On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Will Godfrey wrote: In general, I would expect that if something fails, nothing happens, but I do get a warning. If on the other hand, the app can be run command line only for headless use, an option (-q) to fail silently makes sense. By "nothing happens", I mean that everything remains as is. My reasoning is that if there is some change in sound, then my first impression is that my bank change worked. Then if the sound I do get is not what I expected, I think I have loaded the wrong bank or set of banks rather than there being something wrong with the bank itself. If the sound does not change then there is audible feedback that something has not gone as expected. These are just my expectations as a user. I don't know if there is a "right way". -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net

On Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:34:34 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote: PS: I've got a Casio were the bank select is a very short SysEx. Bank select in general is an issue, because there are several ways how banks has to be selected, just the voice select is the same for all synth. Many synth don't provide general MIDI banks, especially the old synth that were build before general MIDI was introduced. IOW it's common that bank select is ignored and voice select will isn't ignored. Usually a synth does change it's sound, by ignoring he bank select, but taking care about the MIDI channel's voice select.

On Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:57:57 +0100, Alexandre Ratchov wrote: No, if the voice number doesn't exist, then there's no way to select it and the synth does use the current sound and not try to select something that doesn't exist. But I guess the problem is bank select and not voice select. Sure, if an empty, or INIT VOICE sound exists for the program change, it will be selected. For a DX7 it would be an annoying sine wave.

Summarized: If a bank doesn't exist, respl. the bank select command is freakish, it's ignored. If a "program change" select an existing voice, for what sound bank ever, the "program change" isn't ignored. The "program change" will be selected, even if the bank doesn't exist. If a synth doesn't provide 128 voices, so that even a "program change" from 0 to 127 could fail, it stays with the current sound and doesn't select the closest available sound. That is what I experienced with all averaged and freakish synth since the 80s when MIDI was invented.

Thanks everyone for your comments. It seems we all pretty much agree - is this a first for LAU? :) -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk Say you have a poem and I have a tune. Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.