Recruiting answers: How do you have your MIDI devices set up?

[Saga Musix]

LPChip, of course you can access XG instruments. However, as the name implies, XG is an extended version of the MIDI standard, and thus some things will work differently. I don't know the commands by heart, but you can f.e. use SendSX to capture program changes that the synth sends to your PC when connected via MIDI, and then use those messages to change the patches on the synth again. That said, weren't the standard XG instruments reachable by selecting the proper bank? I.e. all the General MIDI patches are in bank #0, and the XG patches are on the higher bank? That's how I remember it being organised on my CS1x again. Or are you talking about patches that are only reachable through a special play "mode" on the synth, like the "Performance" voices on the CS1x?

[LPChip]

The VST2MID plugins I tried to use couldn't access the banknumbers where the XG instruments reside. They only went to 128. OpenMPT has the same limitation. The XG bank has a banknumber of 56426 or something alike.

[christofori]

Gotta *love* the MIDI 'standard' huh?

That high a bank number being used by a synth manufacturer (or SF developer) blows my mind.  The only feasable reason I can think they'd do that would be to prevent use of those sounds via methods such as you're describing (FE VST2MID -- and, thanks again to you!  When I found that post my world went golden!).  Besides, doesn't the MIDI 'standard' only accomodate 128 banks in total?

[Saga Musix]

There is a low and a high bank select byte. This table suggests that the "standard" XG voices only use the low bank select byte, i.e. the one that OpenMPT supports. The current implementation of MIDI macros does not work very well, but you should still be able to use this custom macro (best to be used in the Z80-ZFF section):
BK 00 <MSB> 20 <LSB>
Where <MSB> is the high byte of bank select (in hex) and <LSB> the low byte. If this doesn't work, try adding 00 at the end of the macro. I can currently not test this because I don't have any XG hardware here, but it should work in theory. MIDI date is plain bytes, so there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be able to get it to work.

[LPChip]

I couldn't get this to work because the plugin didn't support it. I had to manually set the channel, bank and patch and that box didn't go higher than 128, and my keyboard didn't responded to the midi messages (which can be the fault of my keyboard too).

[Saga Musix]

As said: Try this custom Zxx macro.

[LPChip]

As said: Try this custom Zxx macro.

I can do that when am home.

[christofori]

.. Ya'll go back and forth like a married couple sometimes, ya know..!?