Setting MIDI Patches for a Clip

What is a Patch Change?

MIDI files may have an embedded message that tells the receiving synthesizer what ‘patch’ to use. The message is actually made of 3 separate messages which define the Bank(MSB/LSB) and Program. Furthermore, there are 16 channels which may be addressed. For example, a MIDI file can tell a synth to use bank 1, patch 1, on channel 1.

Many plugin-instrument synthesizers do NOT respond to patch-changes at all. Instead you are expected to control the plugin from the control panel, and this chapter will have no effect. Similarly, plugin instruments generally only support a single sound at a time, and may not respond on multiple channels of MIDI.

!If your synthesizer changes sounds unexpectedly or otherwise acts strangely, there’s a chance that it is responding to patch-changes in the MIDI file you are playing. Some instruments have a button to ignore incoming patch changes. If your synth ignores patch changes then this chapter will have no effect on the synth.

A Patch-change message may occur anywhere in a MIDI stream. This can be useful to increase the number of sounds at your disposal. If 2 instrument voices never play at the same time, then you can put a patch-change before each instrument’s passage and use a single MIDI channel.

Patch-changes are generally only useful if both the midi file and they synthesizer agree what each patch’s sound is. This is the purpose of the General MIDI specification: it defines that (for example) bank 1, patch 1 is a “grand piano” sound. The quality of the sound can vary widely with different synthesizers. Mixbus provides a synthesizer called General MIDI Synth which provides reasonable sound quality for the most popular GM sounds, with a fairly small download. To learn more about patch-changes and General MIDI, visit this chapter of the manual: General MIDI and General MIDI Synth

Enabling or disabling patches for a Clip

The “Send Patches” button controls whether a clip will send ANY bank or patch changes. If this button is disabled, then neither the clip’s patch-changes nor the embedded file’s patch-changes will be sent to the synthesizer.

Choosing the patches for a Clip

Click the ‘MIDI Patches’ button to launch the clip’s patch selector dialog. The dialog provides tabs for up to 16 channels. Only the channels used by the Clip will be provided.

Where are patch names defined?

The patch-selector dialog uses the selected instrument “midnam” file specification, which can be selected in the track header. In the case of an external synth connected only with a MIDI cable, this is the only way to fill the names of the bank/patch selector. Here is an example showing the Roland Juno-106 synthesizer picked in the track header, and the resulting list of default patch names:

Some synthesizers (like Mixbus’s included General MIDI Synth) can specify the bank/patch list without the user having to choose the instrument specification on the track.

Harrison Consoles Copyright Information 2023
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, transmitted, stored on a retrieval system, or translated into any language, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of an authorized officer of Harrison Consoles, 750 Jim Parker Drive Smyrna, Tn 37167.