MIDI Percussion Channel

[Song Builder]

I have been trying to import MIDI files into LMMS in which the tenth MIDI channel is used as a percussion track.
However, LMMS seems to be treating this track as a normal instrument and not as percussion instruments.
I would be grateful if someone could advise if this is a feature or if there is a way to get LMMS to play the tenth MIDI channel as percussion instruments.

[musikbear]

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I have been trying to import MIDI files into LMMS in which the tenth MIDI channel is used as a percussion track.

Yes, and that is easy to fix.
You can either use a s.c. general-midi-sf which has a 128-patch, witch is a default percussion patch, or you can use the zynAddSubFX preset named Drums, and just substitute the SF in your 10'th track, with that.
You can infact substitute any SF2 with anything you like, that be existing presets, factory instruments and even VSTs. Imported midi-tracks is in no way limited to use SF2!

[Song Builder]

Hi musikBear,
Thanks for your quick response.
I have tried a number of .sf2 soundfonts including SGM-V2.01.sf2, all of which have percussion patches and it still seems that LMMS is treating the MIDI 10th channel as a normal instrument. I have tried running my MIDI files in Windows Media Player and the percussion sounds ok in that.
However, I would like to thank you for the other suggestions you have made and I will follow these up.
Kind Regards,
Song Builder

[musikbear]

I have tried a number of .sf2 soundfonts including SGM-V2.01.sf2, all of which have percussion patches and it still seems that LMMS is treating the MIDI 10th channel as a normal instrument.

Here is the one that i meant - The General-user:
http://www.schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php
Let us know if you have problems

[Gps]

I just tried a midi file, baggy trousers madness. I don't think I ever had a midi file play drums.
Something interesting about it.

The drum channel was not playing drums, but a celeste ? piano. ( this happens allot with midi files I try, I assume it cant find the right bank, and defaults to a piano sound )

In the sf player window how ever, I can select bank 120 en 128 and there are drums.
I pick a few like the 808 908 and also one called room,

I then saved the project and had that piano back, instead of the drum bank.

I then switched off an automation track called banks. Then saved the file again, and now I have a percussion channel playing percussion, from the baggy trousers midi file.

[Song Builder]

Hi musikBear and Gps,
Many thanks for your responses which I think have solved the problem.
I selected the percussion channel and opened the Soundfont Player window. From there I set the bank to 128 and the patch to 0. This resulted in the percussion being played properly.
It does however look like LMMS is not recognizing the percussion channel automatically and I wonder if this could be considered as a future enhancement to LMMS.
Kind Regards,
Song Builder

[musikbear]

It does however look like LMMS is not recognizing the percussion channel automatically

That is correct! But there is no real difference in the way any notes are being recognized by lmms.
Another problem is: what should lmms do, if the user assigns a default soundfont, that does not have a percussion-channel? Then the dependency would be void (NULL), and lmms would crash.
I doubt something can be done to this.

[Song Builder]

Hi musikBear,
You have made a good point.
Would it be possible for LMMS to have its own default soundfont so that percussion presets could be taken from that if they weren't in the user's soundfont?
Kind Regards,
Song Builder

[musikbear]

Would it be possible for LMMS to have its own default soundfont

Afaik, no, because of proprietary rights.