Very good ... thank you.
Dean
On Aug 31, 2006, at 1:38 PM, dhbailey wrote:
Dean M. Estabrook wrote:
I just opened a new file via Wizard in MacFin07. I selected GPO
Basic Perc. for four staves, just to see what kind of sounds I
could make play back. I noticed in the instrument list that the
channels automatically assigned are: 10, 26, 42, and 58. I see
the pattern of 16 here, but beyond that , what is the significance
of those assignments?
The Midi spec allows only 16 channels. Any device (such as GPO)
which offers more than 16 channels is actually offering multiple GM
synths, each with 16 channels.
Channel 10 in the GM spec is suggested to be the percussion channel
(the only channel which can make a different sound for each note)
but it doesn't have to be. But most devices try to adhere to the
GM suggestion and keep channel 10 as the percussion channel.
It would get really complicated, really quickly, if you had 4
different GM synths going at one time, trying to keep straight
which particular channel 10 (or 1 or 4 or whatever) you were
working with, so software which can address more than a single
playback synth hide that by numbering the channels sequentially.
So all you're seeing is 4 different channels 10, made more easily
worked with by being called 10, 26, 42, and 58. They could just as
easily have been called Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo. Except
that computer programs understand numbers better than names, thus
the numbers you see.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Dean M. Estabrook
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