MIDI Routing & Channels
Set the MIDI channel of every layer: Multi-track vs Combined output, per-layer channels, role defaults, live MIDI in and out, and General MIDI patch numbers.
DocumentationMIDI Routing
Routing
MIDI Routing & Channels
Everything that decides which MIDI channel a note leaves Aether on, and what your DAW receives when you drag a clip in. There are two places to set routing and they do different jobs: Settings → MIDI holds your defaults, and the Layers panel holds what this particular project actually does.
Where each control lives
| Control | Where | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Input Channel | Settings → MIDI | Filters MIDI coming in to Aether |
| Output Channel | Settings → MIDI | The single channel used by Combined mode and by clips with no separate layers |
| Output Mode | Settings → MIDI | Multi-track or Combined |
| Bass / Harmony / Lead | Settings → MIDI | Starting channels for those roles in every project |
| Per-layer channel | Layers panel | The exact channel of one layer, saved with the project |
| GM patch numbers | Settings → MIDI | Whether exports carry General MIDI program changes (off by default) |
Output Mode: Multi-track or Combined
This is the first decision, because it changes the shape of the file you get.
| Multi-track | Combined | |
|---|---|---|
| Tracks in the file | One named track per layer | One track |
| Channels | One per layer (see below) | All notes on your Output Channel |
| Best for | Routing each part to its own instrument | One instrument playing the whole arrangement |
| GM patch numbers | Only if you switch them on | Never written |
In Combined mode every note is rewritten onto the Output Channel you picked, so a single instrument listening on one channel hears the whole arrangement. That applies to dragging a single layer out on its own too.
How a layer's channel is decided
In Multi-track mode, Aether works down three rules in order and uses the first that applies:
- ●1. The layer's own selector. If you set a channel on that row in the Layers panel, that is the channel. Nothing overrides it.
- ●2. Your default for its role. The first Bass layer takes your Bass default, the first Harmony layer takes your Harmony default, and so on.
- ●3. The next free channel. Anything left over is given a channel from 1 to 16, skipping any channel already claimed by the two rules above.
Why a second pad does not share the Harmony channel
Aether recognises a family of role names: pad, keys, chords and comp all count as Harmony. If it handed every one of them your Harmony channel, three independent layers would arrive stacked on a single channel, which defeats the point of Multi-track mode. So the first layer of a role takes your default and the rest fall through to rule 3. If you want a specific one somewhere specific, set it on its row.A worked example, with the defaults left at Bass 1, Harmony 2, Lead 3 and no per-layer channels set:
| Layer | Role | Channel | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fingered Bass | bass | 1 | Your Bass default |
| Rhodes | harmony | 2 | Your Harmony default |
| Trumpet | lead | 3 | Your Lead default |
| Warm Pad | pad | 4 | Counts as Harmony, but Harmony is taken: next free channel |
| Marimba | ostinato | 5 | No matching role: next free channel |
Nothing is ever silently doubled up. If you move the bass to channel 5, the layer that would have taken 5 moves out of the way.
Defaults versus this project
The two places to set channels are not duplicates, and it is worth knowing which one you are touching.
- ●Settings → MIDI is global and persistent. It decides where layers start out in every project, before you pin any of them somewhere specific.
- ●The Layers panel is per project. It is saved with your session and restored when you reopen it, and it only describes the clip in front of you.
Per-layer channels follow the layer rather than its position in the list. Ask Aether to re-voice a part and it keeps the channel you gave it, even if the layers come back in a different order. The channel shown on each row is always the channel that layer will actually export on.
Monitoring matches what you export
The channels described here apply to the file you drag into your DAW and to Aether's live MIDI output. Monitoring a layered clip out to hardware or to another instrument sends each layer on the channel you gave it, so what you hear while auditioning is what you get when you drag the clip out.Your library copy is deliberately different
The copy saved to your library is always written as multi-track at the default channels, whatever you have set here. That is what lets Aether rebuild your layers from the track names when you reload the clip later. Your channel choices are stored with the project and reapplied on export, so nothing is lost.Live MIDI in and out
- ●Input Channel filters what reaches Aether. Leave it on All to capture everything, or pick a channel to listen to one controller or one DAW track.
- ●Output Channel is what a single-stream clip plays out on, and what Combined mode uses.
- ●In Multi-track mode with a layered clip, live output sends each layer on the same channel it would export on, resolved by the three rules above.
General MIDI patch numbers
Off by default, and deliberately so. A patch number is an instruction rather than a note: it tells whatever receives it to change sound. Written into a file for the benefit of a General MIDI player, it is obeyed just as readily by the sampler or synth already loaded on the track you dropped the clip onto, which quietly replaces a sound you chose.
With the setting off, exported files contain notes and track names and nothing that can alter your session. Turn it on in Settings → MIDI → Exported Files when you are exporting for a General MIDI player and want each track to load a matching sound. Combined mode never writes them in either case.
What arrives in your DAW
- ●A tempo track carrying the clip's tempo and time signature, so it lands in sync. Your DAW may ask whether to apply that to the project; that is your DAW's import setting, not Aether's.
- ●Track names taken from each layer's instrument, so you can tell them apart at a glance. Repeated names are numbered, as in Trumpet 1 and Trumpet 2.
- ●A region exactly as long as the clip you asked for. An eight-bar idea arrives eight bars long, even when its last note stops early.
- ●Notes on the channels described above, and nothing else unless you switched on patch numbers.
If a layer seems to be missing in your DAW
Check whether your DAW is set to split incoming multi-track MIDI onto separate tracks. With that turned off, some DAWs merge everything onto one track, which can look like layers have vanished when they are simply stacked. The channels are still intact.