Sound Canvas and Windows' soft synthesizer

[Ari]

Well, that's a first for me. I've always assumed it's the same drumkit, just different instruments.

[Tom]

As far as I know, you can't change the MT-32's percussion.  I've never studied it in-depth, but there's only the standard drum kit on the MT-32 that's available.  The only sound I've ever seen added, via patch bank and accessible from Channel 10, is a Cymbal Swell.  Some of Sierra's musicians (Ken Allen, for one) used their own custom percussion sounds, but on standard MIDI channels....not channel 10

[Alistair]

Certainly, games like Willy would send patches like 'Gun Shot', 'Piano 2', etc. to the channel 10 'Rhythm Part' to alter the drum kit.

Have a look at some files, Tom. I'm sure a few games do it.

One Willy drumset sounds exactly like a snare, and not at all like the 'Piano 1' standard kit (Piano 1, just like Piano 1 runs 'standard' on the SC in terms of program change numbers) that 80% of Willy tracks use.

- Alistair

[Ari]

I'm sorry, but I did not understand a thing. could you clarify a little bit more?

[Zemus]

He uses some instrument names instead of the numbers, which makes it all more confusing

[Alistair]

Okay.

For a Sound Canvas MIDI file, you can send the patch change 'Acoustic Bass' (patch 33) to make the SC-55 drumkit run on patch 33 (Jazz), right?

Some MT-32 games allow this possibility as well. Goodness knows what the names of the MT-32 kits are; 'Rhythm Part' is all you can ever see; but some games send patch numbers to the MT-32 to make it run on different kits. Included in the SysEx I presume (making them custom drumkits).

Is that a little less technical?
I always say it's an academic discipline.

- Alistair

[Ari]

OK, now I see what you're getting at. I've noticed this as well, but I never heard anything different or new in the drumkit instrumentation that doesn't appear in the standard MT-32 drumkit.
Some games, like Covert Action, for instance, don't even use channel 10 for drums, so I really don't know. I think it might be the same instruments, just different techniques to access them, but I might be completely mistaken.

[Tom]

The MT-32's Rhythm section is pretty neat, actually.  You can place just about  any sound from a given patch bank into the rhythm part, and you can change their access with patch numbers.  I've done very little with this; there really doesn't seem any need to; I don't think doing so allows for a larger user bank -- but perhaps it does and I just don't remember.  Since I captured all the Sierra banks a long time ago, I haven't done a lot with Dr.T's in many years.  Arranging new sounds in the rhythm part would be handy if you want to, say, keep all the percussion sounds together, or throw in a new sound effect or something.  It's more or less for a "remapping" benefit, as far as I can tell.  I think I'll check it out this afternoon in between web page updates.

Willy Beamish, for instance, uses a lot of percussion sounds that Chris Stevens and/or Don Latarski call "hit01, hit02, hit03" etc.  These names won't appear on the MT-32's display since they're part of the rhythm channel ... which doesn't display names, but you can play with them in Dr.T's MT-32 Librarian.  A long time ago, I followed Sierra's cue and placed a Cymbal Swell patch into one of my custom bank's rhythm section.  Sierra did it a lot, and it makes sence.

But I've also found that programs other than Dr.T's were unable to retrieve the new rhythm channel sounds.  I haven't tried this in a while, and maybe now, newer versions of Cakewalk and Orchestrator, will.  So in the past, I was always retrieving the banks with Dr.T's, then converting the M32 banks to SysEx using M32toSYX.

Using program changes on the rhythm channel only affects access to the custom sounds you've placed there -- the default MT-32 drum set doesn't seem to be changed.

[Alistair]

Well, that would make sense.. since Latarski, Moorehead and Stevens used a lot of custom sounds and put considerable effort into the soundtrack.

The drums definitely sound different when a program change is sent, I assume you're familiar with the theme for the 'Doctor' (you have the MIDI on this site). There's a program change 'Celesta' (patch 9) sent to channel 10 (from your explanation, Tom, I'd think that it's not a 'custom drumkit', but simply some new sounds). Like I said, about 1 in 10 or so WB songs has this.

If a program change is sent, is the effect that results comparable to the MT-32's patch memory being partially changed by a SysEx file, for example? That is, some 'drum patches' (notes) being held constant, and some being changed in this case by the program change?

- Alistair