Create Pro Tools .middev and .midnam files from KnobKraft synth bank data
#369
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enhancement
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christofmuc
changed the title
.middev and .midnam files and KnobKraft..middev and .midnam files and KnobKraft.
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The midname files are XML files used by ProTools and potentially other sequencers to know the names of the patches stored in a synth. The information about these files is scarce, and here is a link to the Avid webpage with a knowledge base article called "Mac OS X Patch Names & MIDI Device Definitions": https://kb.avid.com/pkb/articles/ko/Knowledge/ko427731. The nature of the link means it will probably be broken in 12 months from now on. When do people understand the importance of permalinks? Ah, Salesforce as a platform. The article describes how to create a midnam file from the already existing files on the machine, it fails to specify the file format itself (it is XML, we need to understand the structure of the tags and attributes). midnam files were invented (?) by Apple AMS (Audio MIDI Setup) utility. Clearly, KnobKraft could create midnam files for each device once all banks have been synced, if we know the XML tags allowed. middev files you need one per device, and they can probably be created manually using the Audio MIDI Setup utility. More investigation needed. |
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If we download a free midnam file from the Internet, e.g. from https://digicake.com/midnams/ which pops up as a top google hit, we can see that the XML schema is listed properly in the XML header as http://www.sonosphere.com/dtds/MIDINameDocument.dtd, which - no surprise there - no longer resolved but rather is a 404. Google turns up a git at these Chinese (?) website: https://shinobit.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/MIDINameDocument10.dtd_.html This document points out that the document now has an official URI at http://www.midi.org/dtds/MIDINameDocument10.dtd. You won't be surprised that this link is a 404 as well, when do people understand the importance of permalinks? On the other hand, the midi.org website's search function also turns up no hits for the dtd, so maybe that was not correct anyway. This discussion https://discourse.ardour.org/t/validating-midnams-with-something-other-than-xmllint/109744 seems to indicate the document existed at least still in January 2024, so the breakage must have been just as of late. But the friends from the Ardour project have archived it and provide it together with a really impressive list of midnam files in their git repository: https://git.ardour.org/ardour/ardour/src/commit/6e9be294a1691fe57f5faaf9edc9cf7a485f3f37/share/patchfiles |
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This appears to be the same article, slightly reformatted: https://archive.digidesign.com/support/tips/xnames.html
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Yes, this looks doable. Most important apart from all the XML which is repetitive is the bank change MIDI commands. Some synths have special bank change implementations that can be put in there into some MIDI XML. Certainly an attractive feature to implement in KnobKraft, and not too hard to do either! |
christofmuc
changed the title
.middev and .midnam files and KnobKraft..middev and .midnam files from KnobKraft synth bank data
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The
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This is fun, the Roland Patch Script Builder supports 4 DAWs:
The difference between 3 and 4 seems to be that in 3 every patch is listed with explicit MIDI commands including the bank switch, while file format 4 uses the ProgramChange attribute and does not repeat the instructions for the bank change. |
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Fun! I am so glad to have aided in the happiness of another, if only inadvertently. This is the first I learn of midnam and middev files being used by daws other than pro tools. Are they close enough that knobkraft might import/export 3 flavors, for pro tools, cakewalk and mdp? |
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Yeah, close enough for sure! So generally the KnobKraft function would dump out "the whole instrument setup" it knows about. Like, if you have synced all banks, it could write a single midnam file in the appropriate format for the DAW and you would have the current synth's patches all setup. What it doesn't do is the extra types like DrumKits with the individual keys for the drum etc. And we need to find out if the bank switching really works the way it is documented. I wonder where to put that function - probably this is a menu item, as it won't be used that often... |
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I wondoer if it might be possible to import a midnam file for one instrument, then export to another, somewhat similar instrument. |
Ups. What's the use case? Knobkraft would be interested in generating files for the synth's real content - so if you have that synth, you can create the midnam for it. Generally, converting is not too hard if you know what you want - but different synths would be having slightly different bank sizes, bank switch commands etc.? |
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I copied the This Roland drum sound module does not have physical MIDI ports; instead, it just has a USB port and a proprietary driver called
The bottom of the KnobKraft window shows this message: What does the message mean? I could not find any mention of that message in the KnobKraft documentation. It sounds positive, but I do not know if a message was supposed to happen, but did not, or if a user action is the only way to cause messages to arrive. A few minutes later, I got this message: I tried various MIDI channels, including Omni, then rerunning Auto-Detect, and restarting KnobKraft, rebooting the computer and rebooting the Roland TD-07, but the error message remained: Ableton Live sees MIDI data from the Roland TD-07 on channel 10, as it should. |
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Hm, the masterkeyboard message is a red herring, that is just for the macro tab. The autodetect tries to send a message and expect a respone - can you show the MIDI log of an autodetect run? Knobkraft allows you to save the MIDI log from its tab. Do you have any saved presets from the device? Any sysex file you could dump? |
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This drum sound module does not have the capability to accept a USB memory stick. The USB port only goes to a computer. I have not found any software capable of saving the settings from the drum sound module. Another Windows program, V-Drum Explorer, can read the settings over USB but does not have a save capability. |
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I do not see any way to get a sysex dump from the TD-07 using the buttons on the device. The menus on the device do not provide that functionality. |
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Originally posted by @christofmuc in #368 (comment)
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