Chris Cannam wrote:
> I've been thinking about this again lately. I had been considering
> a couple of features:
>
> a. Add a toggle (on the bank dialog) to declare that you want
> this device to use Roland-style Variation controllers instead
> of bank selects, sending the bank MSB as the variation value.
> This wouldn't change the layout of the rest of the dialog (you'd
> still be entering programs in banks instead of as variations)
> but would cause the instrument parameter box to switch to
> showing Program and Variation combos instead of Bank and
> Program ones (i.e. Program combo containing Electric Piano 2,
> then Variation combo containing Electric Piano 2 and Detuned
> Electric Piano etc). This would just be GUI niceness for a
> Roland synth that supports bank selects, but I guess older
> Rolands and Roland-compatibles don't always.
On many other synths (e.g. XG, GM2), the bank select LSB (not MSB)
switches between variations of the program in bank 0, so this would be
a generally useful feature.
But we'd still need a bank combo because newer Roland GS synths, while
retaining the meaning of the bank select MSB, use the LSB to select
between banks containing backwards-compatible instruments (i.e.
1=SC-55, 2=SC-88, 3=SC-88Pro, 4=SC-8850/8820; 0=default).
> b. Instead of making a Bank consist internally of LSB and MSB only,
> make it consist of LSB, MSB and "percussion flag". Same LSB
> and MSB but different flag => different bank. Optional switch
> to say that selecting a percussion bank should cause some sysex
> or other (entered into a text field) to be sent. (If that's not
> set, then the synth will actually see same LSB/MSB as same bank
> regardless of the percussion flag, but you'll still be able to
> have two sets of names at the GUI.) Optional switch to say show
> the percussion programs on channel 10 without requiring explicit
> bank settings.
This would be really needed for many GM synths without bank select
messages, but having several drum sets (selectable with program
change).
> One problem here is that a. and b. are not actually quite compatible:
> you don't exactly want percussion showing up as variations on non-
> percussion.
There are two bank select values (MSB and LSB). Whenever one of them
is used to switch to drum bank, it's the other one which selects a
variation, so I don't see a problem here.
> I don't much like adding specialised GUI stuff to support a single
> manufacturer's weirdnesses, but I guess Roland is kind of a popular
> make. On the other hand, I'm concerned that users of some other
> synth will then pop up to say theirs works in yet another completely
> incompatible way -- we should probably try to catch as many of these
> freakishnesses as possible at the first attempt. Anyone want to
> comment on how things like percussion banks work on other makes of
> synth? (At least ones that don't just use bank selects.)
No need to look into specific synths, there's enough weirdness in the
various standards:
GM: no bank selects; channel 10 is always drum channel;
optional drum sets selectable with program change
GM2: bank select LSB is variation; bank select MSB switches between
drum sets and melody voices; only channels 10 and 11 can use drum
sets AFAIK
GS: bank select MSB is variation; on newer synths, LSB switches
between banks; percussion mode settable with a sysex (percussion
instruments don't have variations, but can be different in
different banks); bank select MSB = 127 isn't a variation but
selects MT-32 compatible instruments (only on Sound Canvases)
XG: bank select MSB switches between melody voices/sfx voices/drum
sets/sfx sets; bank select LSB is for banks (with melody voices,
it could be interpreted as variation if you really like to); bank
select MSB on channel 10 cannot be changed unless explicitly
enabled by a sysex
Regards,
Clemens
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