Bank/preset loading error

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Posts: 129
Joined: September 25, 2013 - 16:38
Re: Bank/preset loading error

Hi Claudio,

It seems to be working perfectly to the point you resctrict the preset selection to  -1 (all) - 127. Yet , as I have previously written, if you set preset to e.g. 1000 with any bank value you cannot reach the loaded preset by standard program change/ bank select combinations since these messages are restricted to the range of 0-127 in case of standard midi applications.

By the way the theoretical maximum is 255. I have tried program change messages with a special SysEx sending application and while it is out of midi specification you can send bytes above 0x7F (127) up to 0xFF (255).

But only byte sized values can be sent through Windows midi infrastructure. In spite of out of specification you can send raw bytes '0xC0 0xFF' to reach preset 255. But neither '0xC0 0x00 0x01' nor '0xC0 0x01 0x00' is interpreted by Windows as program change 256 (and so on). So word sized values (256 - 65535) cannot be reached even theoretically.

Thanks.

Posts: 1972
Joined: March 25, 2012 - 01:19
Re: Bank/preset loading error
falcosoft wrote:
It seems to be working perfectly to the point you resctrict the preset selection to  -1 (all) - 127.

I agree, I was trying to send higher values too and forgot to lower the limit back.
Will add the new strings to the translation system so (I hope) they'll be translated when a final version with this patch will be released; I'm going to merge this patch in new 2.1 (see here).

Attached here the updated setup of 2.0.1-BankPatch.

Thanks for your help

EDIT: version 2.1.0 released, attachment removed

Posts: 129
Joined: September 25, 2013 - 16:38
Re: Bank/preset loading error

Hi,

I have experimented a little more and noticed 2 minor issues.

1. If you try to add a soundfont to the list that is already added you get an error message: 'Soundfont x already added to soundfont list". This error must be a remnant of VMS 1.x where you could only load whole soundfonts without any offsets. This error has no sense in VMS 2.x

Let's think about it: Now with VMS 2.x it's absolutely legitimate that you want to use one or more individual presets from a soundfont. E.g. you want to use 2 presets: Bank 0 Preset 0 Piano1, and Bank 1 Preset 127 Machine Gun. You can only do this if you add the soundfont to the list 2 times. First you add the soundfont as using Bank 0 Preset 0 and the second time you add the soundfont as using Bank 1 Preset 127.  Another scenario could be that you first load the whole soundfont without Bank offsets but at the second time with Bank offsets. This way you can get partly overlapping soundfonts that is absolutely legitimate.

2. When we calculated the usable bank range as -127 to 127 we left the Drum bank (located at Bank 128 in soundfonts) out of consideration. The real usable range is from -128 to 255 :). Why?

On the one hand if you want to reach e.g. Standard drum (Bank 128 Preset 0) at Bank 0 Preset 0 you will have to set the bank offset to -128.  On the other hand drum banks are special in Bassmidi in the sense that you can also have 128 drum banks. (Bank 0 - Bank 127 on Channel 10 by default).  In Bassmidi these Drum banks are virtually addressed as bank 128 - 255. For example if you set the bank offset as 128 you can reach the  Piano1 as Bank 0 Program 0 at Channel 10. Also if you set Bank offset as 255 you will get Piano1 at Channel 10 as Bank 127 Program 0! These are all possible legitimate soundfont stack configurations.

(The above range is only true for Banks. The usable range for Presets remains -1 to 127)

Bye

Posts: 1972
Joined: March 25, 2012 - 01:19
Re: Bank/preset loading error

I agree; actually the uniqueness key for soundfonts is filename, but now should be filename + preset + bank.
Easy to patch, will fix it soon, together with bank range.

Thanks for reporting it.

Posts: 1972
Joined: March 25, 2012 - 01:19
Re: Bank/preset loading error

Actually fixed, you'll find it in next version.
Thanks for your suggestions.

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