RetroGC wrote on 2026-02-25, 15:22:
Thank you for your explanation. If nothing missing I'll try to proceed this way, to my ear seems a little better the mix obtained by reaper with separate channel than the single file. I can always use OpenMPT to have separate instruments... but simetimes I'll prefear the result of your player, maybe for sinc 16 tap interpolation or a subtle reverb that i can use.
Aldo
I hope you will succeed. Now that the problem is solved (at least in theory) let's turn back to the tracks vs. channels distinction a little bit. It seems this is not the first time it caused problems for you.
'Track' is just an organizing concept in the Standard Midi File (SMF or .mid) specification. 'Track' is not part of the Midi 1.0 protoc0l itself while 'Channel' is a key integral part of the Midi 1.0 protocol since all the voice messages have a 'Channel' context.
Type 1 and type 2 Midi files can use any tracks between 1 and 65535. But all kinds of Midi files can use any channels only between 1 and 16. In a strict sense this is also true for so called multi-port/ 32(+) channel Midi files since at the protocol level all messages are restricted to the 16 channel maximum. Multi-port Midi files have to use some tricks/messages to inform the player software to redirect messages on different tracks to different Midi ports.
1. Let's suppose you have a 3-track Type 1 Midi file. On the 1st track (Tempo track) according to convention you have the tempo change messages. On the 2nd track you have the left hand piano notes and on the 3rd track you have the right hand piano notes. But both the right and left hand piano use Acoustic Piano on Channel 1. Question: How many per channel recording(s) you suppose you will get? The right answer is only 1 despite the fact that the Midi file has 3 tracks since only 1 channel is used.
2. Let's suppose you have a 1-track Type 0 Midi file. Type 0 Midi files can have only 1 track but can use all channels. This imaginary example Midi file really uses all 16 channels for 16 different instruments.
Question: How many per channel recording(s) you suppose you will get? The right answer is 16 despite the fact that the Midi file has only 1 track since all 16 channels are used.
As you can see the number of tracks and the number of used channels do not necessarily correlate.
@Edit:
Here are 2 example Midi files to demonstrate the above described situations. The example 2 Midi file actually uses only 11 channels instead of 16 on 1 track but I think you get the point.
The attachment example1.zip is no longer available
The attachment example2.zip is no longer available
