Drums on MIDI channel 10 why?

[WADEAL]

It has become a standard over the years to have drums on MIDI channel 10, but to any anoraks out there, why and when did this become the standard?

[muzines]

Part of the General MIDI spec, one channel was reserved for drums, they chose 10.

[Wonks]

So it was the standard from day 1. Though really it would have been more appropriate to have it being the standard from day 10. And rock guitar sounds on 11.

[Mixedup]

Part of the General MIDI spec, one channel was reserved for drums, they chose 10.

IIRC the reasoning was that, MIDI being a serial protocol, a dedicated drum channel meant timing priority could be given to drums. Where two notes (or other data instructions) occurred at exactly the same time, the drum note on signal was always the first to be communicated. There was nothing to stop you instructing your machines to use a different channel, but that was the default.

[chris...]

IIRC the reasoning was that, MIDI being a serial protocol, a dedicated drum channel meant timing priority could be given to drums.

Hmm, not sure how that would be done. With everything going down the same cable, notes would be triggered one after each other, in order of sending, regardless of the value in the "channel" byte.

Were some sequencers hardwired to always prioritise sending notes on channel 10 ?

Later, when we moved to dedicated MIDI ports for each device, then what you describe (ie. dedicated "pipe") was achieved. But then, in most cases, the MIDI "channel" value was ignored.

[muzines]

Were some sequencers hardwired to always prioritise sending notes on channel 10 ?

Ironically, MIDI channel 1 tended to have the tightest timing because sequencers of the day would often work up the channels when firing out events - people often used to put drums on channel 1 for just that reason.

Like you say, when we all had more ports to work with, things got a bit easier until we moved away from running everything in realtime via MIDI and onto DAWs...

I've never heard of devices always sending channel 10 data first, to be honest... and mostly thought of the standardisation meant that multitimbral synths could play a GM file without the drum part being played to a bass sound, and so on...

[Mixedup]

Hmm, not sure how that would be done. With everything going down the same cable, notes would be triggered one after each other, in order of sending, regardless of the value in the "channel" byte.

As I understood it (I'm reaching into the dim and distant recesses of my mind, when trawling through the manuals for various hardware synths, drum machines and my old PRISM PC-based MIDI sequencer — that, to my shock, is about a quarter of a century ago now...), if I had my sequencer set to transmit MIDI data down a cable to my various synths/drum machines (using Thru to pass the signal on from one to another), my sequencer would ensure that for any information occurring at the same point in time, it made sure channel-10 commands were the first transmitted down that single cable. This was *before* GM became a ubiquitous standard — in the days when synths and sound modules would put different voices on different preset numbers and if you changed modules you'd have to change the program number. But the drums-on-10 thing was already common practice. I recall deliberately nudging parts by tiny fractions of a second so that certain critical things were always played first.

[Exalted Wombat]

Do I remember some early Yamaha gear that defaulted drums to Ch 16?

[chris...]

my sequencer would ensure that for any information occurring at the same point in time, it made sure channel-10 commands were the first transmitted down that single cable.

Along with Desmond, I never heard of a sequencer that would automatically prioritise ch10, and suspect that most probably simply prioritised in order, starting with ch1.

But because I never heard of it doesn't mean there didn't exist some sequencer that did. Out of interest, which sequencer were you referring to ?

[Dave B]

Ironically, MIDI channel 1 tended to have the tightest timing because sequencers of the day would often work up the channels when firing out events - people often used to put drums on channel 1 for just that reason.

The drums could go on any channel, but you're right - TRACK 1 on the sequencer was the first to be played, so it was common (especially when triggering loops on your sampler) to use track 1 for drums. IIRC, the default was for old versions of Cubase to have a default arrangement of 16 channels from 1-16 with the midi channels matching the track number. Hence most of us using midi channel 1 for drums. I have a vague memory of someone telling me Creator/Notator worked the same way.

I never ever used 10... GM was something that I wasn't interested in..

[Wonks]

I never ever used 10... GM was something that I wasn't interested in..

Organic MIDI only.

[Dave B]

Ethically sourced as well!

[Ojustaboo]

Been googling, and came across this

http://www.midi.org/techspecs/gmguide2.pdf

Top of page 9 (documents page no 9, actual page is 13) is a section on GM Voice allocation

Notes on certain MIDI channels should have priority over others. That is Channel 10 receives the highest priority, followed by Channel 1, then Channel 2, etc., with Channel 16 receiving lowest priority.

[BigRedX]

I was under the impression that GM was a later amendment to the MIDI spec, and before that for events occurring simultaneously they were transmitted in MIDI channel order with channel 1 being the first.

Certainly I always used channel 1 for drums.

[Exalted Wombat]

Some of the sources on MIDI channel priority are talking about note-stealing on an instrument with limited polyphony. I suspect some others have misinterpreted this as referring to timing priority.

[Adam Inglis]

Roland hardware midi sequencers prioritised the Rhythm track, then Track 1, then 2, 3... in terms of midi transmission. These tracks could use any one or more midi channel numbers.

[thebluewolf]

I am the person responsible for Drums being on Midi Channel 10. Back in the early 90's I lived in Germany, using Cubase. I started on Steinberg Pro-16 on the Commodore C-64 back in '84 I think it was? Back then all channels were free to use as one saw fit. As a song-writer I thought it would make more sense to reserve a channel just for drums, well away from the usual instruments of a Pop, Rock, Jazz, C&W Band etc. that mostly had no more than say seven members in total. I put this to Karl Steinberg after he told me he was attending the World MIDI Forum, called to address the need for a GM Standard. He really liked the idea and said he would propose it at the meeting. The rest is history. I might add that I'd earlier written Cubase patches for a few synths including the Roland U-20/U-220 and also for the Fostex muti-track recorder. John A. Christie, Leeds.

[N i g e l]

I vaguely remember that way back, when Sonar was "Cakewalk by 12toneSystems" and MIDI only, that event priority was from the top of the screen down - so rhythm had to be on track 1.
I cant remember if that could be channel 10 or had to be channel 1.

sooooo long ago !

[BenWilesMusic]

The reason, as far as I remember, was a simple one. Roland had pretty much cornered the multitimbral midi module market in the late 80s, with the D110 for pro markets and MT32 for non-professionals. Along with the multitimbral D series keyboard synths (D5, D10, D20, D110) these had 9 part multitimbrality. While the D series had user-overwritable presets, the MT32 and its later, control-panel-less CM series cousins did not - they had ROM programs at fixed program numbers (like GM would). That program layout became a standard for PC music (e.g. games) and backing tracks, which, at the time, were entirely MIDI based. That way, the writer of the music could make sure their trumpet tracks would be played on a trumpet patch - which seems obvious post-GM, but was not pre-MT32.

Now the MT32 (and the D series) had a bit of a quirk in its MIDI handling. By default, Channel 1 was the SysEx and control message channel, Channels 2-9 were for pitched instruments (parts 1-8) and Channel 10 was for the built in 'drum machine' (i.e. drum kit sounds, which other synths at the time didn't do - again, I know that sounds crazy now). It was possible, I recall, to change the incoming channels for the pitched parts (though most users didn't bother), but I don't think it was possible to move the drum part off channel 10 - if you wanted drums you had to use channel 10, and if you used channel 10 you would get a drum kit and nothing else. (Even if I'm wrong about not changing the channel, users at the time didn't bother; we had 16 channels but could only use 9 of them so why make things complicated?).

By the time GM came along in 1991, the MT32 way of working was ingrained. The general layout of patches was carried over from the MT32 spec to GM, as were the use of Chorus and Reverb with dedicated CCs. And so was the 'tradition' of using Channel 10 for drums, along with the idea that drum kits would not have their own distinct space in the GM patch list, meaning there is no way in the original GM spec (as far as I know) to get a drum kit patch on a channel other that 10.

I'm feeling very old now! Though my introduction to computer music was post-1991, the GM standard was far from ubiquitous in the mid - 90s, and many PC games (and sound modules and sound cards) had MT32 compatibility modes. So it's not surprising that the GM spec was largely based upon it.

[BillB]

MIDI Ch 10 also discussed at some length here:

https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... 23&t=68543

[muzines]

I am the person responsible for Drums being on Midi Channel 10. Back in the early 90's

It's a fun story, but Roland had already started putting their drums on MIDI channel 10 for 1985's TR-707, and by 1987 when they developed the MT32, the main all-in-one-box affordable MIDI module that was the seed or in some ways prototype example device for the later GM standard, they continued making drums work on MIDI channel 10 only, with the instrumental parts on 2-9.

The MT32 was supported by games and other non-music devices at the time, built into some PC sound cards and really was a bit of a cross-over device for adding decent quality sound to computers and multimedia.

So I would guess that the MIDI channel 10 thing really came from Roland, who along with SCI were really the main influencers for the MIDI standard, coupled with the existing support of computer software at the time for an MT32-type architecture. Basically, the channel 10 thing for drums had already been well-established for some years by the time the GM spec was being developed, and I expect they just ran with it and standardised it. It wasn't a new idea, by any stretch.

As for why Roland did the MIDI channel 10 thing - which actually started with their first MIDI drum machine, the TR-909, which also defaults to MIDI channel 10 is, as was mentioned elsewhere in the other thread, probably just that they wanted to keep the drums away from the first lower channels that people were typically using to run their synths on to avoid confusion (there was a lot of MIDI confusion back in 1983-85!)

[Folderol]

(there was a lot of MIDI confusion back in 1983-85!)

I would say there still is - even more with MPE, MIDI-2, USB in the mix

[OneWorld]

I am the person responsible for Drums being on Midi Channel 10. Back in the early 90's I lived in Germany, using Cubase. I started on Steinberg Pro-16 on the Commodore C-64 back in '84 I think it was? Back then all channels were free to use as one saw fit. As a song-writer I thought it would make more sense to reserve a channel just for drums, well away from the usual instruments of a Pop, Rock, Jazz, C&W Band etc. that mostly had no more than say seven members in total. I put this to Karl Steinberg after he told me he was attending the World MIDI Forum, called to address the need for a GM Standard. He really liked the idea and said he would propose it at the meeting. The rest is history. I might add that I'd earlier written Cubase patches for a few synths including the Roland U-20/U-220 and also for the Fostex muti-track recorder. John A. Christie, Leeds.

Channel 10 - why? Why not.

But I have a Yamaha MOXF and the VST templates have drums all over the place, and I read somewhere that Channel 1 was best MIDI being a serial protocol meant that drums were top of the list and hence would be more accurate as regards timing?

[BillB]

I read somewhere that Channel 1 was best MIDI being a serial protocol meant that drums were top of the list and hence would be more accurate as regards timing?

Well you didn't read it here:
https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... 23&t=68543

As I say, discussed at some length....

[Guest]

for why Roland did the MIDI channel 10 thing - which actually started with their first MIDI drum machine, the TR-909, which also defaults to MIDI channel 10 is, as was mentioned elsewhere in the other thread, probably just that they wanted to keep the drums away from the first lower channels that people were typically using to run their synths on to avoid confusion (there was a lot of MIDI confusion back in 1983-85!)

it is an interesting question, I agree with your idea about getting out of the way but why 10, why not go for the top value. Is it something to do with we are so base 10, it is like built in, count to 10 that is where it wraps.