Fluidsynth issue

[Arius]

I’m using Ardour 5.12, and I’m having a frustrating issue.

When I load an .sf2 file in a-fluidsynth, it will play the sound I want for precisely one note and then flip back to some sort of default setting. C1 appears to be the problem. I switch it back to the sound I want, close it, it plays it for one note, then flips back to what it was before. I delete the fluidsynth plugin and add another one and try again, it does the same stupid thing. I’m about ready to murder my laptop.

Basically at this point I can’t play a midi track using the soundfont of my choice.

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

Very likely the MIDI region contains a patch-change message, so when you play the track the synth is asked to change the program.

Could this be the case? https://manual.ardour.org/working-with-midi/patch-change/

If so, delete it: In “internal edit mode” (press ‘e’) shift+right-click on the patch/program change.

[Arius]

Thanks for your reply, Robin.

I don’t think that’s the issue. I definitely didn’t create a patch change on purpose, and when I zoom in on the midi track I see no indication that there is one.

Perhaps some more information would be useful.

I’m recording a song. It’s mostly live instruments recorded to a click, but we wanted to have an organ in the mix, so I wrote a midi file and imported it to Ardour. Ardour automatically applied a “reasonable synth” to it. I deleted that plug-in and inserted a fluidsynth plugin. Then I started exploring various Organ soundfont files to see which one sounded right for the mix.

At first, there were no issues. I tried a handful of organs and none of them were quite what I was looking for. Then, as I tried more soundfonts, the issue started cropping up. I would pick a new soundfont and be like “huh, that’s weird - it sounds EXACTLY like the last soundfont.” Pick a new one, it ALSO sounds EXACTLY like that antepenultimate soundfont. That’s when I clued in that it was reverting back to my previous choice.

I deleted the fluidsynth plugin and started over, and the issue went away for a bit. Then it came back, but I deleted the plugin and started over again and it let me win.

I ended up finding two organ sounds I was rather fond of, and one worked better in one part of the song, and one worked better in another part. So I duplicated the midi track and set it up so that one was playing Soundfont A, and one was playing Soundfont B. Great.

But there were still a few soundfont files I wanted to try out. I was worried at this point about losing my progress, since I was having to fight Ardour about what sounds to play, so instead of trying new soundfonts on the existing tracks, I duplicated the midi track containing Soundfont A again, creating a third midi track for me to try out sounds on.

Turns out I found a soundfont I think (hard to tell since I can’t listen to it for very long) I like even better - Soundfont C. Except every time I try to play Soundfont C, it plays for one note and then reverts to Soundfont A against my express wishes.

I’ve tried all sorts of things, deleting and re-inserting the plugin many times, deleting and re-importing the duplicated midi track, etc, and nothing works. It absolutely will not play Soundfont C without reverting immediately back to Soundfont A.

At this point I am prepared to simply accept that Soundfonts A and B are my soundfonts, possibly to the detriment of our song. But I’d rather figure out why this is happening and fix it.