Customizing the Sonogenic voice editor - Sand, software and sound

Back to the Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic voice editor…

Thanks to Brent at Keyboard Corner for suggesting a different set of default voices in my MIDI Designer-based Sonogenic voice editor. Back when I released the editor, I was hoping that folks could customize the user interface, changing or adding their own buttons and controls. Brent downloaded the editor, got everything running, and hit a roadblock with MIDI Designer. That’s understandable because I doubt if anyone can dive right into MIDI Designer as easily as diving into the menu of a synth.

So, smart guy, how do you change bank select and program change? Here’s a sequence of screen shots that may help. [Not so easy a year later, is it? 🙂 ]

MIDI Designer ordinarily runs in its operational mode, that is, the buttons, sliders and other controls are live and send MIDI. In order to make changes, one needs to enter Design Mode (edit mode). With the Sonogenic voice editor loaded, tap the More menu button, then tap the Design button under “Tools”.

You should see a floating button widget saying “Exit Design Mode”. If you see that, you’ll know that you’re in Design Mode.

MIDI Designer button (control) properties in Design Mode

Tap a button or other control to select it. MIDI Designer outlines the selected button (or control) in red. Double tap the button (or control) to display and change its properties.

In this case, I double tapped the “QuackLd” button. If you want to name the button something else, tap the “Label” field and change the button name.

To send a different MIDI message, tap the MIDI icon in the lower left corner of the Properties dialog box. MIDI Designer should display the control’s MIDI properties. The Sonogenic QuackLd voice has the following bank select and program change values:

Bank select MSB: 0
Bank select LSB: 112
Program change: 84

Values for the other SHS-500 preset voices are listed in the Yamaha Sonogenic SHS-500 Reference Manual.

Tap the “MIDI Off → On” field to edit the program change value. Tap the “Channel – Bank #” field to change the MIDI channel, bank select MSB value and bank select LSB value. You should probably leave the channel value alone.

MIDI Designer channel and bank select dialog box

The “Channel, Bank MSB, LSB” dialog box displays three spinning number dials (kind of like a slot machine) where the first column is MIDI channel, the second column is bank select MSB and the third column is bank select LSB. Spin the dials to get the setting you want. Tap the return arrow in the upper left corner when you’re finished. To leave a dialog box, just tap a blank area in the user interface background.

Tapping the Actions icon in the lower right corner of the Properties dialog box displays MIDI Designer actions. Use the “Delete” action to delete the control. Use “Copy” and “Make Similar” to copy the control.

The buttons for the Sonogenic General MIDI (GM) voices are similar. Here, I selected and double tapped the “Vibraphone” button.

Again, tapping the MIDI icon in the dialog box displays the MIDI message properties for the button. The GM voices adhere to the GM standard program change values. However, you must send zero for both bank select MSB and LSB to properly switch the Sonogenic.

Tap the Exit Design Mode button to leave Design Mode. Then test your changes with the Sonogenic. Also, you probably should save the modified MIDI Designer interface following the directions in my original article.

Hopefully, this tutorial is enough to get you started with customization!