Today's Topics:
1. Re: Question - selecting font/bank/sound (David McNab)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 11:52:33 +1200
From: David McNab <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: [fluid-dev] Question - selecting font/bank/sound
Cc: address@hidden
Message-ID: <address@hidden>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Ken Ellinwood wrote:
I don't think its possible to select programs from more than one soundfont in
the current implementation of fluidsynth using MIDI commands. It appears that
fluidsynth keeps track of the banks in each soundfont separately, rather than
internally managing a single set of banks into which all sounfont
banks+programs get loaded.
I feel that's a shame, because it imposes a serious limitation on an
otherwise excellent softsynth.
> When loading soundfonts onto an SB Live card, you
can give a bank offset, so that two soundfonts that internally use the same
bank(s) can both be used without conflicts by specifying different bank offsets
during each load.
Only problem is that, when using the '-b' command, asfxload complains
with 'invalid option' (which is in conflict with the manpage).
Also, when I connect my midi keyboard to the sblive wavetable (via
aconnect), 'program change' commands work, but 'bank select' commands
get ignored.
At one point it was suggested that fluidsynth also manage
soundfonts/banks/programs this way, but it never got implemented.
I really hope someone can take a little time to implement this, because
it would be a totally sensible and useful feature.
IMHO, mapping 'bankselect-msb/bankselect-lsb/preset' to
'soundfont/bank/preset' makes absolute and total sense.
The only way out of my present predicament is to build custom soundfont
files, taking presets out of other soundfont files and arranging them
into banks within my own file.
While this gives me a soundfont file that totally meets my needs,
letting me arrange music using a full range of sounds from different
sources at once, I have the problem that many soundfont file authors tag
their files with 'do not redistribute' messages, which means that if I
want to redistribute my midi files, I have to enclose a script which
builds this custom soundfont on users' machines, and tell them where to
download the source soundfonts.
So, is there any way any of you fluidsynth devs might be persuaded to
implement such a 'bankmsb/banklsb/preset'->'font/bank/preset' midi mapping?