From: Max A. <max...@gm...> - 2007-10-30 19:54:06
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Hi everyone, First off, my sincere thanks to the developers and all others who make this beautiful piece of software possible. :) Although I have been trying hard to learn about all this, please bear in mind that computer music stuff still is very new to me. I am using the latest stable rosengarden with fluidsynth as my softsynth. I have an e-mu xboard25 usb midi keyboard connected to my computer. Works great, by now I can enter notes through it into (and hear them, too!). Now, if I understand this correctly to make use of the knobs on the keyboard I need to describe the XBoard25 in an RGD file (www.*rosegarden* music.com/resources/documents/*rgd*-HOWTO.shtml). Before trying to do so, I just wanted to try to get some things clear: 1- what does my keyboard "contain" in its memory? Using the keyboard I can select one of 16 "patches"; from experimentation these seem to correspond to the first 16 programs in bank 0 of the softsynth device which I am using in rosengarden (eg, patch1 is a piano, patch9 a celesta). The "sounds" themselves are not described in the keyboard but in the soundfont I am loading into the fluidsynth dssi plugin, right? 2- what is the difference between the 16 "channels" and the 16 "patches" which the keyboard supports? Currently, changing channels on the keyboard seems to have no effect. Will that allow me to switch instruments (eg, from fluidsynth to amsynth?) inside Rosengarden but through the keyboard? I got that idea from reading in the rosengarden manual: ---- Remember that each MIDI device contains a number of instruments, and that you can assign tracks to those instruments. In MIDI terms, each instrument corresponds to a single channel on your MIDI synth. You can choose which of the available voices (sounds) on your synth each instrument uses, but in order to do this, you need to let Rosegarden know the names for all of the available voices. This dialog allows you to attach banks of programs (names for voices) to your MIDI devices, [...] --- 3- Using Rosegarden's "manage MIDI devices" interface, I edited the bank for the keyboard. Eg, I tried switching the name of program1 (a piano) with that of program9 (celesta). But that didn't make a difference in the sound produced: when I selected patch1 on the keyboard I still got the piano, and patch9 still got me the celesta. How is that? 4- if I create a rgd file, will I be able to use the knobs on the keyboard to set the volume? I have succeeded in telling Rosengarden about the control events the keyboard can generate (using Manage MIDI Devices-> Manage Control Events), but how do I "bind" each of these controllers to an action in Rosengarden? That is a big mystery for m! : ) Thank you so much for any help on this. I know I am asking too many questions, srroy! Bye Max |
From: D. M. M. <mic...@ro...> - 2007-10-31 22:14:40
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On Tuesday 30 October 2007, Max Aginaga wrote: > Before trying to do so, I just wanted to try to get some things clear: Just to note that I looked at this again, and put off answering it again. I'll answer it one of these days, but it's too much right now. Sorry. -- D. Michael McIntyre |
From: D. M. M. <mic...@ro...> - 2007-11-03 19:44:13
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On Tuesday 30 October 2007, Max Aginaga wrote: > I am using the latest stable rosengarden with > fluidsynth as my softsynth. > I have an e-mu xboard25 usb midi keyboard connected to my computer. Works > great, by now I can enter notes through it into (and hear them, too!). No= w, > if I understand this correctly to make use of the knobs on the keyboard I > need to describe the XBoard25 in an RGD file (www.*rosegarden* > music.com/resources/documents/*rgd*-HOWTO.shtml). Probably. I don't know anything about that keyboard. What knobs? (Googles. The Xboard=E2=84=A2 25 features fullsize, velocity sensitive key= s with=20 aftertouch, 16 programmable real-time controllers, Xboard Control editing=20 software, and E-MU's Proteus X LE Desktop Sound Module, with over 2,500=20 sounds.) Ah. That's an interesting question then. The knobs would be a "MIDI contr= ol=20 surface" I guess. We support MIDI control surfaces, but I'm not sure how=20 you'd configure Rosegarden to work with a MIDI control surface that also=20 happened to be a keyboard. This one is totally out of the realm of my experience I'm afraid. Though i= f=20 you want to buy me one of these gadgets to play with, or come over to my=20 house with it for a little while, I'll see what I can come up with! I'm su= re=20 I could figure it out, but probably not without getting my hands on the=20 hardware. > Before trying to do so, I just wanted to try to get some things clear: > > 1- what does my keyboard "contain" in its memory? Using the keyboard I c= an > select one of 16 "patches"; from experimentation these seem to correspond > to the first 16 programs in bank 0 of the softsynth device which I am usi= ng > in rosengarden (eg, patch1 is a piano, patch9 a celesta). The "sounds" > themselves are not described in the keyboard but in the soundfont I am > loading into the fluidsynth dssi plugin, right? I can't answer you for certain as to what your keyboard contains without=20 playing with it directly, but cues in that description give me the idea tha= t=20 its "over 2500 sounds" probably only exist in the Windows software, and you= r=20 keyboard most likely loses most of its apparent features when you play with= =20 it outside of Windows. > 2- what is the difference between the 16 "channels" and the 16 "patches" > which the keyboard supports? Since it appears the keyboard will not be able to actually reproduce anythi= ng=20 you send to it (without Windows) then the number of channels on the keyboar= d=20 most likely do not matter to you.=20 That's the short and simple answer. You can just have the keyboard always transmit to Rosegarden on channel 1, = and=20 whatever you play will go back out whatever pathway is associated with the= =20 track you're sitting on. For example, you're sitting on a flute track that= 's=20 configured to play a flute patch/program (same thing) on channel 3 of=20 =46luidSynth, so you play your keyboard, it transmits note data to Rosegard= en=20 on channel 1, then Rosegarden routes the note data to FluidSynth on channel= =20 3, and you're magically playing a flute on FluidSynth. > 3- Using Rosegarden's "manage MIDI devices" interface, I edited the bank > for the keyboard. Eg, I tried switching the name of program1 (a piano) wi= th > that of program9 (celesta). But that didn't make a difference in the sound > produced: when I selected patch1 on the keyboard I still got the piano, a= nd > patch9 still got me the celesta. How is that? Banks in Rosegarden are for playback devices. Based on the information I h= ave=20 available, it does not appear you are using the keyboard as a playback=20 device. You want Rosegarden to know about the programs available in the=20 soundfont you're using, which is the playback device in your case. > 4- if I create a rgd file, will I be able to use the knobs on the keyboard > to set the volume? Probably, but without first-hand experience with this kind of thing, I'm ju= st=20 not sure how to set it up. I guess if you can't get a keyboard into my hands to play with (very unlike= ly,=20 I imagine) the next best thing might be to hook the keyboard to KMidiMon,=20 jiggle the knobs around, and see what it transmits. That could offer a clu= e. Or maybe somebody else already has relevant experience. We have the contro= l=20 surface stuff in there because somebody wanted it. Maybe that person has=20 made use of it, and understands what it's all about. =2D-=20 D. Michael McIntyre=20 |