[Sherry C]

Hi MG,

Originally Posted by mgj32

Sorry to hear about the emergencies. I hope they pass and all is well.

They are now settled, and the outcomes were better than anticipated. For that, we are extremely thankful!

1. I found that for the 4 banks added to Merlin Creative, if I click through the banks and find the instrument I'm looking for, say it's a piccolo, bank 4, patch 73, if a put a 4 in ctrl 0 and 73 ub ctrk 32, the Bank four names disappear, 73 is hilighted, and I get the instrument.

Bingo Matching Bank and Instrument Patch number is the bare necessity - having the correct instrument name in the field is helpful, but not necessary to getting the right sound.

2. If I knew the ctrl 0 numbers for GM and Merlin, I suppose I could do the same there. I assume Composer uses one of those GM files in Win\Sys 32, and loading one in SF Library might show the answer to what might go into ctrl 0.

Yes. The default MIDI device is the GS Wavetable, which uses the GM Standard instrument patch map. One thing to note: some devices start with instrument patch 0 and go to 127, while others start with 1 and go to 128. Notation Software uses the convention 1-128, so check and enter your patch numbers accordingly. (eg. if your MIDI device uses 0-127, then you'll need to offset the number by 1 to make sure they match correctly in Composer.)

3. To get 48 channels, wouldn't I have to be able to use Maple Midi in Composer so that it would translate to Synthfont? The only way to do so appears to be to set Maple 1,2,3, or 4 as both input and output. (If I load a midi file into SF, btw, and choose it for output, a popup says the device can't be opened, though it is listed.

To get the 48 channels that I was alluding to would be to use your Audigy Synth A as one device (16 channels there), Synth B as a second device (16 more channels there) and then Maple 1 to SynthFont (16 more channels there). You can use the same channel number (eg. 2) to two different devices for two different instruments (there is currently a bug in Composer which will show the channel number in yellow as if it is sharing a channel with the same number, even when they are assigned to two different devices - don't let that throw you off.)

Only set the Maple cables to "Out" in Composer, not as "In"s - otherwise you'll get a feedback loop going that will slow your computer to a painful crawl that you may have to shutdown the computer to get out of.

Actually you'll only need one cable (eg. Maple 1) to go out to Synthfont, where you can use 16 channels and even assign different fonts to each channel (this is done within SynthFont). You'll still need to select the correct Instrument Patch number in Composer's Staff Setup.

For example, say you have just two instruments, Guitar and Flute, in your composition. You want to use SynthFont, and you want to use a Ramirez Classical Guitar soundfont for the first instrument (the patch number is 25), and the Haggia Flute soundfont for the second one (with its patch number of 74). It might look like this:

In Composer:
Guitar/Staff 1 - Maple 1 - Channel 1 - Instrument patch 25
Flute/Staff 2 - Maple 1 - Channel 2 - Instrument patch 74

In SynthFont:
Channel 1 - Ramirez Classical Guitar (you don't have to set the instrument patch number because that's already being transmitted from Composer)
Channel 2 - Haggia Flute (ditto)

You're using the same cable - Maple 1 - for both instrument staves to go from Composer to SynthFont. Composer tells Synthfont which instrument patches get played on each channel, and in Synthfont you just have to pick which soundfont goes with each channel.

Alternatively, you could use a guitar font that is already loaded in Synth A and has the instrument at patch 25, and then use the Haggia flute which is in SynthFont:

In Composer:
Guitar/Staff 1 - Synth A - Channel 1 - Instrument patch 25
Flute/Staff 2 - Maple 1 - Channel 2 - Instrument patch 74

Hopefully the above is helpful

ttfn,
Sherry