Greek2Me
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Meaninful Instrument Names?
My new EMU 0404 has lots of sound banks (and instruments) to choose from, but it is rather annoying that they show up like this....
52
53
54
Muted Coronet
56
57
58
The majority of them are just numbers, no real description. Unless I want to make a "cheat sheet" to keep next to the 'puter, I wind up going through them endlessly trying to find the "right" sound.
Does anybody know exactly what files contain these sound definitions, and would it be possible (or advisable) to open the file using say a text editor, find the section that has names (and numbers) and rename them appropriately? Say sound 52 sort of resembles a cross between a scalded cat and an amourous pachyderm, could I rename it so it shows that way when I view the list of patch names?
Surely SOMEBODY out there has a better way to distinguish between the good sounds and the ones not worth listening to....
Thanks.
RMc
Ginoskein auton kai gnoridzo auton, touto ho skopos moi To know Him, and to make Him known, this my goal.
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Beagle
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/19 17:29:39
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Roger - I'm really confused - where exactly are you seeing these instruments? I am 99.99% certain that the EMU0404 does NOT have embedded sound fonts, so I don't know what you've found that doesn't have the instrument names associated with it. Where exactly do you see these instruments?
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/19 19:15:23
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Sorry, I'm at work right now, so I can't open Cakewalk to be sure I use all the right terms, but as memory serves it goes like this...
(RELAX, it's AFTER hours, where I can surf via cable internet instead of dial-up at home....)
When I'm in Track View, click on the Display All(?) tab and then expand any track I see several controls including drop-down boxes for Bank and Patch. When I click on Patch, a large white window fills most of the screen that shows the default instruments in 3 or 4 coumns, I think. (In Bank 0 it starts out with Piano and ends with a bunch of mostly worthless sound effects, but each one has a meaninful description, i.e. Overdriven Guitar, Sitar, Atmosphere, Gun Shot, to name a few.)
But since installing the EMU (and ALSO after I downloaded some "soundfonts" from some long forgotten website) I now have several other banks to choose from. When I select, say Bank2, the same large window appears but will have only a dozen or so described, and the rest are sequential numbers. THAT'S where the frustration comes in. If I was a lot smarter than I currently am, I might know how to include a screen shot for you in my post, but stupidity runs in my family and I got a big share of it (LOL). Hope this describes it accurately enough for you to figure out what I mean.
For what it's worth, after installing the EMU driver, the setup program also installed several "Audio Tools" (including a mixing board that looks like the cockpit of a 747!). I wonder if THAT'S where I'm picking up my extra Banks and instruments. Wherever they are coming from, I still want to find some way to make it display names that MEAN something.
I STILL love MC, but it IS going to be the death of me....
Ginoskein auton kai gnoridzo auton, touto ho skopos moi To know Him, and to make Him known, this my goal.
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/19 20:55:32
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Greek2Me, I have seen those long lists that you are refering to, but I don't believe they are associated with the EMU. I think the numbered patches are blank. If you load the Edirol VSC(as an example), you will get these. If you select a NAMED patch, it will show in the Instrument window in your selected part(chanel). If you then select a NUMBERED patch, it will not change, but remain at the previously selected NAMED patch. This leads me to believe that there is nothing for it to change to. If you select a different NAMED patch, it will indeed change to that patch. If you dig deeper into the banks, you will see mostly numbered patches. I interpret this as creative headroom. I suspect that if you know how to do it (I don't), you may be able to load your own patches into the numbered slots. This MIDI stuff is quite elaborate, and sometimes I feel like I am exploring a cave with a flashlight. Hang in there. One of these days we will master this thing!
post edited by RobertB - 2006/09/19 21:20:51
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Beagle
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/19 21:31:53
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/19 21:35:19
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Sorry Robert, but I just fired up MC, loaded a project and tiptoed thru the patches... Each one is different. Some of the numbers (sans descriptions) are obviously only slight modifications of the original bank0, but still different. Just by the sound of them they follow the origial closely (various piano sounds, then harpsichord variations, bells, then guitars, .... ending up in (not impressive) sound effects. Soundfonts is something I've been interested in, but found few available (free downloads, I mean). I wouldn't mind paying for some if I knew what they would sound like and that I had some idea what they sounded like by the listing (see above posts). Seems like Robo commented months back that he had something like 8 MB of sounds loaded and ready! Could somebody elaborate on where these are available and how to use them? I loaded something called "SF Ark" and it came with 6 additional banks. At this rate I may spearhead a campaign to have MC declared as potentially ADDICTIVE!!! RMc Oh, by the way, do I remember seeing posts that had "screen shots" embedded, or am I just losing what few marbles I had left? Hmmmm... should have looked further in the forum. As usual, Beagle (thank you Beag) has already posted to another request for instrument definitions the following links. http://www.gersic.com/plugins/index.php?daCat=-3 http://www.kvraudio.com/ MAN, is this place full of information or WHAT???
post edited by Greek2Me - 2006/09/19 22:33:38
Ginoskein auton kai gnoridzo auton, touto ho skopos moi To know Him, and to make Him known, this my goal.
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/19 22:48:33
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At this rate I may spearhead a campaign to have MC declared as potentially ADDICTIVE!!!
There's no potentially about it! Just out of curiosity, what are you using to play the soundfonts? It may not be as limited as the Edirol VSC, and that is why you are getting the extra variations? There is a ton of stuff at KVR. I'm pretty sure I've seen some soundfonts there, but I haven't played with them yet. They have way too many cool toys there! Yes, you have seen embedded screenshots. You have to upload your picture to an accesible site and put a link to it in your post. I use Photobucket. It's free, you just have to put up with a few ads. Now you've got my curiosity piqued. Onward and upward with the learning curve. Beagle, I'm loving this. The more you learn, the more you wonder what else it can do!
post edited by RobertB - 2006/09/19 23:14:10
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/20 06:54:24
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I'm using Edirol as well, so I can't explain the difference. I'll try and sit down tonight and list exactly what my setup is, maybe it's coming from somewhere else. When I go to insert the effect my choices are Edirol and something called Dreamstation, which appears to be the program version of an old analog synth where you create your own ADSR envelope. I've played with it a bit, but it's WAY over my head and I get a lot of bad sounds that sound pretty much the same. If I had more than six brain cells I might do better, but for now I will stick with Edirol and work thru the tutorials.
RMc
Ginoskein auton kai gnoridzo auton, touto ho skopos moi To know Him, and to make Him known, this my goal.
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sjfoote
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/20 08:17:35
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Greek, For free soundfonts check out this link: http://www.sccmusic.250x.com/sfont/genuser/index.htm I use this GeneralUser soundfont set quite a bit - very nice sounds and FREE. Actually, this soundfont sounds better than the "professional" set that I paid for  .
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/20 12:35:13
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Thanks for the soundfont link sjf. It is currently offline (server issues it says), but I will definitely check it out tonight.
Can I (re)ask the original question? Is there a way to open/edit the file so that the instrument names aren't just a list of numbers?
Thanks
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musicman143
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/22 13:26:57
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Hello RMc,
I am a noobie at this but this is what I have done for my situtation. I don't know what the EMU 0404 is like. I use a Yamaha midi keyboard with MC and found that I could append my instrument definition file to Music Creators' file to be able to see my instrument patch names. MC uses a file named 'master.ins' found in the main program folder. You can open it in Notepad and edit it, but I would make a copy of the original before you do. All I did was append my already created yamaha.ins file to the end of the master.ins file and save. (Make sure MC is not open while you do this). From the main menu, I think it's 'MIDI' --> 'Instruments' and you should see your patches listed in there. There is a post in this forum that addresses this subject as well.
Regards,
Musicman
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Beagle
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/22 16:14:27
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Roger - is that MIDI track's OUTPUT set to the EDIROL? If not, set it to the EDIROL and it should fill in the bank and patches correctly.
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/22 22:58:42
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I have been playing with this. I have tried several softsynths, including Edirol VSC, Triangle, and Chimera. Triangle doesn't offer any numbered patches, only named, and all can be selected. Edirol and Chimera do offer numbered patches, and both treat these as voids, at least on my machine. If I select a named patch from the dropdown list, the patch is reflected in the appropriate synth control panel. I am curious as to why or how Roger is getting variations with the numbered patches. What am I , or we missing? If nothing else, I am having a lot of fun exploring the various sounds available! Any thoughts?
post edited by RobertB - 2006/09/22 23:13:59
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/23 18:25:09
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Beagle: Per your previous post (and tutorial #8) I have created an audio track and inserted an FX named Edirol. I then went to each MIDI track and assigned the output to Edirol as well and each track an individual channel. If I click "Bank", a small window appears like this:
15492-GM2 Bank 0 15492-GM2 Bank 1 15492-GM2 Bank 2 15492-GM2 Bank 3 15492-GM2 Bank 4.... up to bank 9, with a check mark beside the active bank. When the bank is set to 0 and I click "patch" in any track the large window appears with names in four columns like this... none Synth Bass 1 Bottle Blow Steel Drums Piano 1 Synth Bass 2 Shakuhachi Wood Block Piano 2 Violin Whistle Taiko Piano 3 Viola Ocarina Melo. Tom 1 (This is just the top of the four columns) MAN this would be a lot easier if I could post a screen shot. I'll figure that out later. Anyway... When the bank is set to anything ELSE, say Bank 2, the top of the columns looks like this... none Synth Bass 3 76 114 Piano 1d Rubber Bass 77 115 1 40 78 116 2 41 79 Horse-Gallop I just went thru the second column of the above list to be sure and the four settings displayed play four distinctly different sounds. (Sorry Robert). I hope you can see now why this is so frustrating. The next two sounds (40 and 41) aren't half bad, the next 7 (all numbers) STINK. I wish I could rename 40 and 41 for future reference and then I would know anything without a name probably isn't worth messing with. Regarding Robert's inquiry (I am curious as to why or how Roger is getting variations with the numbered patches. What am I , or we missing?), ever since I installed this EMU card I get a lovely blue window when I start my computer just before the desktop appears that says "Patch Mix DSP". It lasts for only 2-3 seconds and then disappears. I'm sure this has something to do with the Audio Tools disk that came with the card. Beyond that, I have no clue. (Ask my WIFE, she could verify that!) Thanks for investigating this, guys. Hmmmm.... Proving once again that just because someone is a newbie DOESN'T mean they can't make a significant contribution.... I just looked into Musicman's suggestion about the Master.ins file (be CAREFUL exploring files you don't know about campers! Make COPIES and play with them...) and it sure seems to hold the information I'm looking for. Thing is, it list ALL the banks, a column of numbers AND a description next to each one! It seems that YOU all have been seeing these descriptions all along and can't understand what I was talking about. So (Robert) my question now becomes "Why is it that only on MY machine the descriptions don't appear?" Only the numbers show up. Just one more mystery of MC
post edited by Greek2Me - 2006/09/23 19:18:08
Ginoskein auton kai gnoridzo auton, touto ho skopos moi To know Him, and to make Him known, this my goal.
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/23 21:49:29
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Roger,
No need to apologize. And I hope you haven't taken my inquiries as a put down. This is a captivating scenario, and in the end we will figure it out. I wish I could see and hear what you are. I'll keep plugging away.
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/23 22:02:10
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Absolutely NOT taken as "put down", Robert. As a network administrator for an engineering company I am VERY aware that one can be an expert in many things, but lack information about a single setting or button and wind up looking (and feeling) foolish. I am SO appreciative of the graceful and helpful attitudes of the VAST majority of those who frequent this forum. That's why I keep coming back...
Maranatha
RMc
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zungle
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 00:01:44
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I'm not at My DAW but I'll take a quick shot.
If your problem is solved forgive me I haven't taken time to read other replies.
Harwdare midi modules operated on 4 basic controller banks. See help files for " Bank " topics.
If you are seeing generalized non descript instrument numbers you are probably set to use a bank other than normal or zero. These generalized #'s are patch variations. Some variations very subtle.
If you wish to get rid of these generalized #'s.
Go Options/instruments..............Select your midi instrument and midi channel.
Go console view/select midi track................. Midi Bank 0..or Normal.................and patch(#).
Bank 0 should give you specific patch names so long as Instrument definitions are loaded for selected midi instrument.
In the help files there is a lot of useful info.................Read anything and everything on "Banks"...."Controllers".......and "Instrument Definitions" They all function together.
It is my understanding that Yamaha was one of the 1st manufacturers to expand midi ....thus XG. Roland and other manufacturers quickly began integrating bank info into Sequencing Software as a way to expand their GM libraries with more patch variations. Thus GS/GS2 inst........GS00..........GS 112 banks etc.
This is just some stuff I brushed across a few years ago. I'm not really a midi guy.
Check those help files I think they'll be helpful.
Wifes waiting, gotta go.
Good luck.
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 00:02:51
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This is a total long shot, but I gotta ask, especially in light of the degradation you are dealing with in the other thread.
Is your onboard soundcard still enabled?
In the Windows Audio settings, what is shown as your default for Recording, Playback, and MIDI?
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 00:41:32
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That's a good question, and it raises an issue I've been puzzling about, but ALREADY felt that I may have provided so much info as to muddy the question...
My playback options are Monitor Out, Wave, SW Synth and CD Player. All are checked and unmuted.
On the recording side, the only option available is "Wave" which is checked and unmuted.
Below Playback and Record is "Other" (not MIDI) but it is greyed out.
The one that makes me real curious is the top box that says "Mixer Device" that ONLY gives E-DSP Wave [DF00] as an option. That is why I was asking separately about difference and usage of this vs Edirol.
I thought installing a PCI card and setting MC outputs to it automatically disabled on board sound chip. Should I go get a pair of Vise-Grips and remove it permenantly (LOL)?
Thanks
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57Gregy
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 09:41:47
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Go to your control panel and select 'sounds and audio devices'. One of the tabs there has a screen with 'device manager' in it. Click that, find the listing for your sound cards and click on them. It will show you if the "device is enabed and working properly" or if the device is disabled. If your old card falls in the first category, disable it, and make sure the one you want to use is enabled. If both cards are enabled, they tend to fight over control of the audio, which could cause some glitches. Greg
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 10:43:49
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OK! I think this egg's starting to crack. It is looking like your onboard soundchip is still enabled. Is Monitor Out greyed and inoperable? As I understand it, this mixer should be no longer functional. The Patchmix DXI should now be your working control. The E-DSP option that you see along with Edirol is only the MIDI port. Once you get the onboard chip disabled, it should be a whole new ballgame. This is where being 1000 miles away gets frustrating. It would be so much easier if we were looking at the same computer. Keep us posted.
post edited by RobertB - 2006/09/24 12:24:26
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Greek2Me
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 20:16:42
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MAN, I appreciate you guy's determination! But...
Sorry to report that I checked the Device manager and found the EMU listed, enabled, and functioning properly. The Sound Blaster Live 24-bit is disabled. Several other items are listed (Audio Codecs, Legacy Audio Drivers, Legace Video Capture Device, Media Control Devices and Video Codecs) all enabled and working properly as well.
In another thread it was suggested that I check for an updated driver from EMU. I'm downloading that right now, let's see what it does towards displaying information everybody gets to see but ME!!!!
If this thing ever works I will dance and sing in the middle of Main Street!
(Of course, where I live, Main street is 300 yards long and dead ends into Jimmy Shantons BARN, but that's besides the point!)
RMc
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 20:36:00
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Fingers crossed. dancing shoes on!
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airmeki
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 20:43:52
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Guys I cannot believe what just happened ... just by following this thread I solved the problem I had mentioned in another thread! It was my on-board soundcard! Bang.
Sorry Greek, this didn't really help you, I know - I wish I could help you now too ...
Heinz
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RobertB
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 20:50:28
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That's great Heinz. We'll be watching for you in the songs forum!
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airmeki
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RE: Meaninful Instrument Names?
2006/09/24 20:57:28
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Yeah, I can hardly wait to share my first project with you guys!
Thanks again.
Heinz.
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