Kurzweil K2661, Musician’S Reference Manual

Page: 479 / 500

Appendix H
General MIDI
General MIDI (GM) is an addition to the original MIDI speci fi cation that assigns sounds to
speci fi c channel numbers, program numbers, and note values. The K2661’s GM Mode feature
(described in Chapter 11 of the Musician’s Guide ) sets up your instrument for GM in a single step.
Using General MIDI, you can share song fi les between different devices with reasonably
consistent performance.
Many GM song fi les are commercially available, and they’ll sound great on your K2661.
Inside GM Mode
Here’s what happens when you enable GM Mode from the Master Page:
• On all channels except channel 10 (which GM uses for drums), you will see only the 128 GM
programs. On MIDI channel 10, you will see the eight drum kits.
• The K2661 will modify the following entries in the master table:
• FX mode (GM uses Master mode)
• FX channel (GM uses None)
• FX studio (GM uses the studio selected in GM Studio set on the Master: GM page)
• Receive velocity map (GM uses the GM Receive Velocity Map)
• progChgType (GM uses 0-127 mode)
Old settings will be remembered, however, so that when you turn GM Mode off the K2661
will restore your previous settings.
• Volume and expression controllers are mapped to a special GM curve, as in “GS” synths.
(GS is a superset of General MIDI that is used by the Roland Sound Canvas and other
products.)
• GM drum kits are mapped across program number space as in the “GS” synths, and have
exclusive zones included with them.
• Program changes sent to the K2661 when it is in GM Mode will only select programs from
the GM program set.
Setups, Songs, and QA Banks created outside of GM Mode will not point to the correct programs within
GM Mode (although you may fi nd the results “interesting”). Similarly, Setups, Songs, and QA Banks
created within GM Mode will not point to the correct programs when you leave GM Mode. For this
reason, when you create Setups, Songs, or QA Banks within GM Mode you may want to append the
letters “GM” to the object’s name and/or store the objects only in certain banks.