Much of these are questions about MPE in general, and some questions relate to the particular MG3 use of MPE.
Let’s first, for the sake of clarity, distinguish between Lower Zone and upper Zone MPE setups for any controllers.
- Lower Zone: Channel 1 as the Master Channel and one or more Member Channels allocated increasing from channel 2.
- Upper Zone: Channel 16 as the Master Channel and one or more Member Channels allocated descending from channel 15.
With MG3 we are taking about a Lower Zone implementation of the MPE protocol. So when I, or anybody else, talks about sending general MIDI on channel 1 it is because of this.
Now, for MPE controllers in general it can make sense to use all the remaining channels 2-16 for notes (and the other accompanying info that we are sending there Pitch bend, Channel pressure etc). Think of a keyboard player, he can with ease play ten notes at the same time. So any MPE keyboard can produce many simultaneous notes, which makes for an argument to use the full 2-16 (or 1-15 notes) besides the master channel.
You will be hard pressed to produce more than six simultaneously ringing note on a guitar, so MG3 can make do with six channels for notes. And this is where are talking about channels 2-7. It doesn’t have to be this particular channel choice, but it is. Channels 8-16 are simply not used. This has to do with degree of polyphony, and is not a limitation in any way.
Omni is not a relevant concept in this discussion. You can set an old MIDI 1.0 instrument to OMNI mode to have it receive on all channels, and that has its applications. When I mention changing “OMNI” to something else, I am just pointing to the fact that these Kontakt instruments comes with “OMNI” as its default setting, and to be able to set up a KONTAKT MULTI instrument to use polyphonic bends you need to change those settings.
So to go back to your first questions:
I don’t think it matters for MG3 if you set your MIDI pedals to send in on a particular channel. That info will be redirected into the right place by virtue of the internal connection from the patchbay to whatever you connect it to.
Check out any MPE specification for a complete list, but stuff like preset changes and pedal positions, and much more.
Nothing really, at this point.
