General MIDI/help -- BACHWARE @ BACHWARE.COM 
General MIDI
(patch table embedded here)
This is a system that was set up so that the different numbers (0 through 127) for “patches” (various timbres available on sound cards and synthesizers) would result in as similar an effect as possible. For example, 0 is “Acoustic Grand Piano,” so whenever patch 0 is selected, such a piano sound should be heard in music subsequently played on that track.

Unfortunately, in the early history of MIDI there was no system or coordination, so what was patch 73 on one instrument might be a flute sound, and on another, a ’cello — or even worse, a snare drum or gunshot!

So the industry eventually agreed on a fixed palette of sounds for the various numbers, thereby allowing for consistency and facilitating the marketing of MIDI music without having to use all sorts of conversions and “mappers” to get the music to sound reasonably good.  My device is not General MIDI.

Patches on some MIDI equipment are zero based, others are based on 1. For example, on a zero-based device Acoustic Grand Piano is patch 0, whereas it’s patch 1 on a 1-based machine.

Save the source for this page to a local file so you can look at it later, if you wish. To extract the patch number from the following table, multiply the row number times eight and add the column number. For example, Shakuhachi is in row 4, column 13, so 8 x 4 + 13 = 45 (0-based, or 46 for one-based).

General MIDI patches[Back] -- 1.5K .GIF
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Sorry this is so small. There’s a lot of data here!
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
 0  Acoustic Grand Piano Bright Acoustic Piano Electric Grand Piano Honky-
tonk
Piano		 Rhodes Piano Chorus
Piano		 Harpsi-
chord		 Clavinet Celesta Glock-
enspiel 		 Music Box Vibra-
phone		 Marimba Xylop-
hone		 Tubular Bells Dulci-
mer
 1 Ham-
mond Organ		 Percus-
sive Organ		 Rock Organ Church
Organ		 Reed Organ Accord-
ion		 Harmon-
ica		 Tango Accord-
ion		 Nylon Guitar Steel String Guitar Jazz Guitar Clean Electric Guitar Muted Electic Guitar Over-
driven Guitar		 Dis-
torted Guitar		 Har-
monics
 2 Acoustic Bass Fingered Electric Bass Picked Electric Bass Fretless Bass Slap Bass 1 Slap   Bass 2 Synthe-
sized  Bass 1		 Synthe-
sized  Bass 2		 Violin Viola Cello Contra-
bass		 Tremolo Strings Pizzi-
cato Strings		 Or-
chest-
ral Harp		 Timpani
 3  String Ensem-
ble 1		 String Ensem-
ble 2		 Synthe-
sized Strings
1		 Synthe-
sized Strings
2		 Choir Aahs Voice Oohs Synthe-
sized Voice		 Orchestra Hit Trumpet Trombone Tuba Muted Trumpet French Horn Brass Section Synthe-
sized Brass 1		 Synthe-
sized Brass 2
 4  Soprano Sax Alto Sax Tenor Sax Baritone Sax Oboe English Horn Bassoon Clarinet Piccolo Flute Recorder Pan Flute Bottle Blow Shaku-
hachi		 Whistle Ocarina
 5 Square Wave Sawtooth Wave Calliope Chiff Lead Charang Solo Synth-
esized
Vox		 Bright Sawtooth Brass & Lead Fantasa Pad Warm Pad Poly Synth Pad Space Vox Pad Bow Glass Pad Metal
Pad		 Halo Pad Sweep Pad
 6  Ice Rains Sound Track Crystal Atmos-
phere		 Bright-
ness		 Goblin Echo Drops Star Theme Sitar Banjo Shami-
sen		 Koto Kalimba Bag
Pipe		 Fiddle Shanai
 7  Tinkle Bell Agogo Steel Drums Wood block Taiko Drum Melodic Tom-tom Synthe-
sized Drum		 Reverse Cymbal Guitar Fret Noise Breath Noise Sea Shore Bird Tweet Tele-
phone Ring		 Heli-
copter		 Applause Gunshot

        If you have non-standard older equipment, use Windows 3.x’s MIDI Mapper applet to set up patch maps that’ll allow you to play General MIDI files and have them sound pretty much like what they were authored to sound like. You you may be able to use Windows 3.x’s MIDI Mapper under Windows 95 by replacing the latter’s MIDIMAP.DRV with the 3.x version and restarting, but Windows 95 will continually overwrite this unless you ATTRIB it readonly.

        Check with Microsoft for an Instrument Definition File editor and documentation; that’s supposed to supersede the MIDI Mapper for Windows 95.  There is one serious deficiency in this applet, however, that may prompt some users to stick with the 3.2 MidiMapper:

        You can also make transposing key maps and patch maps with the Win 3.x MIDI Mapper or IDFEDIT, but the IDF editor apparently has no capability to map channels like the MM does.  You’re on your own...

        I’m doing fine with the Win 3.1 MM running under ’95, readonly.

[Back] -- 1.5K .GIF