■About the PC-70
The Roland
■What is the General MIDI?
General MIDI is a set of recommendations which seeks to provide a way to go beyond the limitations of proprietary designs, and standardize the MIDI capabilities of sound generating devices. Sound generating devices and music files that meet the General MIDI standard bear
the General MIDI logo ( |
|
| ). |
Music files bearing the General MIDI logo can be played back using any General MIDI sound generating unit to produce essentially the same musical performance.
■What is the General MIDI 2?
The upwardly compatible General MIDI 2 (
) recommendations pick up where the original General MIDI left off, offering enhanced expressive capabilities, and even greater compatibility.
Issues that were not covered by the original General MIDI recommendations, such as how sounds are to be edited, and how effects should be handled, have now been precisely defined. Moreover, the available sounds have been expanded.
General MIDI 2 compliant sound generators are capable of reliably playing back music files that carry either the General MIDI or General MIDI 2 logo.
In some cases, the conventional form of General MIDI, which does not include the new enhancements, is referred to as “General MIDI 1” as a way of distinguishing it from General MIDI 2.
■What is the GS Format?
The GS Format ( 
) is Roland’s set of specifications for standardizing the performance of sound generating devices. In addition to including support for everything defined by the General MIDI, the highly compatible GS Format additionally offers an expanded number of sounds, provides for the editing of sounds, and spells out many details for a wide range of extra features, including effects such as reverb and chorus. Designed with the future in mind, the GS Format can readily include new sounds and support new hardware features when they arrive.
About the Sounds Contained in a GS Sound Module
A GS sound module contains 128 basic sounds (Capital Tones) and a number of Variation Tones. The mapping for the Capital Tones is compatible with Level 1 of the General MIDI System. Capital Tones are stored in Bank 0, while the Variations are stored in Banks 1 through 127. The selection of Variation Tones that are made available will be different depending on the sound module. You should check the manual for any module you are going to use, and familiarize yourself with the sound collection it contains.
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