Standard midifile problems - please help!

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JanK Danmark
Posts: 4
Joined: 20:24, 20 October 2010

Standard midifile problems - please help!

Post by JanK Danmark »

Hi
Ive just bought the SonicCell for the purpose of playback midifiles. I am generally unhappy with the GM.sounds, and would like to use the presetsounds instead. I import the smf to Cubase 3, select the sounds i need in the SonicCell editor, and then I am stuck! How can I create the midifile in cubase with the desired sounds and effects? Are there an easy way or shall I write all the program changes etc manually on each track?

Regs
Jan K
rcraven
Posts: 629
Joined: 14:36, 9 September 2007
Location: Melbourne Australia

Re: Standard midifile problems - please help!

Post by rcraven »

Load the midi file (you can drag to a track of a new project)
Right click- MIDI/Open List Editor
Look for the Banks select message (2 per track) followed by the patch change.
Change the 3 message for each track

Just go tot the files menu and EXPORT the midi file.


From another post of mine that might be useful

"I came across this piece of Freeware.
MidiPat.exe
at
http://www.gnmidi.com/gnfreeen.htm

It is for DOS, but there is also a shareware collection of Midi utilities in a Windows program at the same location.

MidiPat can change the GM patches in a midi file and replaces it with a bank select and patch select you have in a text file.
It looks like you can do it in a batch, so you might be able to do the conversion a whole directory of files at a time."


Royce
JanK Danmark
Posts: 4
Joined: 20:24, 20 October 2010

Re: Standard midifile problems - please help!

Post by JanK Danmark »

Thanks for the answer. Im sorry but you have to be more specific: How does I find bank select commands, I understand the thing about Program Change, but not bank select. Wich bank values are used by SonicCell? And what shall I actually write in the list-editor?

Reg
Jan K
rcraven
Posts: 629
Joined: 14:36, 9 September 2007
Location: Melbourne Australia

Re: Standard midifile problems - please help!

Post by rcraven »

From the excellent Midi page
http://www.somascape.org/midi/tech/spec.html


Continuous Controller (CC) numbers 0 (MSB) and 32 (LSB) are used for Bank selection.

The concept of instrument banks was introduced to get around the 128 voice limit of the Program Change message. The bank number is a 14-bit value, hence 16384 different banks are theoretically possible. The Program Change message gives access to up to 128 voices, from within the currently selected bank. There is, however, no requirement for a bank to contain the full set of 128 voices.

From the SC manual page 246 - see this page for all the bank select numbers
BANK SELECT | PROGRAM | GROUP | NUMBER
MSB | LSB | NUMBER | |
----- +-- -----+----- ------+--- ---------------- +-----------
087 | 000 | 001 - 128 | User Patch | 001 - 128
..
| 064 | 001 - 128 | Preset Patch A | 001 - 128

User 23 - Send
CC 0 87
CC 32 00
Patch 23

This will set the sound to User 23.

Preset patch A number 13
CC 0 87
CC 32 64
Patch 13

In Cubase's List Editor look for the heading "Data 1"
In there you will see
"CC 0 (Bank Select MSB" change the Data 2 value to 87
"CC 32 (Bank Select LSB" change the Data 2 value to 0

The next line should be the Patch number in data 1 - check the column "Type" it should say "Program Change"

Royce
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