[fluid-dev] Re: More commits on the way to 1.1.1

[jimmy]

> Date: Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:32:32 -0800
> From: address@hidden

> 
> As I mentioned, previous FluidSynth versions would assign
> incremental  
> program numbers to each channel.  So MIDI Channel 1
> would be program  
> 1, channel 2 program 2, etc.  There wasn't really any
> reason for that  
> behavior.  What I was referring to, was not GM
> SoundFont files, but GM  
> MIDI files.  Some GM MIDI files may assume that
> program 1 is the  
> default for all channels, which it should be for GM
> compliance.
> 
> I'm not really convinced that having the previous policy
> of  
> incremental program assignment is better than having it be
> GM  
> compliant, since it would still be assigning the whole
> channel space,  
> just different instruments for every channel.  So you
> would still end  
> up with instruments assigned to all channels, except in the
> case where  
> the SoundFont happens to not have instruments on those
> program #s.
> 
> Or perhaps I'm overlooking something?  Did previous
> versions of  
> FluidSynth not have instruments assigned to every channel
> in  
> incremental fashion?


I don't know if the channels loaded up with incremental programs, just vaguely 
know that in Qsynth, when an instance of fluidsynth is loaded up it loaded the 
soundfont and there were some instruments loaded in the channels.  I didn't try 
with non-GM soundfont as the only soundfont to know for sure.

I do know that FS did not load anything if the specificly requested bank and 
program number is not available.  That was a problem with quite a few Midi 
files out there which used GS, or XG instrument banks (no directly mappable 
sounds with just basic GM soundfonts).  So I requested the instrument 
substitution to revert to bank#0, and if no instrument existed there, revert to 
bank#0,prog#0.  That way most generic Midi files will at least sound something 
vs. sounded mostly silenced for those invalid instrument selections.  This is 
also consistent with virtually all hardware synth's behavior out there.

Sorry if that causes trouble for some folks who relied on such "features" 
previously.  Perhaps the secondary reverting to bank#0,prog#0 is now causing 
this problem.  I would have thought that folks would want to do this, 
especially for soundfont (especially non GM soundfont) designers to be able to 
hear at least some instrument.  If they don't want to hear from a channel, 
perhaps a channel mute option would be more appropriate.

Jimmy