[Qtractor-devel] MIDI: Sending "complex" program changes?

[Frank N. <bea...@we...>]

Hi list,

I have a Yamaha P-90 E-Piano which I want to use with Qtractor.
It is somewhat difficult to handle regarding program change messages;
while normally a simple "0xc0 0xnn" message (nn being the program change number)
would change to a different program, this beast wants a combination of
controller change and program change messages, e.g. like this:

0xb0 0x00 0xBB   (Bank Select MSB)
0xb0 0x20 0xbb   (Bank Select LSB)
0xc0 0xpp        (Program change number)

How can I have Qtractor send out such a sequence at, say, the beginning of a
track? I believe right now this is not possible yet, so this would be a
feature request :-).

More precisely, what I would consider rather helpful is a MIDI event editor
in a similar way as it has been implemented for MusE, see e.g. 
http://imagebin.ca/view/XtjWKMWx.html

That would ideally allow to insert arbitrary MIDI data into the stream,
create events, remove/move them, change their parameters etc.
Is this feasible, or maybe already in the works? :-)

On a similar vein, I noticed that when creating a new MIDI track in Qtractor,
I can determine the instrument that this track should play to, but when
looking at Qtractor's MIDI output (e.g. with aseqdump), I see that the
corresponding program/bank change message is only sent out when:
- I select a program number from the "Program" dropdown menu
- I confirm the "Track properties" window

What I would expect here is that Qtractor would also emit these messages when
I e.g. rewind the song position pointer and start playback of the song.
Otherwise I could have changed the program number on the MIDI device directly,
and starting playback would play this track with the wrong sound.
Am I right, or did I misunderstand some concept here?

Thanks,
Frank