Hello John,
I haven't checked lately, but one of the best MIDI books around is:
The MIDI Files by Rob Young, published by Prentice Hall Europe, 1996 ISBN 0-13-262403-6 (pbk) $29.95US in January 1998 when I bought mine.
For a single reference on MIDI, this book will be *extremely* hard to beat. It goes from novice to expert in an easy to read format, has programming exercises, and a diskette with the exercises so you listen to the proper results.
Some preliminary information:
GM= General MIDI, the original standard from 1991
GS= Roland's entry (named from their GS chip) also appeared in 1991. It is compatible with GM and offers extras.
XG= Yamaha's entry appeared in late 1994. Compatible with GM and offers extras.
Most computer sound cards are going to use GM. Keyboard synthesizers and other outboard gear will use GM and whatever else their manufacturer decided to add.
I use a SB Live! Value card (GM and soundfonts) and Roland rack mounted modules: in particular the GS64 (1000+ sounds and GM compatible) and the OC1--an Orchestra module specializing in, what else, Orchestra instruments :)
I don't have Yamaha gear, but my version of Cakewalk Pro Audio 8.4 has support for 29 Yamaha synths and XG. Tell me exactly which Yamaha keyboard/synth your daughter is using and I'll look into it.
Now for the files you sent me. I took a look at Song001.mid only.
This appears to be a professionally crafted midi file. It's using MIDI controller effects that would take an expert to program. If your daughter made this file, then you can ask *her* how to get it work with Rosegarden. :)
The problem is not in the Instrument Patch list. GS and XG both use GM instrument patches as a basis in their default bank. I hadn't read the Yamaha XG section in The MIDI Files book before because I don't use XG. Sorry for the bad pointer before about XG instrument patches.
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The first glaring problem is in Channel 9. The GM standard (also followed by GS) is that Channel 10 is the Drum Channel. XG allows Channel 10 and 2 other channels to be used for Drums. Song001.mid is using Channel 9 for a Drum Channel. This immediately got you hearing a Clean Guitar when run through Rosegarden (which uses GM only, I believe.) The quick fix is to redirect this track from Channel 9 to Channel 10. Then you will have two tracks playing through Channel 10. That's okay with MIDI.
There was a second problem with Channel 9 and Channel 10. They were set to use patch number 27. This is not a defined patch in XG Drum Sets.
Here's how XG define the drums set patches: 0- none 1- Standard Kit 1 2- Standard Kit 2 9- Room Kit 17- Rock Kit 25- Electro Kit 26- Analog Kit 33- Jazz Kit 41- Brush Kit 49- Classic Kit
With GM, there is only one defined drum kit called Standard Kit. It will either be at patch 0 or at patch 1, depending how Rosegarden labels the patches.
So to fix your drum problem, reset the track that was using Channel 9 to Channel 10, and reset the patch number to 0 or 1 (whichever setting allows you to hear the standard drum kit) for Channel 9 and Channel 10.
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The second major problem is with other Channels using nonstandard GM instrument banks (and using nonstandard XG banks as well.) This is probably because this song was composed *specifically* for your instrument. That's why I've asked you to tell me exactly which Yamaha you have. It will help me to load the correct Instrument Bank so I can see which instrument is supposed to be playing on that Channel.
Most of the Channels were using Bank 0, which should be fine and should be defaulting to the standard GM instrument bank.
Channel 1 was using Bank 116. Not an XG standard bank. The quick fix is to change it to Bank 0. This will use a Lead 2 Sawtooth instrument.
Don't worry about Channel 2. It's used to send MIDI control information and is not 'played'. Leave it alone.
Channel 11 was using Bank 113. Also not an XG standard bank. Change it to Bank 0. This will use the SynthBass1 instrument.
Channel 15 was using Bank 112. Same problem as with the other two channels. Change it to Bank 0 for now. This will use the Piano2 instrument.
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That should get you going for now. I've never gotten Rosegarden up and running, so I can't tell you how to make these changes to Song001.mid.
And worse yet, my Windows NT partition got a virus while I was using it for email when trying to work out my Mandrake install problems. I'll probably be doing another low level format and reinstalling the rest of this weekend after I got off work tonight. So you probably won't be hearing from me for a few days.
But hopefully someone else can assist you with Rosegarden to make these changes.
All the Best, John The Other
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