Odd SPlat Behavior -- TTS-1 won't reccognize patches I assign

This behavior just cropped up a little while ago. Typically, in the past, when I ran into a problem with SPlat (or TTS-1) not recognizing a patch, it was because I forgot to set something somewhere. But when it reared its unwelcome head today, I quickly but thoroughly looked over the settings, and I couldn't spot anything amiss.
 
Specifically, I'm using TTS-1 and I have a tune with a total of six MIDI tracks (Melody piano, rhythm piano, guitar, bass, and drums, with a tiny 2-bar section of strings). Two tracks are suffering from this problem, track 1 (Channel 2) with the "EP Legend" patch (bank 03) assigned, and track 2 (Channel 4) with the "EP Phase" patch (bank 04) assigned. I've had no problems getting these patches to work in the past. But right now they're both playing the EPiano 1 patch, located on bank 0. I've rebooted SPlat once with no effect.
 
Sometimes I've found that SPlat will forget the patch that's assigned and if I reload it, SPlat wakes up a starts to play the correct patch, and everything's great once more. But that technique didn't work this time. I tried switching the tracks -- there are two of them, both piano, to different Channels than where they already were, and that didn't help. In one instance, it got a track stuck on Piano patch 1, grand piano, which was a far cry from one of the Rhodes sounds I was after. I had to exit SPlat entirely and then re to get that track unstuck from the grand piano.
 
I haven't tried rebooting the machine yet. I'll do that in just a minute, then come back here and edit this post.
 
UPDATE: Okay, it took me longer to get back to this than I thought it would. But here are some even more puzzling results. After rebooting my system, booting SPlat, and reloading the file, unfortunately it's still playing EPiano 1. So I tried switching banks to see if that would get things unstuck. Well, it did, sorta. When I shifted down to bank 01, it suddenly decided that an acoustic piano was called for. And when I shifted it back up to bank 03, percussion instruments sounded out. This continued as I shifted to more banks, then finally stopped and switched back to acoustic piano when I moved the setting down to a lower bank number. Now, back on bank 03, it's still stuck on an acoustic piano patch, when it should be EP Legend.
 
So, got any ideas where I should look?  Maybe reinstall SPlat?  Switch over permanently to CbB? By the way, I haven't tried this file in CbB yet. But why should I have to when everything else except this one file is behaving normally? I think.
 

I cover this in my tutorial in the very first part, see my signature for link

I explain this in my tutorial,, but any patch changes made with the GUI will be over ridden by the settings in the track inspector. You generally make all GM patch/ bank setting in the 2 locations shown above. 
If you wish to make the patch settings in the GUI menu then those boxes need to be set to "None" 
Check the event list for hidden PG events. 

Yes the console view is the same as the track inspector so a good place to work too. 

Kev999

mwmcbroom
...I prefer working from the Console View and I make my channel/bank/patch selections for the tracks in Console View. It seems to me, though, that it shouldn't matter where the changes are made from.

 
What happens if you select the same presets from the TTS-1 GUI itself instead of via Track View or Console View?

Yes you can do this , but you need to select "none" in the track inspector boxes as I noted above.  
Some VST synths ignore the track inspector selections but not TTS"1 

After a few weeks of SPlat (and CbB) behaving more or less normally, I'm again plagued by this odd behavior, but with a new file. The file is straight MIDI with a totally clean Event List. It's five parts, and was originally set for violin in all five parts. It is J.S. Bach's famous Chaconne for violin, from his Partita for solo violin in Dm, BWV 1002. I found this transcription at a site dedicated to Bach that has many MIDI files available for download. The transcription is clean and accurate, but what the original arranger did was break up a single violin's part into five different tracks, thus five different channels -- but all violin. It works quite well that way. I suspect he did it because the file would have become dense with notation, the way the original work is, and perhaps too dense for his MIDI editor.
 
I assigned TTS-1 as the synth for the voices. It worked well with the straight violin patches. But I decided to play around with the voices, assigning them to other instruments, and this was where I began to run into problems. SPlat decided that Track 5 should be percussion instead of the electric piano that I assigned for that track. And when I tried to unstick it from odd percussion noises, I was successful by changing channels -- I wound up on 15 -- but now it's stuck on an acoustic piano setting and I can't get it unstuck. And then it started misbehaving with other tracks. SPlat decided that Track 1 should play odd percussion noises instead of the keyboard I assigned, and I finally got it unstuck by changing channels, but its voice decided to shift to another piano sound. I was successful in changing the voice to vibraphone, so I left it there.
 
So anyway, now I'm faced with a disorganized jumble. Other tracks are resisting voice changes the same as Tracks 1 and 5 did. This is very frustrating.
 
What I'd still like to know is, why is SPat (and CbB -- I'm actually working in CbB at the moment) doing this? What on Earth is causing SPat and CbB to decide to switch a patch from a melodic instrument to percussion noises? Why won't it just do what I tell it to do?  Very frustrating.
 
What I find so odd about this is I just completed work on a large project with 10 tracks of MIDI instruments. It was a lot of work and I played around a lot with various voices before I found a combination I liked. And not once did I have a problem with that work that I'm having with this one. It is much more complex, but CbB handled it with aplomb. So go figure.
 
 

Hmm . . . how should I post it?
 
Tell you what, I'll put it up at my website and y'all can d/l it if you want. The voices are all messed up in this copy, so have fun. Just left click on it to d/l. I went ahead and saved it as a Cakewalk work file. Didn't seem to make a difference.
 
http://michaelmcbroom.com/photo/bach_chaconne_bwv1002.cwp
 

I see in the synth rack that you added the TTS twice. Did you intend to?
 
In some of your tracks you have chosen banks other than "Preset Normal 0" which gives you variations of instruments. Was that your intention?
 
If I choose the bank "Preset Normal 0" for each track, I can then choose any instrument from the "patch" drop-down list and the TTS1 dutifully changes to that instrument in the UI.
 
I could successfully choose instruments in both SPlat and CbB.
 

Initial state of the downloaded test project:
 

• In the TTS-1 GUI I found the settings for parts 1, 3, 4, 5, 12 & 16 were set to "User" instead of "GM". 
• In the project tracks banks, I observed the same thing that Eddie had, that some banks were using other than "Preset Normal 0".
• Parts 12 & 16 were set to rhythm parts, in addition to part 10.  Since nothing was routed to MIDI ch 12 & 16, probably not an issue.

• Track 1 routed to MIDI ch 14, and track 4 routed to MIDI ch 15.  Just an observation, probably not an issue.

 
Actions taken:
 

• For starters, I reset the project tracks #1-5 to use MIDI channels 1-5, to align all tracks, channels and parts for simplicity.  I set all tracks with bank "Preset Normal 0".  I wanted to use "Preset Normal 0" across the board.

• In TTS-1, for the parts 3 & 5, I had to manually go in to the part and select an instrument in TTS-1 to get the TTS-1 selection to switch from "User" back to "GM".  From that point on, TTS-1 would switch the instruments on the respective channels/parts according to my track selections in the project.

 
Conclusion:
 
Once the TTS-1 settings and the track banks were back to default, I could find nothing preventing me from assigning instruments as desired.

Well, setting the patches in TTS-1 definitely solved this mystery. But I still have one niggling problem I can't seem to figure out. Whenever I change the patches on one track -- or whenever I start the piece playing again -- even if it were only paused -- that track always reverts to piano 1. It didn't used to do this, but now it's doing it consistently. And when it reverts to piano 1, it's also reverting to a User setting -- User Number 2. This was happening to a couple of other tracks also, but they've stopped misbehaving. Any idea why it's doing this?

The event list is clean. This is the first thing I checked. Nothing but notes.
 
When I set my banks to "none" all the presets disappear, so I never do this. In TTS-1, I always select from one of the "Preset Normal" selections.
 
I got rid of the offending behavior by inserting a soft synth and assigning it to that track. That took care of the problem. ;-)

I'm not applying any filters -- that I know of.

That's an old file that has already been extensively corrected, Sock Monkey. I should take it down.