All tracks editable - changing MIDI channel only affects track w edit focus (FIXED)

[Commala]

Reaper v5.26/x64 Win 10

Steps:

Create or load midi on multiple tracks

Open MIDI editor

Make all tracks editable

Select all notes

Change channel of notes


Expected: all selected notes change channel

Instead, only the notes on the track with edit focus change channel. I could understand if some people prefer this behaviour, but for myself, I'm finding that I sometimes need to change the channel of entire note selections across multiple tracks, and there is currently no way to do this as far as I'm aware.

If this is not considered a bug, then perhaps a set of actions could be added which are not limited to only affecting the track with edit focus?

Or could this possibly be solved with a script...

[EvilDragon]

It makes sense that any changes happen only to edit-enabled tracks/items. So enable editing for all tracks if you want to do that...

[juliansader]

These inconsistencies are indeed bothersome, and are not limited to the channel actions.

In the thread MIDI editor: Actions that refer to "all" events are named incorrectly/inconsistently, I have compiled a Language Pack that appends either "(active take only)" or "(all editable)" to most of the MIDI Editor actions, in order to make their effects and scope clearer.

To quote from that thread:

There are about two dozen actions for the MIDI editor that refer to "all" events in their names. The meaning of "all" is however inconsistent, and may mislead new users:

For example, the following two actions affect events from ALL (editable) tracks:
* Edit: Select all CC events in time selection (even if CC lane is hidden)
* Edit: Unselect all

Whereas these three affect only events in the ACTIVE track:
* Select all CC events
* Edit: Select all notes
* Unselect all CC events

The inconsistencies actually go much deeper than just those actions that refer to "all". Some examples are quite curious:

* "Quantize..." affects all editable takes, whereas
* "Unquantize..." affects only the active take

~ "Split notes" and "Split notes at mouse cursor": all editable takes
~ "Split notes on grid": only active take

# "Invert voicing upwards/downwards": all editable takes
# "Invert (reverse vertically) all notes": only active take

- "Delete notes": all editable takes
- "Delete all notes of less than...": only active take

I suspect that actions that are limited to the active take are mostly legacy actions from the years when REAPER's MIDI editor was not yet capable of multi-track editing.

The hard way to solve these inconsistencies would therefore be to update the code. The easy way would be to simply change the names of the actions.

[Commala]

Juliansader:

Yes, this appears to be part of the same general inconsistency. I think your terminology is more accurate as well, where I referred to tracks in the midi editor track list I should have said takes (or items?). I will use "items" here, just so it is clear that I'm talking about the inability to change channel across multiple individual items and not the inability to edit data across multiple takes of a single item. A single track for example, with free item position mode enabled, can have multiple items at once, but even when all of these items are edit-enabled, only the item with edit focus can be affected by many of these actions.

In my case when trying to change channel, this makes things even more difficult, because it's not enough to simply select all the notes I want to change and go through the midi editor track list, moving the edit focus one by one. If I have any FIPM tracks with multiple items, I have to expand the track in the midi editor track list to show the items, and move the edit focus one by one for them as well.

So this bug should probably be more accurately titled "When all items set to edit-enabled in the midi editor track list, changing MIDI channel still only affects item with edit focus" or something like that.

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

It makes sense that any changes happen only to edit-enabled tracks/items. So enable editing for all tracks if you want to do that...

I just want to clarify that the issue I'm referring to is when all the tracks/items in question are edit-enabled in the midi editor track list, the actions to change channel only affect the item which is the "target for inserting new events," as denoted by the arrow glyph. Unless I misunderstood you and there's an option I'm not using, I don't believe there's a way to change channel of notes across different items at once.

Edit:

I'll also describe the use-case for this. I place instrument articulations in separate patches, which respond to different MIDI channels. So for example, all staccato patches are set to receive on channel 3. This is an alternative to working with key-switches, and it allows an easy overview of the active articulation simply by setting notes to be coloured by MIDI channel. In many cases, there are multiple instruments on different tracks playing the same articulation simultaneously, so it would be very helpful if there was a way to change the channel of notes in different items in a single action.

[Commala]

Update: I wanted to say that I just discovered it IS possible to change the channel of notes in separate items at once, using the event properties dialog.

[schwa]

Confirmed that not all actions fully support editing multiple MIDI items at once.

Fixed for the next build, thanks.

[Commala]

Everything seems to work fine now in 5.28pre1. Thanks very much!