General MIDI

From N-Track Wiki

In the great early history of electronic music there were no standards. Folks would build their own synthesizers according to whatever their custom requirements might be. Later on as electronic music became more wide spread, the electronic music community decided to make some standards. The first widely accepted standard is MIDI (Musicial Instrument Digital Interface) and was first written in 1982. This standard allowed the keyboard on one synthesizer to play the sounds and adjust certain controls in another, via a MIDI cable.

The original MIDI standard did not define what sounds were associated with a given "patch number", though. This caused issues for people who wanted to write MIDI scores and publish them or get them to play on other gear or on web pages (well, web pages came later ...) Thus the General MIDI (GM) standard. This standard included a list of instruments, continuous controller, and other specifications that should be standard across all "GM compatible" devices.

Please note, in the General MIDI specification, MIDI channel 10 can ONLY be used for percussion instruments. Many times novice users get frustrated as they try to use other channels to control percussion or try to control other instruments using channel 10 on a General MIDI device. Channel 10 is the only channel that can be used for percussion instruments and only percussion instruments can be played on channel 10. Note that this limitation only applies when you're using gear or software that's "GM compatible" and "GM Compatibility" is not disabled.

From the General MIDI specification:

GM1 Instrument Families

The General MIDI Level 1 instrument sounds are grouped by families. In each family are 8 specific instruments.

PC# Family PC# Family

1-8 Piano 65-72 Reed

9-16 Chromatic Percussion 73-80 Pipe

17-24 Organ 81-88 Synth Lead

25-32 Guitar 89-96 Synth Pad

33-40 Bass 97-104 Synth Effects

41-48 Strings 105-112 Ethnic

49-56 Ensemble 113-120 Percussive

57-64 Brass 121-128 Sound Effects

GM1 Instrument Patch Map

Note: While GM1 does not define the actual characteristics of any sounds, the names in parentheses after each of the synth leads, pads, and sound effects are, in particular, intended only as guides).

#	Instrument	#	Instrument
1	Acoustic Grand Piano	65
2	Bright Acoustic Piano	66
3	Electric Grand Piano	67
4	Honky-tonk Piano	68
5	Electric Piano 1	69
6	Electric Piano 2	70
7	Harpsichord	71
8	Clavi	72
9	Celesta	73
10	Glockenspiel	74
11		75
12		76
13		77
14		78
15		79
16		80
17		81
18		82
19		83
20		84
21		85
22		86
23		87
24		88
25		89
26		90
27		91
28		92
29		93
30		94
31		95
32		96
33		97
34		98
35		99
36		100
37		101
38		102
39		103
40		104
41		105
42		106
43		107
44		108
45		109
46		110
47		111
48		112
49		113
50		114
51		115
52		116
53		117
54		118
55		119
56		120
57		121
58		122
59		123
60		124
61		125
62		126
63		127
64		128

General MIDI Level 1 Percussion Key Map

On MIDI Channel 10, each MIDI Note number ("Key#") corresponds to a different drum sound, as shown below. GM-compatible instruments must have the sounds on the keys shown here. While many current instruments also have additional sounds above or below the range show here, and may even have additional "kits" with variations of these sounds, only these sounds are supported by General MIDI Level 1 devices.

Key#	Drum Sound	Key#	Drum Sound
35	Acoustic Bass Drum	59	Ride Cymbal 2
36	Bass Drum 1	60	Hi Bongo
37	Side Stick	61	Low Bongo
38	Acoustic Snare	62	Mute Hi Conga
39	Hand Clap	63	Open Hi Conga
40	Electric Snare	64	Low Conga
41	Low Floor Tom	65	High Timbale
42	Closed Hi Hat	66	Low Timbale
43	High Floor Tom	67	High Agogo
44	Pedal Hi-Hat	68	Low Agogo
45	Low Tom	69	Cabasa
46	Open Hi-Hat	70	Maracas
47	Low-Mid Tom	71	Short Whistle
48	Hi-Mid Tom	72	Long Whistle
49	Crash Cymbal 1	73	Short Guiro
50	High Tom	74	Long Guiro
51	Ride Cymbal 1	75	Claves
52	Chinese Cymbal	76	Hi Wood Block
53	Ride Bell	77	Low Wood Block
54	Tambourine	78	Mute Cuica
55	Splash Cymbal	79	Open Cuica
56	Cowbell	80	Mute Triangle
57	Crash Cymbal 2	81	Open Triangle
58	Vibraslap

[Back to Basic MIDI Concepts]