Drum program changes in General MIDI

[Gregjazz]

Hi guys,

Thought this was a simple enough question to be posted in the beginner's forum.

All the MIDIs I play in AGS use the default channel 10 drum sound (program 0: standard kit). For some reason it's not obeying my program change in the MIDI file to change it to one of the other patches.

Any hints or tips regarding this?

[Ishmael]

I don't think AGS comes with any kind of MIDI drivers or anything, so it wouldn't be up to AGS. Unless it's that AGS locking the midi device for its own use prevents your card from performing the changes... Not that I know much about how MIDI works on that level, I'm just guessing.

[Gilbert]

I think it uses the MIDI driver included in Allegro, which just outputs the data directly to the MIDI device (except for the softsyn in old DOS version), maybe it can't handle properly some of the non-standard commands (those SysEx commands, GS commands, or XG commands?) in some systems?
Anyway if MIDI is to be used I think it's safer to only use standard General MIDI files, since you can't gauranteed perfect playback if say a XG piece is played by a GS device and vice versa.

[Gregjazz]

Hmm, I don't see anything non-standard about the MIDIs I'm using though. I'm not using sysex to change any patches or anything, just plain old program changes. Anyway, it's default in General MIDI to have these patches:

000 - Standard Kit
008 - Room Kit
016 - Power Kit
024 - Electric Kit
025 - Analog Kit
032 - Jazz Kit
040 - Brush Kit
048 - Orchestra Kit

The MIDIs play correctly in Winamp, too. Just in AGS the drums won't follow the program change. I'm almost certain I've heard MIDIs in other AGS games that use different drum patches, too...