Re: Soundfonts and MIDI output (beginner questions)

[Peter Chubb]

>>>>> "Heather" == Heather W Reichgott <address@hidden> writes:

Heather> [1 <multipart/alternative (7bit)>] [1.1 <text/plain;
Heather> ISO-8859-1 (7bit)>]

Heather> I have been using Lilypond for some time, and have used MIDI
Heather> sequencing software before, too. Back in the early 90s I
Heather> taught myself Cakewalk Apprentice with MIDI output for my
Heather> early composition projects. :) But I am a beginner regarding
Heather> the inner workings of MIDI. I have some beginner questions
Heather> about soundfonts.

Heather> 1. Is the choice of soundfont a property of the MIDI file
Heather> itself, or a property of the playback software? (Or both?) I

It's a property of the playback software.  MIDI encodes `banks'  and
`programs' within `banks' only.  Bank 0 progams have a conventional
mapping to instruments (the so-called GM instrument set), and this is
coded at present into Lilypond's MIDI performer, in midi.scm,
instrument-names-alist.  So Lilypond's output is always bank 0, with
program number dependent on the Staff.midiInstrument setting for each staff.

This provides maximum portability, so if you give a MIDI file to
someone else he or she will hear the same instruments you do (although
the actual sounds may be different, depending on what synthesizer is
used).

If you want to use different configurations for different performances
with timidity the simplest way is to use multiple configuration files.
you could create, for example, a file called pc51.cfg containing only:
  soundfont /usr/share/midi/PC51.sf2
then do
  timidity -c pc51.cfg file.midi
to use it.

Heather> 2. Is there an easy way to see a list of all the instruments
Heather> in a soundfont and hear samples of the sounds?

You could try something like swami (which I've never used!)
http://www.swamiproject.org/

Peter C

--
Dr Peter Chubb  http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au  peterc AT gelato.unsw.edu.au
http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au           ERTOS within National ICT Australia