If there is nothing suitable installed then I need to try to build a yamaha sound font of my own. I suppose there must be some somewhere on the yamaha keyboard itself , I wonder where they are and if I could access them.Just trying to think of some easy way to get it right.
Hello John,
Does your Yamaha keyboard have a user manual that lists the instruments being mapped to which patch number?
I've got an old Casio CTX1000 keyboard. In the user manual was a section dealing with MIDI and gave the list of each instrument on the keyboard with matching patch number.
I then built up my own patch list for the CTX1000 that I imported into Cakewalk (a PC based Midi sequencer).
If you don't have the instrument patch list in the Yamaha user manual, then do your best to define each instrument on the keyboard.
for instance: Patch 0 = Normal Piano (or the Yamaha may label the first patch as Patch 1. Remember my previous warning about different MIDI sequencers using patch numbers 0-127, or 1-128.)
Compile your own list of patches for every instrument on the Yamaha.
Then find a General MIDI patch list and compare instruments. If your trumpet is patch #87 on the Yamaha, and it's #27 on the General MIDI (just wild guesses at these patch numbers, don't attempt to use), then tell Rosegarden or whatever MIDI sequencer you're using to use Patch #27 for the track that is playing Yamaha patch #87.
The only down side to this approach is if you changed Yamaha instruments within a track. For example, track #2 may have started with the Yamaha trumpet, then changed to a Yamaha tuba in the middle of the song. (MIDI and a good MIDI sequencer will allow you to do this.) With the approach above you would have the General MIDI trumpet playing the entire length of the track and would never be able to make the tuba change mid-track.
John, did you hardwire (MIDI Out from Yamaha keyboard to MIDI In on computer) the Yamaha keyboard to your computer at one time to get the Yamaha MIDI files in the first place, or is this a Yamaha keyboard that accepted a 3.5" floppy disk and wrote the music directly to floppy?
Because if you can hardwire the Yamaha to your computer (MIDI Out from computer to MIDI In of Yamaha, then place Yamaha in MIDI mode), have you ever considered just using Rosegarden or another MIDI sequencer to resend the MIDI data back to the Yamaha and let the Yamaha play the music? That would allow the music to be played now for your daughter while you're working on the *all* computer solution to playing the Yamaha MIDI files.
Something to consider. The Other
PS: Sorry I haven't been able to respond to this for a couple weeks. My computer's BIOS eats Mandrake 9.1 "Bamboo" for lunch, dinner, elevensies, and late-night snacks. I'm on Redhat 9.0 "Shrike" right now to send this to you. If Shrike is stable on this computer, I'll be investigating MIDI and Linux myself in great detail soon.
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