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I own Casio CT-X5000 keyboard and tried to use its appendix with bank and program changes to reach tones I'd want. What I wanted to do is send midi out from Ableton to my keyboard with appropriate bank and program change, so my keyboard then can produce the sound I desire and send it back to my audio interface (and the Ableton) to record it. So it's a pretty usual setup.

The problem is, no matter which bank program I choose, the only thing that is being sent are GM (general midi) signals causing my keyboard to play only the sounds from general midi (there are 128 of them).

Here's the appendix: https://support.casio.com/storage/en/manual/pdf/EN/008/Web_14M3APPEND-WL-1A_2A_EN.pdf

I'm using columns 4 (program change) and 5 (bank select) and put them accordingly in "midi bank select" and "midi program change" brackets on my Midi track.

Have any of you had this kind of an issue? I'd really appreciate if you knew something that could help me in this situation. I've been struggling for a long time with it and have no idea why my keyboard does not receive these messages (to change bank and program) and still plays general midi.

=============================SOLUTION==============================

I've finally figured it out. It works both on Ableton and FL studio, but the difference is that Ableton counts from 1 both in Bank and Program change, but in FL studio in midi out plugin it is counting from 1 for Program change and from 0 for Bank change. So there' the confusion, because you have to take into account how your hardware counts these.

In FL studio sometimes you have to hit "stop" and "play" button to have program change sent to the keyboard.

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  • Yeah. It looks like this: imgur.com/Me46g8k That's for Nylon Guitar Velo.Slide, first in guitar section. In this case my keyboard would just play 32 sound from GM, and that is "guitar harmonics" or something like that. It's like it does not send the bank change.
    – Duplex
    Sep 25, 2019 at 10:10
  • I don't know the app, so I don't know how it sends. tbh, for something as simple as a bank/prog change I'd just enter the data manually at the top of the track, then you know it's right. Or, if the keyboard sends it, record it & see what it looks like.
    – Tetsujin
    Sep 25, 2019 at 10:14
  • I'd love to manually enter the data, but how? I'm new to Ableton. Keyboard sends midi and it works just fine. Only receiving does not seem to work right.
    – Duplex
    Sep 25, 2019 at 10:21
  • It's possible that bank select messages are ignored in GM mode; tell Ableton to not send a "GM System On" message; or manually send a "GM System Off" message.
    – CL.
    Sep 25, 2019 at 10:35
  • Sorry - that falls right into the realm of 'read the manual'.
    – Tetsujin
    Sep 25, 2019 at 10:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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You set the bank and program numbers to Ableton's MIDI clip. When Ableton's playback enters the MIDI clip, it sends the appropriate bank-change and program-change messages before sending any of the MIDI notes in the clip.

Use the numbers from Casio's list, plus one. Casio's numbering is 0-based, Ableton's numbering is 1-based. In Casio's numbering, there is no "128", the highest number is 127. In Ableton's numbering, there's no "0", the smallest number is 1.

Casio vs Ableton MIDI patch and bank numbers

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  • It worked. You're the man. Thank you very much! :) It works both on Ableton and FL studio, but the difference is that Ableton counts from 1 both in Bank and Program change, but in FL studio in midi out plugin it is counting from 1 for Program change and from 0 for Bank change. I'm so happy it works. Finally...
    – Duplex
    Sep 25, 2019 at 20:39

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