Yoshimi Banks

Hi,

Heard about the continuation of ZynAddSubFx as yoshimi and started using
it a bit, really liking it!

But I am a bit unsure about how I should handle the different yoshimi banks.

Changing the midi bank or program from within renoise does not have an effect
on yoshimi which is kind of frustrating. Is there a way to do this?

Assuming the plugin supports standard MIDI bank/program changes, then yes, it’s possible.

A MIDI bank change is usually a CC#0 value of 0, followed by a CC#32 value of X, where X is the desired bank number from 0 to ???.

(But in some cases may simply be a CC#0 on its own with a value of X)

Many synths also require that you send a program change after the bank change, to select the program within the bank.

So…

  • Add a MIDI Control device to a track
  • Link the MIDI Control device to the instance of the ZynAddSubFx/Yoshimi instrument
  • Expand the number of effect columns in the track to at least 5
  • Map the 1st MIDI Control device parameter to CC#0
  • Map the 2nd MIDI Control device parameter to CC#32
  • Map the 3rd MIDI Control device parameter to Prg-Change

Now program the following commands into your pattern: (Assuming the MIDI Control device is #1 in the chain)

1001 1100 1201 1302 1000  
  • 1001 = turn the MIDI Control Device on
  • 1100 = set CC#0 to 0
  • 1201 = set CC#32 to 1 (0 = 1st bank, 1 = 2nd bank, 2 = 3rd bank, etc)
  • 1302 = set the program to 2 (0 = 1st program, 1 = 2nd program, 2 = 3rd program, etc)
  • 1000 = turn the MIDI Control Device off

In this particular case, it’s important to the turn the MIDI Control device off again when you don’t need it, otherwise it will not correctly transmit the bank/program changes the next time you need it.

A rough idea of what your MIDI Control device should look like:

In this particular example I’m changing the bank/program of Synth1.

Bonus

Since you’ve just started messing with Yoshimi here are my favorites:
http://www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/scales.zip
A huge, huge, huge scales archive. 4115!!! Updated in Feb 2012(yeah the project aint dead) Just load some from the Scales → Show Scale Settings → Import .SCL file
A put a tick in the box Enable Microtonal

This is why I adore Yoshimi. You can mess with eastern, avant-garde scales, Indian, experimental, atonal scales.

http://qmidiarp.sourceforge.net/
An arpeggiator to control Yoshimi.

A nice hack of ScaleFinder tool by Suva made by reDread.
With it you can play chords instantly in Yoshimi.

I am not sure about the last one. I have deleted, the source xrnx file.
I have packed the folders in a zip, a renamed it to .xrnx. Don’t know if it will work.
Can someone fix it in case?
http://rghost.net/36833801

Dblue: thanks for the detailed explanation! Very nice
did not know this was possible… :)

I tried doing what you have suggested, but it seems that
Yoshimi is oblivious to bank change notifications. I have tried
a handful of combinations of bank/program settings, but it doesn’t work.

I found out that I can get renoise to change yoshimi instrument
by opening the yoshimi panel and assigning instruments from banks
to different channels. This works nicely and it is possible to change
instrument from within renoise.

Unfortunately it is not possible to save the channel assignments as far
as I can see, being a yoshimi n00b.

And scales, nice! thanks for the link… Yoshimi requires quite a study :)

Also note, from the thread below, it appears that the MIDI Control Device does not send out the information if the new data is the same as the value the slider already has (at last when using Automation Curves.) Maybe this isn’t the case with Pattern Commands but I wouldn’t want to put my money on it…

forum.renoise.com/index.php?/topic/34104-midi-control-device-controlling-ext-gear-initial-preset-state/

If this is the case you wont be sending the bank information if you are not changing the values away and back again. Although you shouldn’t need to send Bank information for just a Program Change and I don’t think you are always forced to send both CC values for bank (although that probably depends on implemetation.)

Just heard from the Yoshimi mailing list that it is possible to send bank and program changes in
the most recent version from git, even though it sounds as if it is in beta still.

I have not had the chance to test it yet, though, but it is good news :slight_smile:

Btw It should be in Yoshimi version 0.062-pre8