MIDI channel assignment

One peculiarity of the MT-32 is that by default, on power-up it is set to receive on MIDI channels 2-10. Most modern MIDI equipment, including controller keyboards, will transmit and receive on channel 1 by default.

Standard channel assignment

The MT-32 has 8 regular "parts", and one rhythm part. By default, these are assigned as follows:

Part	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Rhythm
MIDI channel	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10

Alternate channel assignment

On a real MT-32, there is a button combination that can reassign the MIDI channels:

• Hold down the Master Volume button and press Part button 5.
• Press Part button 1.

This will result in a more natural channel assignment:

Part	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Rhythm
MIDI channel	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10

If the MT-32 is powered off, the channels revert back to the standard assignment.

Reassigning channels with mt32-pi

mt32-pi does not currently support control panel buttons, so you cannot use the shortcut described above just yet, although this is planned.

As of version 0.6.0, mt32-pi allows you to change the default channel assignment used on startup - see the midi_channels option in the config file.

As an alternative, you can use a PC to send the emulated MT-32 a special SysEx command to reassign the channels at runtime.

Using a System Exclusive utility

You can use one of many System Exclusive utilities to send a channel reassignment message to the MT-32. The following files can be used to set the channel assignments as described above:

• mt32_standard_channels.syx - set default channel assignment.
• mt32_alternate_channels.syx - set alternate channel assignment.

Some tools allow you to directly type or paste in a SysEx command to send. The byte sequences you need to send are:

• F0 41 10 16 12 10 00 0D 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 36 F7 - set default channel assignment.
• F0 41 10 16 12 10 00 0D 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 09 3E F7 - set alternate channel assignment.