MIDI Program Change

Virtual instruments
1

In the documentation for “Updates in 1.5” is the following:

General MIDI support with new GM instrument set
• HALion Sonic 1.5 includes a dedicated new GM instrument
set providing General MIDI support including MIDI program
change and preloaded chorus and reverb effect.

There is no documentation to show how to do the MIDI program change.
There is no Bank listing with corresponding MIDI information so I can send a sound change.
I have the GM Bank loaded.
For a given song, it might select “Trombone”.
The GM Trombone is not as good as several others in the library.
I want to select one of the others but I do not know the information to send to HALion Sonic.

Gerard

2

same here. After I’ve tried it one year ago I gave up (purchased halion sonic and updated to 1.5). Now I’m evaluting Halion 4 trial version. Same story - no easy stright forward way to get a GM set working. … yes, yes… there are many many exiting features in Halion Sonic and Halion 4… but the most natural wish for a new purchaser is to start first right after purchasing playing with a Midi GM - and to forward with all the exiting things afterwards. There should be a first quick start tutorial to have this basic success with a first GM setup at the beginning right after purchasing. Again, I’ll give up and will check again in 2013 … see you. Thomas

3

oops, sorry - just had a look again after my post:
Something happended effectively since I tried 2011: There was un update 1.5.2 where at the bottom of the change log I see
under fixes:
“Program change messages are not executed when received from external MIDI device in GM mode” (I’m using Halion Sonic in fact through loopbe a virtual MIDI cable which is external from Halion Sonics view).

I just applied the update and after a first unsuccessful try I found again the button “General MIDI Mode” (see attached image). Pressed … and wow didn’t believe all was dreaming about the past years either from NI Kontakt or Steinberg’s Halion … is there! 10 points for Steinberg! Great! Just played my GM’s - exiting… I’ll go right now in town… purchasing Halion 4 as a next step for extending the default GM set with own improved sample library to get there with the Megatrig feature etc where I was with EMU-X3 in 2008. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:
Many thanks for this! Thomas
the_GM_button.jpg

4

This does allow for a bank of 1-127 of general midi, but how does this help us with the rest of the programs/patches?

Is there a dedicated CC for changing patches within Halion Sonic?