Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.

Subject: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: harpmaker
Date: 27 Oct 02 - 05:57 PM

Soundblaster 1024, in the "keyboard" you have "Bank" can you download synth sounds into this "bank"

Subject: RE: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: Pied Piper
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 08:40 AM

Hi Harpmaker.
I think the "Bank" is were you enter the MIDI bank number.
In MIDI equipment the sounds (Violin, Trumpet, etc) produced (in this case by your sound card) are allocated a generally agreed number between 1 and 127 (75 is Recorder). In the early days this was sufficient to handle all the sounds available. As sound modules got more sophisticated more than 126 sounds became available, so the Bank number (1 to 127) was introduced to allow access to more sounds.
   As you can see this gives you a potential 126x126=15876! Sounds. Obviously most of these possibilities aren't used, the MIDI number is usually used to specify a type of instrument and the Bank select number specifies various different types of sounds that group of instruments can produce.
Unfortunately the Bank numbers aren't the first few (1,2,3,4...) but can be anywhere in the range. This means that you need to know what Bank No does what, otherwise you'll spend hours going through then one at a time until you bump into one. This information should have come with your sound card.

All the best PP.

Subject: RE: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 23 Nov 02 - 03:26 AM

Subject: RE: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: Pied Piper
Date: 23 Nov 02 - 06:18 AM

I'm glad 9John refreshed this thread; it gives me chance to correct an error.
Midi sound and bank numbers are actually 1>128 not 1>127. I think the rest is accurate.
PP

Subject: RE: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 02 - 06:38 AM

I think you are still wrong Pied Piper. As far as I know, MIDI uses the range 0 to 127. This is in line with a 7 bit binary number.

Jon

Subject: RE: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: Pied Piper
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 08:57 AM

There is no 0 midi Program Number, they start at 1 Piano.
PP

Subject: RE: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 10:06 AM

It appears we both have a point. MIDI messages are sent using the values 0-127 but going by http://www.midi.org/, the GM specification numbers the programs from 1-128. In other words to set GM program 1 (Accoustic Grand Piano), MIDI is sent the value 0.

Reading elsewhere, it would appear that systems that don't comform to GM have been known to use a 0-127 or a 1-128 numbering system. BTW, I've found y version of Cakewalk offers a choice of both of these options in its range of patch names.

Just my opinion, but given the internal messages are 0-127, using the range 1-128 for Patch numbers is confusing but there again I suppose they thought 0-127 would be hard for some humans to understand.

Jon

Subject: RE: Tech: soundblaster, keyboard.
From: Mark Clark
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 10:39 AM

Hi, Jon. Yes, engineers and software developers have been working around that issue since the introduction of binary representation. As you point out, all decimal values of 127 or less may be represented using seven binary digits (bits). In order to represent a decimal number betwen—but not including—127 and 256, an additional bit is needed.

In cases like General MIDI (or standard ASCII for that matter) where 128 is the highest decimal value that needs to be represented, it's common to write the embedded code in such a way that the actual values used range from 0 to 127 to avoid the overhead of an additional bit that is mostly unused.

      - Mark