INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 Welcome Aboard! Welcome to The PatchMeister, the Universal MIDI Librarian for everyone! The PatchMeister's goal is to simplify your "MIDI" life. You will find comprehensive, easy-to-use features at every turn, whether you are trying to customize a Bank or rebuild an entire MIDI Setup. Extensive Librarian options allow you to sort, search, and view your Libraries as you see fit. Also, if The PatchMeister doesn't come with a Driver for your MIDI instrument, you can create one quickly and easily. Even if you never have to create a Driver from scratch, you probably should take a peek at your synthesizer's supplied Driver in the Create Driver window. You just might learn something! But first, let's take the time to become familiar with some of The PatchMeister's basic components... The PatchMeister's Seven Basic Components You will find it easier to navigate through The PatchMeister if you understand its seven (7) working components: Drivers, Libraries, Banks, SysEx Files, Snapshots, Setups and Capture Files. Briefly, let's discuss each of these elements... Drivers Simply stated, The PatchMeister cannot run without Drivers. Drivers contain all of the MIDI commands needed to communicate with a given synthesizer. They also contain specific information about an instrument's MIDI files, such as the number of patches in a Bank or the length of a patch name. Example: If you are planning to use The Patch- Meister with a Korg M-1, you will have to install the M-1 Driver so that The Patch- Meister will know how to communicate with your synth. Libraries Libraries are special files that contain information about the other MIDI files residing in the same directory. You never have to be concerned with creating Libraries because they are created (or updated) automatically every time you save or delete a MIDI file. Their job is to keep an accurate record of your files so that you can have a wide range of viewing options whenever you want to browse or search through your MIDI data. You will notice that the Library window resembles a file requester in that you can traverse through different directories. Conceptually, Libraries seem to span directories, but in reality, separate Library files are being opened as you move from drawer to drawer. Libraries store such facts as each MIDI files name, change date, comment, search key and type (bank, sequence, etc.) Also, each Library pertains to a single Driver. You may have an MT-32 Library, a DX-7 Library and an M-1 Library. Banks More than likely, you are already familiar with the concept of Banks. Banks are files that can be subdivided into a fixed number of fixed length items. For example, your synth may contain a Bank of 32 sounds or a Bank of 64 timbres. All Banks are displayed in the Bank window. Bank windows are opened when you use the MIDI menu Get From Synth... item to get a Bank file from your synthesizer, or when you are in the Library window and you double-click over a Bank's filename. SysEx Files Any single MIDI file that is not a Bank will be referred to as a SysEx file. SysEx files cannot be subdivided into symmetrical items. All SysEx files are displayed in the SysEx window. SysEx windows are opened when you use the MIDI menu Get from Synth... item to get a SysEx file from your instrument, or when you are in the Library window and you double-dick over a SysEx file's filename. Snapshots Snapshots are a collection of Banks and SysEx files taken from all of the synths in your setup at a given point in time. In essence, they contain a "snapshot" of your MIDI environment They provide an easy way to save and later recreate a specific MIDI setup. Setups Setups are an alternative to Snapshots. Previously saved Banks, SysEx files, Snapshots and Capture files can be grouped into Setups so that MIDI environments can be recreated by sending one (1) Setup file instead of sending many individual MIDI files. Actually, a Setup just contains the filenames of the files that will be sent to your synths when you instruct The PatchMeister to send that Setup. Capture Files Capture files contain bulk dump MIDI data that was "captured" after a bulk dump was manually invoked by pushing a button on a synthesizer. Drivers are not used during the "capture" process. Snapshots and Setups will more than likely store information pertaining to more than one Driver. Capture files do not pertain to any Driver. Because of this, these files cannot be stored in a specific Drivers Library. They are stored in a special Library that contains only Snapshot, Setup, and Capture files, the Snaps & Setups Library. This Library is also maintained automatically.