Cannot change MIDI sound

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

Hi, I thought I give Ardour a try, but I am spending too much time trying to change the sound of a MIDI track.

I read documentation, read posts in this forum, installed x42 General MIDI Synth, but I don’t make progress.

I use the “General MIDI Synth” which shows the channels with another sound each.

However, in my MIDI track in internal edit mode, I still have no option to switch to other instruments the Patch:
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Changing any of the fields, e.g. channel, does not have any effect!

This should be something straight ahead and not that complicated!
Anyone who has a solution please?

#2

Welcome to Ardour. Sorry that you’re having issues, but a few basics are required:

  1. the fact that you had to install the GM synth suggests that you did not get Ardour from ardour.org, which complicates things a little. This would work much more simply if you had ardour from ardour.org.

  2. GM Synths are a bit of a special case for patch changes etc., since for the most part they do not have presets the way that contemporary software synth plugins would.

  3. If you were using Ardour from ardour.org you could just right click on the track header of the track in the editor, and use the Patch Selector to select the General MIDI patch to use on a given channel.

This is the patch selector (from a right click on the track header):

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Alternatively, this is the GUI for the GM synth included with Ardour:

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which would allow the same thing.

#3

Hi @paul ! Thank you for your fast response.

I did download Ardour from ardour.org. I subscribed and - as a logged in user - I clicked on download and installed.

GM Synths is something I installed out of helplessness, hoping this might change something. I read about that in one of the other posts here.

I will now try to follow your advise right clicking on the track.

#4

Finally, this is the patch change insert dialog when using the GM Synth included with ardour from ardour.org:

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It allows you to insert a program change into a region (via: select MIDI region, then use global menu > Region > MIDI > Insert Patch Change). Note that this will not change the sound of the GM synth until you “play” through the patch change message - this is very different than changing the synth setting via the other two methods referred to above.

#5

I found all dialogs you mentioned.

I can finally change the sound of MIDI, thanks!

#6

Great! Please be aware that there are dozens-to-thousands of plugins/software synthesizers that can be used as the synth in a MIDI track, all of which have their own unique sounds and control methods. General MIDI is just a very basic attempt to provide a synth which “sounds a bit like” mostly conventional instruments. It’s only the beginning of what MIDI can sound like, not the end of it.

#7

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