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How do you put Ketron SD2 patch map in BIAB?

Thank you Ron.

Hi Ron,

This is the "Tips and Tricks" forum and not the usual place to post questions concerning help with BIAB.

Fortunately, I happened to catch your post here -- and it may just deserve Tips and Tricks treatment so others can reference all this, too.

1) First thing to do is find and download the BIAB .pat patchmap file for the SD2. While this patchmap is posted by Ketron (it was created by none other than Ketron's AJ) yours truly took the liberty of forwarding a copy to PGMusic and they have published it on their Patchmap download page also.

You can go directly to the PGMusic Patchmap download page by clicking on this sentence.

2) Locate the Ketron SD2 in the list of MIDI devices there, and be sure to download the .pat file for BIAB (the .ini file is for Powertracks). Download the file to your desktop or any convenient folder on your computer.

3) With BIAB completely shut down (not minimized, but actually Exit the program) COPY that file and drop it into your bb folder. I recommend COPY rather than cut because the file is very small in size and if the one in the folder should ever become corrupted for any reason, an unlikely happening, but nonetheless it is good to have a known good copy in the place where you downloaded it, just in case.

4) Open BIAB and be patient, let everything load up first. Then you might just load a song if one isn't loaded already and hit Play, let it run for a sec or two to make certain everything is fine, then hit Stop.

5) To the right of the GM Patchnames dropdown window on the LH upper side of BIAB, the place where you pick the standard GM instrument Patches for each BB track, locate a box with the plus sign in it. [+]

6) Hit that button.

7) If this is the first time you've done that, you should get a prompting to locate that .pat file using a standard Explorer window that will open up inside BIAB. Locate the file you just dropped in there, "Ketron_SD2.pat" and highlight it. Choose Okay.

8) If you have already loaded another patchmap or that first time window doesn't prompt, no worry, just hit the "Open *.pat" button on the RH side of the window that does open and do the same thing, pick the file from the explorer window.

9) Make sure the top dropdown window has selected, "All Patches" to start off. Later on, you can use that to select all available instruments in a single group by their GM patchnames, for instance, if you select "Piano" there, you will see all the available pianos in the SD2, etc. To start, I suggest using the All Patches and scrolling through to hear all the sounds in the SD2 while a song plays.

10) Close the Window and hit Play in BIAB.

11) Let's say you want to change the Melody track patch (choose any MIDI track you like, actually, using the radio buttons up top) -- select Melody track with the Radio Button at the top row of BIAB.

12) While the song is still playing back, hit the [+] button and try highlighting any of the new patchnames in the list. You should hear them immediately change. If you don't, for whatever reason, hit the "Send Patch" button in that window. Sometimes bb loses focus on that, but I find that if I do have to hit that button I only have to hit it once in a session, after that merely highlighting a new patch results in instantly hearing it play instead of whatever was previously chosen.

That's pretty much all there is too it.

One more thing -- in order to Save a song with your new patch changes and have them stick, you have to choose File -> Save with Patches and Harmony and then hit at least the "Fill with Patches" button at least before saving. Make sure that the MSB and LSB blocks are also checked and set to true on the RH side first.

*Known bug with BB 2008.5 (Peter is on the case)

When choosing upper banks with a hardware synth such as the SD2 right now, the latest version of BB is not making the MSB number "stick" when you save with patches and harmony.

Not to be outdone by that, I found a workaround until such time as Peter releases a fix update -- before doing the Save with Patches and Harmony, and after selecting any of the higher bank patches, which would be an MSB of 1, 2, 4 or 10, simply use the manual spinner for MSB to change it away from whatever number the patchmap inserted and then manuall change it back to the right number. Using the RightClick on the mouse is the easiest way here, which will increment or decrement the number by one unit, then just RightClick it back to where it was. After I do that, the Save with Patches and Harmony sticks and when I reopen the song it plays the new upper bank patches properly.

You may want to highlight all this, paste it into a wordpad or notepad document and use that as you go, perhaps even print it out.

Have fun,



--Mac

Thank you Mac.

You may not be a "National Treasure",but you are a treasure to BIAB and PT users.You put in a lot of time and effort for us all.
Thanks Again---RON D