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Topic: Bank switching (Read 21731 times) previous topic - next topic

Bank switching

Hi I am new to this forum.  I use NWC ver. 1.75 and have searched the forum for this question but have found no reference to it.  I became disenchanted with the sound quality of my on-board sound and have installed a creative Audigy SE card.  All seems to work fine.

I want to play some pipe organ music and have installed an organ soundfont in banks 10 and 11.  I assume, maybe incorrectly, that Noteworthy 1.75 can instruct the SE card to use those banks when I want to do so.  I have read that bank switching can be done in midi files using MPC 0.  I find no support for MPC 0 in ver. 1.75 but I did notice somewhere in the documentation that it can be done by modifying the ntwpatch.ini file.  If this is true can you tell me how to do this and also what the exact syntax of the MPC 0 is to select either bank 10 or 11?

Re: Bank switching

Reply #1 –
Hi Jaak. Welcome to the forum.

Check out https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=2337.0
Whilst it's for SB Live, I think it all applies. Esp since you are using v1.75
and there may be other tips around, too.
The Tips and Tricks threads are a goldmine.

Re: Bank switching

Reply #2 –
Hi and Welcome.
What you need to do is first of all, go to the midi set up in NoteWorthy. (Tools / Options / Midi). From there, make sure that your sound card that supports sound fonts is selected in the right hand window, and not the midi mapper or  the Standard GS wavetable.

Having done that,  Go to the properties for each staff (Without anything selected on the staff,  press F2.
Select the instrument tab.
 
For that particular staff, choose which soundfont you want it to use (the one in bank 10 or the one in bank 11).
You will see a Bank Select box. Make sure it is ticked.  Change the controller 0 value to either 10 or 11 as appropriate.
Do not change the controller 32 value

Noteworthy will now play using the sound font in your sound bank.  What you now have to so is to select the instrument patch according to the sound font.  So it could be that the font has patch 6 has the organ pipe bourdon 16. So you would need to select "Chorused Piano" (General midi 6) to play this.


Hope this helps.

 

 
Rich.

Re: Bank switching

Reply #3 –
Thank you for your very quick and informative replies.  I'll try your suggestions tomorrow afternoon and let you know how it went.  I'm getting excited about this as I really like pipe organ music.

Re: Bank switching

Reply #4 –
I may be wrong and I am sure that I will be corrected if I am not, but have you got the Organ Sound Font(s) in the Folder "NWTPatch configuration settings" in your main Noteworthy Composer folder? If you open this NWTPatch folder you will see on the left hand side a column, usually starting with something like this

[Patch Lists]
General MIDI=
Roland GS=

and followed by a list of  each voice in the particular instrument bank. if your organ fonts are not listed in that NWTPatch folder NWC 1.75 will not be able to find and play from them.

Here is part of the NWTPatch  entry for my "Jeux" organ font ( incidentally, one of the very best organ fonts)

[Patch Lists]
Jeux=
Jeux Romantiques=

[Jeux]
Montre 8'=
Prestant 4'=
Doublette 2'=
Montre+Prestant 8'+4'=
Montre+Prestant+Doublette 8'+4'+2'=
Principals (g.o.) 8'+2'+1'=
Montre+Doublette 8'+2'=
Principals (g.o.) 16'+8'=
Principals (g.o.) 16'+4'=
Principals (g.o.) 16'+2'=
Montre+Flute 8'+4'=
Nazard 2 2/3'=
Tierce 1 3/5'=
Larigot 1 1/3'=
Neuvième 8/9'=
Bourdon 16'=
Spitzflöte 8'=
Holzflöte 4'=
Open Flute 4'=


Do you get the idea?  If the organ fonts are not there you must edit the NWTPatch file by typing in the list of your organ voices  in the form shown above, not forgetting to add the names of the organ fonts to that little list at the top of the column. The "=" signs are important; it means something to NWC 1.75 When you have done this and Saved the edited NWTPatch, go to a piece of music, hignlight a staff and depress the "I" key on your keyboard.  Then click on Patch List Type in the window which comes up and you should find your organ fonts in the list from which you can select.

If this doesn't work come back to us.

Typing the list of stop names can be frustrating  as you cannot usually directly copy them from the Audigy files  and they disappear every time you start to type them on to something else!.

Tony

Re: Bank switching

Reply #5 –
Hi all;

First I want to thank all of you for you help.  I have been able to access a theater organ sound font and have spent a good part of the weekend playing with it.  Great fun!

Tony, I haven't gone your route yet but will try it tomorrow - I hope.  I know what you mean about not being able to copy and paste from the Audigy interfaces.  I spent over an hour typing a list of the theater organ presets.  I found that the Vienna list at least stays on the screen when I switch to the word processor and that helped.

JaakG

Re: Bank switching

Reply #6 –
Hi All;

I now have the Jeux soundfonts fully installed and in use thanks to your help.

 When I edited the NWCpatches.ini file I listed the Jeux soundfonts as [Jeux(42)] and [Jeux Romantiques(43)] as a reminder to which bank they are stored in.  I also have a text file with all of the stop names suitable for copy and paste to ease the task of updating the .ini file.  Anyone who want to install the Jeux sound fonts would find it useful.

Re: Bank switching

Reply #7 –
The Jeux sound fonts are very good. and there is an Itree available for them from the Scriptorium (which is quite helpful for creating a NWPatch for NWC1.75)
If you have a good sound system linked to NWC and want to be bolder, Stefan's Cathedral Organ sound font has stops for 5 manuals and pedals and an ITree is also available for that.
I believe that the Hammersound library is the  best resource for obtaining sound fonts. and this includes a number of classical and cinema organ fonts, usually with  some critical comment on them. But you probably already know this!

www.hammersound.net

Tony