[linux-audio-user] QSynth dumb question

[Paul Winkler]

On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 09:46:13AM -0000, Rui Nuno Capela wrote:
> you select a bank and a program from the list. once selected you're about
> to assign that bank/program combination to one midi channel, which  will
> in turn render sound from that instrument selection. the preview option
> (which is another misleading name btw) just makes the changes audible
> while you're selecting in the edit dialog, even before you hit ok and make
> it permanent.
>
> you just can't add nor remove banks/programs in anyway. the ones you see
> listed are the ones provided by the current soundfont stack. nothing more,
> nothing less.

Thanks for the help, Rui.  I haven't worked with soundfonts before and
I think I was just assuming a more "typical" synth UI where you can
just browse through single "sounds" and change them. Now I think I
understand that soundfonts are collections of sounds that have their
own internal idea of program numbers.

Would it be possible for "preview" to be on by default?  It seems to
me it's less than ideally helpful if you have to select it every time.
Or maybe it should remember its state rather than always resetting
to "off".

> to change that you have to change soundfonts on setup. pay
> attention to soundfont layering order, as identically numbered
> banks/programs are overriden by soundfonts which are loaded last. you can
> cope with that by tinckering with bank offsets.

Ah, I think that was part of my problem. I added a soundfont and my
presets suddenly sounded different and I got very confused :-)
Offsetting one of my soundfonts helped me sort it out.

-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com