Patches

In the world of MIDI music, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus as to how to refer to the different sounds available from any MIDI device. Different manufacturers may refer to a specific violin sound (for example) on their MIDI device as a sound, patch, part, voice, or program. This can be very confusing when all you want to do is change the trumpet sound to the saxophone sound. In the interest of consistency throughout PrintMusic and its documentation, we’ll refer to a specific MIDI sound as a patch. This term comes from the early days of the synthesizer, when you changed the sound of your synthesizer by switching the configuration of the various “patch” cords or cables.

A patch could be as simple as a basic MIDI program change message, but it might also include bank change information, which may be required on certain MIDI devices to access all available patches.

PrintMusic both records and plays back the MIDI data that allows a MIDI instrument to change patches (that is, programs or sound settings and optional bank change information) during playback. Using PrintMusic’s Score Manager, you can create sets of your favorite channel/patch combinations and select them, by name, from the Sound drop-down menu (if MIDI > Play PrintMusic Through MIDI is selected).

Note: If your MIDI instrument isn’t responding to program changes, your synthesizer may have a required control that enables program changes.

PrintMusic begins numbering its patches at 1, but not every MIDI device begins the numbering of its programs at 1 (some begin numbering at 0). Therefore, if you find that the numbers you enter in the following examples change your MIDI instrument to a program number that’s one off, remember to change the numbers accordingly by adding 1.

The easiest way to set up patches is to select the instrument you want from the General MIDI drop-down menu under the Sound column of the Score Manager. This will automatically configure the Bank Select and Program Change for that instrument. If you prefer to specify Bank Select and Program Change information (for example, to play back through an external MIDI device using non-General MIDI sounds), use the following instructions.

To establish MIDI patch settings for a score instrument

1. Choose MIDI > Play PrintMusic Through MIDI.
2. Choose Window > Score Manager. The Score Manager appears. If you want to assign a program to a certain layer of a staff, click the triangle next to an instrument name; the list expands to show you individual layer assignments.
3. In the Sound column, select the MIDI sound you want to assign to each staff. If the MIDI sound you want does not appear in the Sound column, click the drop-down arrow and choose Edit Patch. The Set Patch To dialog box appears.
4. Here, you can indicate the bank and program changes for an external MIDI device by choosing an option from the Patch drop-down menu and then entering the appropriate bank numbers. The Score Manager gives you a great deal of power over MIDI channels and patch assignments. Click OK.
5. Ensure MIDI > Send Patches to MIDI Device on Playback is checked and click OK.

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