAW works like a switch/filter for the incoming Midi notes.
Anyway, will check the manual tomorrow...

[EvilDragon]

Yeah you can do that. Reaper comes with JS FX plugins that enable you to reroute and process MIDI in useful ways (for example, check out MIDI Tool JS FX).

[chk071]

Which keyboard are you using though? As far as i'm aware, pretty much anything from the true entry level keyboards, and from 49 keys up do keyboard splits. My M-Audio Axiom 2nd gen, and Novation Impulse could do that.

[fluffy_little_something]

Roland A-49, but I will get a Korg Microkey 2 soon...

PS: Just searched the A-49 manual for 'split' and 'zone', nothing was found.

[husker37]

I looked through the A49 manual, and oddly enough, you can't split the keyboard. Odd.

[fluffy_little_something]

Indeed. The Korg I wanted to get doesn't support splitting, either, judging from the manual.

[Reefius]

Ableton Live can do keyboard splits using the Instrument Rack device. Cubase can also do it using Input Transformer.

[chk071]

Wow. I really thought almost every keyboard 200 € plus can do keyboard splits. Guess i was wrong. But, if there's software solutions in the DAW's, that should work too, of course.

[LawrenceF]

Inputs filters for midi is about as basic as it gets so I doubt if there's any DAW that doesn't have them. It's really as simple as restricting the input of track A to one range and track B to another to create as many splits as you want playing any midi keyboard.

It's just telling an instrument with a filter ... "Only accept notes from C3 to C5" or whatever.

[deastman]

Which DAW are you using? As a couple of people have pointed out, Ableton and Reaper can both do it, so perhaps your DAW can.

[fluffy_little_something]

Which DAW are you using? As a couple of people have pointed out, Ableton and Reaper can both do it, so perhaps your DAW can.

I am kind of between DAW's Switching from Mulab to Reaper.

[fluffy_little_something]

Thinking about it, maybe it would be even better to be able to define a velocity threshold, below and above which two different tracks/instruments are triggered.

[pdxindy]

Reaper, Live, Bitwig and Logic can all do that. I'm surely nearly any DAW can... those are just the ones I know.

There are also midi plugins that can filter by note range or velocity, so if you use a DAW that doesn't do it natively, you can still do it.