General MIDI Synth – where are the sounds from?

#1

Yet again I reveal my illiteracy when it comes to the things going on behind the GUI, by asking a probably pretty dumb question, but here goes …
It’s been many years since I last used General Midi sounds to record anything. I’ve been completely immersed in the world of virtual instruments. However, just for fun I decided to try out the standard General Midi Synth in Ardour, and to my surprise, the built-in sounds are pretty darn good. At least they no longer sound like the soundtrack for Leisure Suit Larry 3, which was the case when I last recorded general midi. So, my question is – where do these sounds come from? Are they specific to the Ardour General Midi Synth or are they part of some sort of standard GM bank?

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#2

Hehe. There are some times in life when I wish my soundtrack could be Monkey Island 2.

It uses this, I believe: http://www.schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php

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#3

Wow, that is cool. I had no idea. And yes, the Monkey Island 2 soundtrack is amazing. : )

#4

Wow we are going far in the past with this topic :smiley: good memories tought.

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#5

I’ve been playing around some more with the built-in GM Synth and experimented using a MIDI bus with just one instance of the synth, which I then control the instruments on by changing channels using my MIDI hardware device. I have a question though: Does the built-in GM Synth support multiple outs? In other words, is it possible to route CC1 to an audio track, CC2 to another, CC3 to a third etc, so that I can add audio effects and such to the separate audio signals being sent from the GM Synth? Or do they all go to one single stereo bus? I’ve tried to add audio ports, but so far no success. Many thanks in advance!

#6

I guess it is a stereo out.

What does the routing say about its pin connections?

#7

Appears to only have output Left and output Right. I thought maybe adding my own ports could enable more elaborate routing, but I realize now that it’s probably not possible using this particular synth. : )

#8

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