Re: midi for orchestral scores

[Ralf Mattes]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:35:10 +0200, David Kastrup wrote:

> Ralf Mattes <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>> On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:46:59 +0200, Nils wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Yes. 16 sounds because we have 16 channels max.
>>
>> No. Channels (as the name implies) are a way to address more than one
>> sound over a communication channel (used to be a serial cable). Think
>> of bus architecture. But the OP doesn't need to use cables (who does
>> these days?). With a decent player you can assign a different sound to
>> each track (actually you _could_ use up to 16 simultaneous addressable
>> sounds per track).
>>  
>>> And you can double two
>>> horns on one channel but you can't pan one to the left and one to the
>>> right. So in the end its 16 instruments + tricks like sharing one
>>> instrument patch for all strings.
>>
>> You can do all this _per track_ ....
> 
> Patch or it doesn't happen.

??? But it already _does_ happen ;-)

Just add 
   \set Score.midiChannelMapping = #'instrument

to your score definition and you get a track per instrument.
Now it _would_ be nice if Staff.instrumentName would somehow end
up in the midi track name (so assigning instruments to the track in
the player/sequencer would be easier)
N.B.: you can of course assign  'Staff.midiInstrument' but that lets 
you only specify GM instrument names, which IMVHO are absolutely
inappropriate for anything but,erm, 80th midi musak .... ;-)


 Cheers, RalfD
 

> Seriously: theoretic arguments will not get us far.  Whatever the theory
> might be, it needs to get folded into LilyPond, and the results still
> have to work under practical circumstances.
> 
> I have no clue about the Midi area myself.