Presets and MIDI maps
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5
Presets and MIDI maps
Strum Acoustic
comes with several factory presets covering a wide range of sounds. This collection
of presets lets you play and familiarize yourself with this synthesizer without having to tweak a
single knob. Soon, however, you will be experimenting and creating your own sounds and projects
that you will need to archive or exchange with other users. You may also want to control the
parameters of
Strum Acoustic
with a specific MIDI controller. In this chapter, we will review the
management of presets and MIDI maps.
5.1
Presets
There are two concepts involved in the management of presets, the preset library and programs.
5.1.1
The Preset Library
The preset library contains the factory presets, modified ver-
sions of the factory presets you might have made or any other new
presets you might have saved. The library may also contain im-
ported presets as well as MIDI maps as explained in Section 5.6
and 5.7. In other words, the preset library is a repository of all the
presets and MIDI maps available to
Strum Acoustic
.
All the operations on the preset library are conveniently man-
aged with the help of the
Strum Acoustic
browser, similar to those
found in most email programs which use a hierarchical tree structure and a visually intuitive, drag
and drop approach. To explore the different presets available in the library, open the different fold-
ers by clicking on the “+” icon Windows or
I
symbol on Mac OS to the left of folders. Each preset
is represented by a blue knob icon followed by its name.
5.1.2
The Program list
Presets are loaded into the synthesis engine of
Strum Acous-
tic
from a list of 128 numbered presets called programs. The
name of the current program and its number are displayed in the left of the toolbar at the top of the
application window. The entire list of programs can be viewed by clicking on the
H
button left of
the program number.
It is important to note that presets in the program list and in the preset library are stored in
different locations. They are in fact different copies of the same presets which may, as explained
below, differ even if they share the same name. The version of a preset available in the program
list should be viewed as temporary or as a ‘working copy” of the preset whereas the version in the
library should be viewed as permanent or as the ‘reference version”.
