Assign SFZ soundfonts as drumkits

Hi

I'm struggling to assign SFZ soundfonts as drumkits.

I have no issue with melodic soundfonts, I just set the preset number and bank 0 to the preset I want (0 piano, 24 guitar etc.) it just works perfectly as intended.

Drumkits are supposed to share the same preset numbers (0 standard drumkit, 8 room, 16 power etc.) but use a specific MIDI channel (10).

Here is what I tried but nothing worked as expected :

• Adding lochan / hichan opcodes (lochan=10 hichan=10) in my drumkit SFZ to use channel 10 only with preset 0 (standard drumkit) and bank 0.
• Using another bank for the drumkit SFZ (tried 0, 1 and 127)

BTW, when 2 SFZ have the same preset number, only the first one seems to be working (we should hear both).

I wouldn't find any documentation about this. How is it supposed to work ?

Hi,

Actually this is not a problem with the SFZ file definition. Bassmidi uses the same logic for loading SFZ files as SF2 files (namely using values given to BASS_MIDI_StreamSetFonts() ).

SFZ files are special in the sense that they always contain 1 instrument and provides no Preset/Bank information. Thus Bassmidi cannot do other than consider all SFZ instruments as if they provide Bank:0, Preset:0.

@Claudio:

If you remember our last discussion about Bank/Preset loading problems in the last post I mentioned the theoretical possiblities regarding valid Bank ranges:

https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/forum/post/2993#post2993

There I mentioned:

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.

This becomes relevant in case of SFZ instruments if you want them to be available in Drum channels. So you should enable at least Bank offset 128. This way the users could be able to position SFZ instruments (always considered to be at Bank 0 by default) to Drum channel by giving them a Bank offeset of 128. This would work since as I have written above Bassmidi handles SFZ files the same way as SF2 files and 128 is the pseudo-bank for Drum instruments in SF2 specification.

Bye.

falcosoft wrote:

If you remember our last discussion about Bank/Preset loading problems in the last post I mentioned the theoretical possiblities regarding valid Bank ranges:
https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/forum/post/2993#post2993

Now I've put it at the top of TODO list, just after the pesky "Windows 10-2004 bug" that is driving me crazy...

LenweSaralonde wrote:

falcosoft wrote:

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. 
This becomes relevant in case of SFZ instruments if you want them to be available in Drum channels. So you should enable at least Bank offset 128. This way the users could be able to position SFZ instruments (always considered to be at Bank 0 by default) to Drum channel by giving them a Bank offeset of 128. This would work since as I have written above Bassmidi handles SFZ files the same way as SF2 files and 128 is the pseudo-bank for Drum instruments in SF2 specification.

I tried bypassing the 127 limitation of the UI by setting bank=128 in my .vmssf file then import int but this doesn't seem to work. In this case, should the preset correspond to the drumkit (such as 0: standard, 16: power etc) ?

Hi,

It does not work for you since you have referred to a non-existing single combination namely preset:0 Bank:128. Instead you have to refer to all presets (that is -1) and then the bank value means an offset, not a concrete bank.

More info about how 'Bank' value should be interpreted depending on the 'Preset' value:

https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/forum/post/2937#post2937

With this vmss file I have succesfully transferred the SFZ instrument to Channel 10/Drum channel:

[SoundFonts]
sf1=E:\SFZ\EB5_FR~1.SFZ
sf1.enabled=1
sf1.preset=-1
sf1.bank=128
sf1.volume=100

@LenweSaralonde:

I have tried and Bank:128 also works with concrete Preset values for me. I have tried 8 (room) and 16 (power). I'm not sure why. It should not :) 
(Maybe when no instrument is found at the given Preset/Bank combination Bank is always interpreted as offset? Or is there some SFZ specific logic in Bassmidi that is not documented?)

So instead you should use absolute paths instead of relative ones in your vmssf file. That could also cause problems regardless of Bank offset values.