Multitimbral

While I was getting the multitimbral settings to work on my Sampler Box, I stumbled on this post: https://homspace.nl/forum/thread-88.html

In the post, petedevries21 says he set "MULTI_TIMBRALS = All" in his configuration.txt, but when I did the same the MT settings didn't work. MT only worked when I entered the specific name of my MIDI controller (i.e. "MULTI_TIMBRALS = Specific Name of My MIDI Controller").

I want to be able to plug in any MIDI controller and make it a MT device, regardless of its name. Is there a way to activate MT for all connected MIDI devices? Or was petedevries21's thread a red herring?

Hi LittleRigz,
Not at all a red herring, petedevries also stated it didn't work.
Which was/is correct 

Samplerbox is a multitimbral instrument on its own via the voices feature.
Most midicontrollers send on one midichannel only (usually channel1), making it useless to define them as multitimbral in my opinion.
I've built multitimbral is a specific extension for attaching external sequencers (devices sending on more channels to enable more instruments simultaneously), which are translated to voices anyway.
Exceptions on above statement are the keyboards with drumpads, which you can enable generally (ie device independent).

Mind that by defining a device as multimbral, you will loose the majority of nice features.
Please read docs on midi modes and the multimbral channel map for extensive details, between them you'll also find a chapter on the drumpad solution.

Regards, Hans

Hey Hans,

Thanks for your speedy reply! And I might just take the chance to say thank you for all your work! It’s saved me time and money and taught me things too.

I don’t want to contradict you, but I have 3 midi keyboards that can set their MIDI channel to one of 1-16. I plan to use sampler box for two separate keyboard patches at a time. Meaning: I want one keyboard to send through MIDI channel 1 and trigger voice 1 and the other keyboard to send through MIDI channel 2 and trigger voice 2. Just thought I’d let you know so that you are aware of my use case.

Hi LittleRigz,
Thanks for your kind words !

It's not a contradiction; I only meant to say it doesn't add value to define them all as multitimbral, since they can use use just one channel at a time.
Building a multimbral setup by connecting several keyboards with different sending channels is one of the ways the multitimbral extension can be used for.
If you keep one as master keyboard (the one using the MIDI_CHANNEL defined in configuration.txt), you keep the usage of controlchanges (CC's) as well as more effects/features on that channel.
It's even possible to define a real multimbral (a device sending on multiple channels at the same time) to act as master keyboard when defining it as MULTI_WITHMASTER.
So in your case, your question is partly covered by defining all your keyboards as MULTI_WITHMASTER resulting in the one being programmed on the midi channel to be the master. A one time definition here and switching by reconfiguring the keyboard of your choice / being availiable.
Mind that samplerbox considers devices sending on the same channel as one input source.

Your idea / use case works perfectly fine and you don't even need the MTchannelmap.
In case you want to do more, read on:

With the MTchannelmap you can define channel 2 to default to a high numbered voice, making voicechanging on the masterkeyboard more intuitive.
In addition: voice changing from a device connected as multimbral is possible via program change. In that case the voice for that device/channel will be the program number (1-128) unless defined in the MTchannel map.
In fact samplerbox performs a default program change to the channel# for a detected multitimbral.

Summary: the voice of a multimbral defaults to it's channel. This default can be changed via the optional MTchannelmap. During play, the voice for this device=channel can be changed via program changes from the multitimbral connected device. Should it switch to a program# without related voice#, this can covered by defining a default voice in the MTchannel map. Voices in the MTchannelmap can be higher than 128, placing them out of scope / reserved space for the master keyboard.

The master keyboard/channel has it's own voice change and will cause a sample set change with it program change.. the master has more power.

There is a lot more to said on this subject, but I hope this will give you a quick start for playing with this.

Have fun!
Hans