Patch Search for External MIDI Instruments

[Subtonic]

Is there a way to search through an External MIDI instrument's program names?

 

Say you wanted to search for piano sounds on your external synth or sound module. It seems right now you have to wade through each bank and look at the patch names in each bank to find your piano sounds. Is there a way to search these program names like when searching EXS instruments?

 

Probably a long shot here, but a function like this would be incredibly convenient.

 

Maybe a better, more doable option is to create custom multi instruments that reference categories of patches on external MIDI equipment.

[shivermetimbers]

Usually that list is in the owners manual of the external equipment.

 

Most of the equipment out now is supplied with editing software to save you time and trouble. In fact I found a 3.5" floppy that came with my old Korg NS5R. Unfortunately, my iMac only has a Disc drive.

[Justin-Ch]

Usually a net search will bring up a list for the equipment you want. Also, if you have the OSX version of eMagic Sound Diver (which I don't think will ever emerge from its beta state) as long as that manages the "handshake" with your instrument you can then copy the entire list of patch names from that with a simple copy & paste them to your multi instrument in the environment.

[Subtonic]

I have all the instrument patch names in Logic. The external synth is already setup in the environment.

 

But I guess what I'm asking about is a way to type in "piano" and get a list of all the patch names with "piano" in the name when working with the synth in Logic.

 

The second option (which would be cool by itself) would be to setup categorized banks in a multi-instrument rather than have the default of banks of instruments with no real connection.

 

For instance, I have a Roland JV-1010 sound module. It separates banks by letters, "Bank A, Bank B, so on". The sounds in single banks don't really have anything in common, and perhaps spoiled by how software instruments work I'd rather have a bank of Leads, a bank of Pads, a bank of keyboards, a bank of strings, and so on. That way, I don't have to jump around the default banks of instruments (A, B, and C) to find the one particular sound I'm looking for.

 

On this particular module, you can browse through the patches either through the banks as they are, or browse by a category like the ones outlined above using the knobs on the front of the unit. That's the functionality I'd like to have directly in Logic. In order to do that in Logic I believe I'd need to set up a Multi-Instrument with banks that could actually send bank select messages to call up instruments in other banks…which I don't believe is possible.

 

Bank bank bank. Bank Bank. Bankity Bank bank bank bank bank. Bank.

[shivermetimbers]

I don't know about this, but the Project Manager may help. It's worth a try if you have the info already in Logic.