On a fine day, 01-06-2005, K9 Kai Niggemann wrote: >I have trouble using MIDI files. A friend is sending me MIDI files >and in order to be able to transpose them I try to open them in Logic >using Apple's DLSmusic device (instead of simply listening to them in >another app). > >but I never get the drums right in Logic. They are set to a program, >presumably the drum kit, but channel 10 is never drums, it's always >simply a MIDI track. So program 32 becomes "Acoustic Bass" instead of >whatever that would mean for drums. > >So I guess you can tell that I have a dangerous semi-knowledge about >MIDI files, but nothing too founded... if anyone could help (or >simply explain what you use to listen and work with MIDI files) I'd >be very happy. > >I need to be able to transpose all musical tracks and be able to mute >the vocal track. so nothing fancy, but I still want to be able to >hear the drums...;) Hey Kai, nice to see you back on the LUG -- welcome. About the midi files: sorry if I offend your intelligence or knowledge with the following, but you seem to be confused about the difference between Midi files and General Midi (GM) files. A midifile is nothing but a bunch of tracks, each assigned to a channel, and each having note / controller /program change / etc info on them. That's it. No indication, apart from the trackname, which track is supposed to play which instrument. So track 6 could be assigned to channel 10 and be supposed to play grand piano. When people started to share midifles, this appeared to be a bit clumsy. You import a midifile, and from the tracknames you gather what each track is supposed to play. You then set up your synth so that channel 10 indeed plays some grand piano, etc. Next midifile: start all over again -- this time channel 10 is supposed to play maybe trombone, so change settings on your multitimbral synth, etc. Hence Roland invented the concept of General Midi. This is not a different kind of Midi, but simply an agreement (for whoever wants to agree) on which instruments go where. Program 43 is always trombone (or whatever), program 56 is maybe 'grand piano with rusty nails attached', and the track on channel 10 is supposed to play drums. A GM-synth (such as the now ancient Roland SoundCanvas) adheres to this 'standard'. So when you use a GM-synth and you send a GM-file to it, the synth will know that channel 10 should be sent to the drum sound, and a program change of 56 should invoke the piano-with-nails patch. About Logic: Logic isn't very well equipped to work with general midi files. You can obviously drag & drop a midifile in the arrange window and Logic will create the proper tracks for you. However, it's up to you to make sure that those tracks then send their data to the proper instruments. I.e. if track 1 is Grand Piano, you should assign track 1 to e.g. an EXS instance with a grand piano loaded. In GM-land a track on channel 10 always contains the drums, so whichever track is assigned to channel 10 should be assigned to an EXS instance with a drumkit loaded. That's not all however, since GM also specifies which midinote plays which drum-instrument: C0 is base drum, D0 is snare, etc. So you can't load up any old drum patch but it has to be GM-conformant. Now it might seems as if you could simply create a Logic template where all tracks are set up properly in advance. This is not quite the case though. First of all, GM specifies 128 programs: program 1 is grand, prog 2 is bass, 3 is strings (or whatever), etc. So you would have to set up 128 tracks with 128 EXS instances (oops, can't be done), or send them to some hardware synth, etc. Very unwieldy, to say the least. Next there's the problem of program changes: a track might start by sending a prog change of prg=1 (say, grand piano), and after 12 bars it might send prgH (might be brass or something). Now you'll be in trouble, for obvious reasons. Bottomline: if you use midifiles a lot, it depends on what you need to do. If you really need the midi material to work with, use Logic and be preprared to suffer quite a bit (or buy a GM-compliant hardware synth and have Logic send all the data there). If you only need to audition the files, use a GM player -- like a program that uses the Mac's built-in Quicktime synth which happens to be GM compliant. Of course the sound of the patches sucks, but at least the brass won't be played by a grand piano. If you're on OSX, go to www.osxaudio.com and look at the midi utilities category. If your main concern is with the drums, dig up a GM drumset for the EXS, load up the midifile in Logic, and assign the channel-10 track to an EXS with this GM drumset loaded. Or make your own GM drummap. See http://midistudio.com/Help/GMSpecs_PercMap.htm for the way the drum instruments are layed out across the keyboard. Google for "general midi drum" (without quotes) to find more info. You could check out http://www.naturalstudio.co.uk/ns_kit7free.html for a free drumkit. Not 100% sure if it's a GM kit, but I would bet it is. Okay, that should get you going a bit I suppose. The little girl is crying, so I gotta go and rescue a baby... -- Hendrik Jan Veenstra h @ k n o w a r e . n l Omega Art: http://www.omega-art.com/